Renovate my bathroom

I have set a goal by July 2009 to have my bathroom gutted, tiled replaced and brand new!

Watch this Space!

I wrote out the check for one of them yesterday evening and then promptly knocked a hole in the wall. [I tried to put a screw through the wall right where the hot water pipe was. I’m glad I didn’t succeed!]

Other than that, I need to pay the painter his second check and fix that little hole. The place is all set up for the open house on Sunday. I think the last big thing is that I need to switch out all of the outlets and plates and take my ladder home, but everything else is ready to go…

I went over there today to take a look around and they are actually done with the bathroom. It’s pretty amazing, actually… There are a few things to finish off—some touchups to the paint, a shower curtain rod, switching out old light switches for new ones… It’s definitely done though. It looks so good! I’m sending my broker over there to talk to my contractor about last minute things and to make sure that there’s nothing I missed, but I’m pretty happy over all. We’re still scheduling the open house for Sunday and the photographer for Wednesday, but it should all be done and paid for by Monday night… I need to dress the place and clean out a couple of things, but we’re really really close to having everything over there be over with.

I just got a voicemail from them saying that the bathroom’s all done… I don’t entirely know that that’s true, but hey, um, apparently my bathroom’s all done. I’m going to go check later today.

I did write a letter the other day to go in with the pictures when I send them to my upstairs neighbor. I had a law student friend of mine read it and then sent it along with my boyfriend to have an actual real estate lawyer relative read it at this year’s Father’s Day picnic. I outlined the history of damage and then kind of said “pay up!” and “have your floor joists checked out!” in a much nicer way.

_{[“read it at the picnic” ...somehow that sounds like he’s going to read it at a poetry open mic night or something…]}

When I went over there yesterday evening, they’d finished putting down the tile and it was all drying in place. I’m going to visit again after work, but I promise not to call or bother those guys. I do need to get the keys from them and pay them, I don’t need to worry about every little day’s progress.

The last drips and drabs of this renovation are really stressing me out, so I made a concerted effort last night to veg out and not do much, and I feel a little better today. I did a few minor things from my list, but mostly I sat on my bed and knit. I intentionally stayed away from the TV and radio and instead listened to the cat and boyfriend and my own thoughts. I still have a huge and frightening to-do list going, but I also have all weekend to really tackle it.

I really want to take at least one of the big things on my plate and finish it off, and I thought earlier in the week that this one would be mostly done by today. My boyfriend + I even took the day off work so we could stage my house and get it ready to be photographed but alas, ‘twas not to be. They’re still only half-way done with the tile in the bathroom and the main room has minor issues to fix too.

I know it’ll all be over soon, but the waiting for soon thing is annoying me to no end right now. We’ve moved the listing back a week and are going to have the place photographed on Monday now, but I really, really want all of this to be done and over with and off of my list. I know I should be more patient, but they’re going to go over their schedule by a week. I did manage to buy an inflatable bed and a big old plant, and we got all of the IKEAn furniture built and placed it roughly together. I also took the oven and fridge out of their boxes and put them in place. That fridge is huge! It’s still stuff I could have done at night rather than taking a full day off work.

Incidentally, when they did peel back the last of the nasty stuff, they found even more nasty stuff and had to rebuild more of the window box and wall than they expected. They were already behind, but that held them up more than they thought it would…

I still need to print out those photos and send them off… I think the last thing I’ll do before bed tonight is make a big long list of the things I need to do this weekend that aren’t house related. Things like “buy toilet paper”, since the house related ones are driving me up the wall and just having a list is like having a handle, even if it’s having a handle on something that’s kicking and screaming and wants to get away from you…

They’re still a few days away from finishing, but today I checked in on the progress and took a look around the place. I also bought a medicine cabinet and a ceiling light for the bathroom.

I need to get them printed up, but I went over to my house to see if I could get any good pictures of the bathroom, since I only had two sad looking pictures of sagging drywall and mushrooms in the bathroom before renovation. Not only did I get good pictures of the remaining damage, I got pictures of her metal floor joints rusting in place, along with the rotting wood and nasty drywall that was still up.

Construction always looks bad while it’s going on, but these have clear signs of damage to her house not just my drywall.

She denies that her shower ever leaked! Luckily I have photographs of the place before the gutting and I kept that mushroom that grew in my moulding. She asked me to send her photographs and then “we’ll talk.” I hope I just caught her on a bad day and this isn’t the sign of worse things to come. She’s a pied a terre owner and lives in Cambridge. If she’d been around, the leak wouldn’t have been as bad all those years.

They’ve started, and we’ve discovered that my bathroom has no subfloor [nice!] and a leaky hot water shut-off valve. Both of these things are fixable, but I’m hoping to have no more surprises, okay?