Yes, as some of you already guessed we are re-tiling our main bathroom upstairs! Very exciting, but it means no showering, toileting (is that a word?) or teeth brushing in the upstairs bathroom for TWO WEEKS! (Luckily we do have a full bath in the basement we can use and I don’t have to hit up my neighbors to stay clean.)
So the contractors showed up bright and early on Monday and got to work destroying demoing the tile floor in the sink room and the entire shower room. But before I get too far ahead of myself, let me explain what got us to this point.
Remember when I mentioned that Mr. vB had moved into a fixer upper.? Let’s just say the bathroom was first on the list to be totally gutted. (I will post the original bathroom photos very soon) After Mr. vB got the new plumbing, new walls, and new electrical in place in was time to hire the tile work out. And unfortunately he hired the WRONG person to do the job.
Exhibit 1

Here is the lovely “curb” from the sink room into the shower room. Was it too much to ask for some tile on the face of the curb?? I mean the exposed concrete has such a finished look doesn’t it?
Exhibit 2

And here is where the “tile guy” decided to not tile the edge of the wall that lead into the shower and instead leave the drywall exposed to the water. SO Brilliant! Does anyone else see the mold growing on the face of the drywall?!?!?!
Exhibit 3

Can you see here how focused the tile guy was on making sure that all the grout lines were super even?!? He even made sure to line up all the tiles so they were in a nice straight line… NOT.
But the biggest issue of all was that a proper shower pan and liner was not installed under the tile and could have caused major water damage to the ceiling joists below. I would LOVE to report this guy to the Better Business Bureau, but unfortunately the paperwork/receipt got lost and I have no clue who this guy is. Use our horrible experience as a lesson to get referrals on contractors and to not always take the cheapest deal out there!!
So we are 3 days into the new construction and now I am going tile crazy. I like to think that I am passionate about my design ideas- others might call me a bit obsessed. Point in case- I have been to 5 different Home Depot’s in the past 2 days. And I will be headed to about 5 more tomorrow. Why you might ask?? Well Mr. vB and I have fallen in love with a simple 8×10 wall tile for the shower room which we need 17 boxes of. The first store only had 2 boxes, no biggie I thought. I kindly asked the helper person to see if another store had the remaining 15 boxes. GET THIS- each store in the Richmond Metro Area had recieved only 2 boxes . That meant that I would have to go to 9 different locations to get all the tile I needed to complete the entire shower room. I think I need to come up with a plan B!! I will keep you updated!