Mr. Brian stopped by this morning at 7:30 with a truckful of new shower supplies and started tearing out some of the old stuff that had been roughed in nine years ago. By the afternoon he’d cut out the drain and moved the pipes over to be centered in the newer (deeper) shower stall, made a provision for a bench. By the time he kicked off for the day, there was backing board on all of the walls and an inset in the wall. I cannot describe to you how exciting this is.
The tile guy came back today and laid down the grout throughout the bathroom, and it looks great. All of the strange areas between tiles are gone completely and I don’t see any variation at all, which is a big relief. I think he was happy to get the check and get out of here.
Unfortunately I fucked things up by not specifying the right wire for the underlayment. Because of the way we originally wired the room (for just the floor heat) and the late decision to add a wall-mounted heating fan, we kept one circuit in the panel, and I was supposed to specify 240-volt wire for the floor heat. 120 is more common, so that’s what he put in. We can’t run both systems on one wire, so I’ve got to have the electrician come back out and fish wire through the walls to support the wall heater. Which is not going to be easy or cheap.
I’ve installed a fair bit of tile in my day. At my parents’ house in New York, we inherited a giant 10-person jacuzzi that was installed on a plywood base over an unconditioned crawlspace. Heavy usage by the previous owners and basic science disintegrated the plywood holding it up, and my parents had to have it all ripped out and replaced with concrete. They kept the jacuzzi though, and the decision was made to re-tile the floor. I took it on as a project and laid out several hundred square feet of the stuff, then grouting and sealing it by myself. I was proud of this job and I look back on it with a sense of satisfaction.
Later, in college, I was hired to gut and remodel a bathroom, something I was only barely qualified to accomplish. Given my pitiable day rate at that time, the homeowners got a bargain and a half by betting on my ability to deliver on what I promised. I took the floor down to the studs, rebuilt it, and then installed period-correct hexagonal tile on the floor and square tile on the walls. It came out looking very good, if you don’t mind me being modest.
Here in the downstairs bathroom I put in a hundred or so square feet of tile on the floor myself, and after grouting it both Jen and I were horrified to see inconsistency in the spacing. It bugs her so much she can’t look down at the floor, which makes me feel awful. So we hired a professional to tile the floor in the new bathroom, looking for more precision. What we got, however, was disappointment. As soon as he left, Jen texted me and told me it was uneven in places, and my heart sank. When I got home I looked it over and at first didn’t think it was too bad, but on closer inspection it’s bothering me more and more. There are visible rivers where sheets didn’t go together with the same spacing as the layout on the sheets, and in one area there’s a visible line from the doorway where the a row of tile seems to be higher than its neighbor.
Upset, I called the installer, who deflected blame and pointed at the tile itself, without offering me any solutions or apologies. We traded some texts and phone calls, each getting irate with the situation. Jen and I called our friend Mr. Scout for some professional advice, and he immediately went into problem-solving mode, suggesting white grout to hide the sins. Because it’s a over a heated underlayment, pulling up tiles to fix problems could mean nicking the wire and breaking the system completely. Friday morning I told the installer we wanted white grout and he told me it would be $340 extra, at which time I lost it and went full asshole on him.
I don’t like being a jerk to people. It’s not natural to me, but my reticence has come to bite me in the ass with contractors, who sometimes try to get away with substandard work. For some reason I feel weird about pushing for the work to be correct, afraid that they won’t come back, or worse, when they do, they’ll fuck it up even more. Really, I just don’t want to be a dick. But this was not OK, and I wanted it fixed. I went to the tile store I trusted and asked them their opinion after showing them pictures, and they did confirm the tile sheets are inconsistent but said that white grout will hide most of the issues.
I’m texting him back today to tell him we’re going ahead with the white grout, and will finish out this part of the contract with him, but I’m going to find someone else to put in the shower tile and finish out the rest of the job.
In my line of work, I’m asked to make changes every day. I deal with people who don’t like the results of something I’ve done, and I find a way to make things work, by offering solutions and problem solving. The first part of this process is acknowledging something is wrong; it’s not that hard. If I’d gotten that as a first response I’d be a lot more likely to work with the guy. But he dug his heels in and deflected completely without trying to work with me, and that’s not acceptable.
This week has been a busy one at work. I don’t think I’ve stopped to breathe in the 34 hours I’ve been there so far, and by the time I get home my brain is mush. It’s a good kind of tired because I’m completely, fully engaged in everything I’m doing, and we are flat out with about 10 major projects going on, but it’s mentally fucking taxing.
I sold the Fuji f/1.4 lens to a guy today, down $75 from my original asking price (and $50 down from the price I had it listed for this week). In the last Curbside Classic story I wrote about the Jeep, I complained about the buyer trying to knock off $25 for a new battery and how much that annoyed me–to the point where I was ready to kill the deal. A couple of commenters mentioned that I was probably unrealistic in my expectation that buyers would simply pay me my asking price, which came as kind of a shock to me. I’ve been buying and selling stuff for the asking price (generally speaking) for years, feeling weird for asking sellers to knock some cash off of something I’m interested in…but based on the responses I got, I think I have to start being OK with feeling like a dick and trying to haggle some bargains. And I’ve got to raise my pricing by 5% so that I can knock it back off and get what I originally was hoping for. Now to ditch the drone and the old XBOX in the basement. Strangely I’ve had more inquiries about the XBOX, but there was one guy who wanted to trade me a quad or an old motorcycle for it…NOT. It’s good to have that lens gone and not sitting in my camera bag, and I think I’ve got to be a little more ruthless with the equipment I’m not using.
