The good, the bad, and the ugly

We got our bathroom remodeled last month. Sigh. I was really hoping to have an awesome before and after blog post, but it was not meant to be. The tile in our shower is a mess and will need to be redone- not by the man who did it originally. Jamie and I have terrible, terrible luck with hiring home improvement guys, and I'm going to go on record now and just call it what it really is- a curse. Our house is just like the house in Amityville Horror, minus all the horror but keep the curse. I'm 100% sure that Overland stands for 'Over land that was once a giant Indian burial ground', so that could also explain the curse. It could also be the fact that we tend to go with the lowest offer (and this guy was two grand less than our other bid), but we are learning the hard way that you get what you pay for.

I had such high, high hopes for this guy, he was SUPER nice and even a pastor for Christ's sake. A PASTOR. So of course he should be totally trustworthy and honest, right? Not so much. Apparently in addition to being a home remodeler and a pastor, he also had another part-time job that only allowed him to work on our house for a maximum of 6 hours a day, and some days only two or three hours. So what was advertised as a week and a half job ended up taking three weeks. It took three days for him to tile our shower and didn't start grouting it until the week after. I know nothing of tiling or grouting (hence the reason I hire people) but it seems to me like those should be done pretty close together time-wise. But what do I know. Besides the fact that we have to have our bath retiled. Which means more time when we can't bathe at our house, and more mess. Oh Lord the mess. The mess of construction brought out all my OCD issues of having a house that is not covered in a layer of dust all the time, so every day after the contractor would leave I would clean. It was a great time.

Anyway, on to the before and after picture. Besides the tiling, I'm pretty happy with the rest of the bathroom. There are some little things that are going to bug me forever, but I don't think someone who wasn't the homeowner would notice them. Or that's what I'm going to tell myself.
So before-

And after-

No towel rack which is throwing me off. We need to add a towel ring. And we have a higher sink, which Penny might be able to reach on her 16th birthday. And we moved the toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet so poop dust from the flushing toilet won't get on them anymore. We didn't even need toothpaste because the poop dust was so thick on the bristles. 

 

These baskets are very handy.

We added the TP roll to the vanity so the kids didn't have to get off the toilet to actually wipe themselves. We're contributing to childhood obesity and laziness I know, but dammit it's gross.

One mirror for Jamie and I, and then whomever we choose as a sister-wife. The first qualification is going to be how well she cleans mirrors.

So we had a wooden windowsill that stuck out pretty far, and since wood and water don't really go together well, we always had to keep it covered with a funk nasty shower curtain (it's the only type we could afford.) So every time you took a shower, you had curtains coming at you on all sides.

We used to have shower doors but that made things very difficult when bathing two kids at the same time so we took them off. But left the metal thingy for style.

At some point in the last eight years we had some tiles go missing and 'fixed it' with duct tape and plastic wrap. It's Overland code. The baby head has been there for weeks, and I thought about moving it for pictures, but if I'm all about anything, I'm all about keeping it real. And this is real life, showering with a baby head looking at your crotch every day.

Our contractor took out the wood and tiled the space, so now we don't need the funk nasty curtain anymore! Huzzah! This is by far the best thing about our bathroom remodel, we now have a nice little shelf for all of our stuff.

We also added a towel rack for washcloths and scrub brushes, and a soap dish with a bar to help obese or old people get up out of the bathtub. Because our target audience for whom we would like to sell our house to is an obese octogenarian who takes frequent baths.

We also added a towel rack next to the shower. Obviously.

And the second best thing about our bathroom is the new exhaust fan/light. We did not have an exhaust fan before and the ceiling would get all wet and moldy looking, and then someone (me) would have to clean it once a year as to not look like dirty hoosiers for our Christmas party, but now thanks to the fan, I no longer have to do that! Double huzzah!

So that was the good, now on to the bad and the ugly. I took a bunch of pictures of the tile/grout disaster to send to our contractor and now I'm going to share them with you. Because why not share our pain. Maybe someone will send it to Ellen and then she'll come knocking on our door sometime soon with a fix-it crew and we'll get a whole new shower!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So grout was not on our list of things to buy beforehand, and one day he told me that we needed to go to Home Depot that night and buy grout. Jamie was in New Jersey and I don't know the first thing about buying grout so I asked him to do it. He asked what color, I said I didn't know, he suggested dark, I said okay... we will not be going with dark next time.

There was grout or spackle all over the ceiling and he just painted over it. But he didn't even attempt to sand it down or cover it and only painted half the ceiling. Because that's what we wanted- half a painted ceiling.

So there you have it, the good, the bad, and the ugly of our bathroom remodel. We are in the process of finding someone else to come in and do a demo and a retile, although Jamie is gone next week, works a weird day/night shift the week after, and then is gone again the week after that, so I'm not sure how that process is going to work. Maybe Ellen knows. Home remodeling sucks.