Category: Uncategorized

Friday since Stanley was out of town and couldn’t work on getting the floor ready for the tilers, nothing happened. This weekend Carol was in town and I went with her and mom to pick some “beige” tile for the hall bathroom, along with an inset at eye level and bullnose along the edges. I’d have been just as happy with white, but everyone seems to think the main bathroom should look nicer than mine.

Stanley got back today and things got back in gear. In the master bathroom, the toilet, shower door, and shower fixtures were installed. The vanity was put in place but doesn’t have fixtures yet. That’s still pretty good because they were saying the shower door had to be custom made and wouldn’t be here until this Friday. Mom had bought a shower rod at Target on Friday so I could use it, but I didn’t open it so now I should be able to take it back.

The toilet seems to work fine. It’s a little anti-climatic given the raves this thing got. It doesn’t flush quite as powerfully or as quickly as I thought, but anything that seemed super powerful would also make a lot of noise. It does fill pretty quickly. Also, I had thought it had dual flush (where you can use 0.8 gallons instead of 1.6 gallons for flushing liquids), but apparently that’s not the case.

Continue reading “Bathroom: Day 6”

They didn’t do anything on the master bathroom, but instead worked on gutting the hall bath today. Miguel told me that this time he was prepared and had a jackhammer he had borrowed from Stanley.

When I got home today the bathroom was definitely gutted. There was some rotten wood near the corner of the tub. Stanley is out of town, so we will probably wait until he gets back so he can decide how to proceed. Even if he keeps most of this wood, he will have to bring the height of the floor up some.

One significant problem is the house now has no functioning toilets or showers, so I am stuck at Susan’s house regardless. The shower will work pretty soon, but the shower door won’t be ready until the end of next week (they measured yesterday, which I guess is for the best since they only got the tile up yesterday). . They said on Monday they should be able to get the new toilet and install that and, failing that, will install the old toilet temporarily. And I will need to put up a shower curtain for the shower until the door is ready This is a little annoying. The toilet should have probably been at the house already since I told Stanley what I wanted and where to get it last Friday. Today they tried to buy one in Tucker but it was about $50 more than the place I had recommended and for which Stanley said he had an account.

Continue reading “Bathroom: Day 5”

This morning the sheetrock guy showed up while I was taking the dogs for a walk.

When I got home there were two Latino guys on my front steps. I asked them where their car was and they said they rode the subway. I said “Me too, but I drove from the station.” I even showed them my MARTA card. I asked if they wanted a ride to MARTA. But since MARTA means something in Spanish, I don’t think they knew what I was talking about. Turns out they spoke very little English. Maybe they were actually telling me where they got lunch when they said “Subway.” They did communicate that their cell phone wasn’t working so I let them use mine and they called Miguel. He was there a few minutes later. We all went in and looked at the day’s work.

Continue reading “Bathroom: Day 4”

Stanley arrived much earlier today and when the doorbell rang I was still in the shower (not nearly as private now that there is a giant hole in the wall). He decided to go ahead and remove the rest of the tile on the wall between the two bathrooms. This meant removing the sink and toilet, though he would later put the toilet back. Mom checked up on progress later in the day. Apparently they hadn’t counted on me asking for a bullnose border and thought I would use flat tile (which “most people” do now). I still want that classic look though. Anyway, that caused some trouble because Miguel hadn’t counted on that and had to add an extra quarter inch of backing board to get the extra thickness needed for the bullnose. He explained this to me when I got home and he was about to leave. Still, I was impressed with the progress. They got the shower pan and mortar all in, along with some of the shower wall tile and some of the floor tile.

Miguel says the tiling should be finished tomorrow. I should have a functioning master bathroom by the end of the week.

Continue reading “Bathroom: Day 3”

I was worried that Stanley would try to reuse a lot of the wood in the bathroom or the piece of plywood that had been put in when the shower pan had been fixed previously. However, his plan was much more drastic than I imagined. He spent all day in there with a sawzall cutting out all of the old floor joists, installing new 2×8 joists and crossmembers, and then putting plywood over the top of that. He says it is now ready for the tile man to come in tomorrow and install the floor. Over the weekend, Mom, Susan, and I picked out some slate-colored floor tile and some 4-inch square white tile for the shower walls and floor.

Continue reading “Bathroom: Day 2”