Warby Parker update: they will cut me new lenses for my old frames, so I put the order in today and will probably have to drive downtown to their hipster storefront to have them put in. When balancing a $50 repair over a $400 set of new glasses, I think I know which way I’m going.
We have the rest of the floor tile in hand, so the tile guy will be back sometime next week to install it all. Then, we’ve got to sort out how to purchase the beautiful glass tile we chose for the bathroom and afford the installation estimate, which will wipe out the rest of our bathroom fund.
What you see there is the underlayment for the heated floor. The black lines are heating wires that run the span of the room. The tile guy is now skim-coating the floor and may be laying tile as I write this, but he may be waiting until the other three boxes that I didn’t account for show up in a week.
I said goodbye to the Rolleicord yesterday, selling it to a nice man who is taking photography classes and will hopefully give it another productive chapter in life. Talking to him got me thinking about how to print the film I’ve got; one thing I’d completely forgotten about was the darkroom I’ve got access to at UMBC as a faculty member. At Service Photo on Saturday, there was an entire shelf of photo paper and other chemicals, and I’ve got a stack of 6×6 negatives that I’d like to blow up and print.
Currently burning up my iPhone: Slate’s Slow Burn podcast, a series investigating the Watergate break in and its aftermath, focusing mainly on the details people have forgotten or never knew about. I’m three episodes in and it’s riveting, maddening, angry-making stuff. And so, so relevant in today’s jaded, diluted media cycle. To wit: The break-in happened in June of 1972. Nixon was re-elected in a landslide victory in November, after months of nightly news reporting, congressional hearings, and FBI investigations. The American public didn’t care until the beginning of the following year, when the burglars were sentenced to long stays in prison and one of them ratted out the White House in a letter to the judge.
Our bathroom project is currently stalled. I bought a huge roll of underlayment for the floor heat system three weeks ago, but it isn’t enough to cover the whole thing, so I’ve got to go back and get more. I was across the bay last Saturday and they’re closed on Sundays. The tile is sitting in a warehouse waiting for me, but I can’t lift anything over 10 lbs and they’re understaffed on weekends, so I can’t ask the showroom women to help me. GAAAAAHHH.
The blood thinners I’ve been on for weeks appear to be working. my brachial artery is still numb above my wrist up to my elbow but there’s little to no pain on a daily basis. I’ve got a numb spot on my right wrist, but the rest of that side is fine. When I go in for the next CAT scan, however, I’m going to ask them to take a look at my right knee, which is still numb since before chemo started.
I’m running nonstop at work this week before I wrap up for the year, and I haven’t written much. So here’s a picture of the attic stairwell (looking up at the foam I installed on the underside of the trap door) after I asked Mario to finish off the entryway. It looked like hot buttered shit before and it’s clean and tidy now.
I went back into work on Thursday and Friday to a lovely welcome from the staff; there were gifts and signs and a card on my desk when I got in, which was a surprise that made me a little misty. I got lots of hugs from everyone and a ton of support that really made me feel humble and appreciated. The Grinch in my heart melted quite a bit, I admit.
Renie came into town this weekend to visit, wrapping a tiny business trip into a great 3-day weekend with family. The weather decided to drop about 2 inches of snow on us the morning she hit the road, but the plows were out and she made it down with no drama. We spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday catching up in between a trip out to Second Chance and Housewerks, punctuated with Manhattans and a fantastic sushi dinner (after being froze out of football by a balky FIOS box). She shared the details of her engagement(!) and life in Upstate NY, and we caught up among the rows of cabinets and mismatched toilets. On Monday morning it was with a heavy heart that we waved goodbye to the Subaru on snow tires. I’ve been doing a lousy job of keeping in touch with everyone this year, but as I said after Rob passed, my #1 resolution is to keep better and regular communication with all of my loved ones.
As mentioned earlier, there’s been a ton of progress on the bathroom. Everything is taped, mudded, sanded and primed. I asked Mario to continue the drywall up the stairs to the edge of the attic door, and he drywalled that part last night. He framed in one window on the weekend and it looks OK but it’s not up to my standard–the vertical wood has a gap at the top where it meets the cap board, and the way he made the bullnose isn’t the way I do it. So that will need to be redone in the spring. We’re nearing the end of this phase, which means we’ve got to identify the radiant floor heat system and floor tile we want. The former I know but the latter is a mystery.
Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix is a good read but I’ve forgotten what whiny teens they all are in this book. I think it might be my least favorite of all of the books in the series. Still, it’s the highlight of the day to pass the book to each other over sleeping cats while the wind howls outside.
Two quick pictures of progress in the bathroom. We’re nearing the end of Phase 1, minus some trimwork and drywall around the opening to the attic.
Looking toward the back of the house. Dual sinks will go on the right side.
Standing in the closet looking at the attic stairs (what’s left of them) and the door to the back bedroom.
Looking out of the closet toward the front of the house at where the sinks will be (center), and the door to the front bedroom.