The saga of the master bath…

Before I begin, let me show you our old bathroom:

So late last year, we decided the fear of falling through the floor was getting old and maybe it was time to look into re-doing the master bath. Doing what any homeowner who has no idea where to find contractors, we went to the local Home Show. Where I found an interesting array of companies who supposedly specialize in this sort of thing.

Have you any idea how much money there is to be made in bathrooms? After looking at the dimensions I carried with me, the assistant to one contractor said “A bathroom of that size starts at $50,000.” Ummm, excuse me? Yea, you’re insane, no thank you… as I backed away slowly….

Around the corner I met a nice looking gentleman, let’s call him “Tim” who looked at the dimensions and said “Well, that’ll probably come in around $15,000…” After what I had just heard, that was MUCH better… Now we don’t have that kind of money, but with creative financing and good credit… it was a go.

Tim came out and met with me. I was pretty specific. We had met with other companies at this point. I had a pretty good idea of what we (Brian) wanted. Brian is the decorator in this family (not that I can’t, it’s just more important to him, so he generally has the “vision”). I knew what he liked and the general feeing so I told TIm all about it. I told him what I thought might be nice touches in the bathroom- a cabinet/closet for towels, makeup, and the like- Guess what? That cabinet? Over $2000- Yeah.. not necessary. At least I thought that was what was decided…. Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself….

Tim told us to head to his showroom a little over an hour away and pick out tiles and styles so he could give us a more accurate estimate. So we did…on a Saturday… with my two youngest. (as a side note, Gracie and Jack are absolutely adorable AND absolutely busy ALLL the time) We chose this super cool tile for the floor that looks like wood planks, river rocks for the shower wall, these cool neutral subway-like tiles for the walls with patinad copper for framing highlights. We chose shaker cabinets in the furniture style and a pedestal tub. TIm’s wife was nervous. She obviously didn’t like different, she was visibly nervous about all the tile choices sitting in front of her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She brought me pictures of a wall done in the river rocks and said “The shower will look a lot like this.. you’re ok with that?” I assured her I understood Brian’s vision and I trusted him. It was a long process, but the choices were made and we were excited. Then we waited for the estimate… and we waited…

It finally came and whew- it was high. There were places we could trim things Tim assured us. Ok… Tim made an appointment to come out and talk specifics with Brian. He made the appointment when I was going to be out of town.. Ugh. The control freak alarm bells in me went crazy. I reassured myself that it would be fine. Tim would come on Sunday, I would be home Monday morning, and get the run down, and everything would be okay. Which is what happened. Brian told me what they’d talked about. They trimmed $3000 off the estimate by choosing a different tub. We’d have a huge shower (the one we had could barely fit one person- 3×3 I think- crazy tiny and never ever going to be clean!), they’d re-orient some things, and it would look great! Tim understood Brian’s vision and Brian thought Tim almost seemed excited about creating a bathroom that was going to be different and not beige.

We wrote a huge check for the deposit and waited for the phone call to tell us when they’d start… it came… May 9th… What?! It was January?! Seriously? Two months?! Ugh… ok. Surely it was because it was so different and they wanted to do the best job possible… surely.

May 9th came and the two workers showed up the house. They were nice, they seemed like they wanted to do a good job. So they demolished the whole room (of course after asking if there was anything I wanted to keep etc). It was VERY empty (except for the tools and new bathtub they left behind).

More tomorrow- I promise it’s at least interesting….