We bought this house from an elderly couple many years ago. This couple loved to smoke and they loved the color green. Much of this house was green, inside and out- except a couple of the small rooms upstairs, all the ceilings and the living room rug. The small rooms were pretty much fine with some minor tweaking. The ceilings however were a lovely shade of nicotine brown and the living room rug was a subtle deep red mixed with flecks of black. I don't think it was from the depression era, unless you consider "Depression Era" to be a particular style.
I got rid of the smoke infused rug right away and I washed and painted over the ceilings- and almost all of the green. One area of green that I never changed was the bathroom- not the tiles anyway.
Much of the bathroom, including inside the shower, was covered in green four inch square tiles. When we moved in, I had assumed these tiles were ceramic, but they weren't. They were plastic. As I found out, the thing about plastic tiles is that they move around in the humidity from the shower and this loosens them up. Occasionally, one or two of these would drop off. Occasionally, a bunch of them would drop off. Gluing them back on never seemed to last too long. Judging from the fairly sound condition of the nicotine stained grout, I was pretty sure this had never happened to the elderly couple. In hindsight, I chalked this up to the well documented fact that most elderly people don’t bathe.
So, time goes by and tiles loosen up. We flash forward to several years later to when Sam is taking a shower in a stall that looks like a poorly made patchwork quilt. And Sam, being Sam, who likes to pick at things, goes to work. I came in later to a pile of previously loose and semi-loose tiles, now sitting at the bottom of my bathroom tub.
I make it sound like this was Sam’s fault, but it’s wasn’t. Once again, I had no one to blame but myself. I waited too long to do something about it (see my faucet story buried somewhere in here), and now I had a bigger mess on my hands. I was able to stick most of the tiles back on with various unsuccessful adhesives. Most of them didn't stay put.
Much of the bathroom, including inside the shower, was covered in green four inch square tiles. When we moved in, I had assumed these tiles were ceramic, but they weren't. They were plastic. As I found out, the thing about plastic tiles is that they move around in the humidity from the shower and this loosens them up. Occasionally, one or two of these would drop off. Occasionally, a bunch of them would drop off. Gluing them back on never seemed to last too long. Judging from the fairly sound condition of the nicotine stained grout, I was pretty sure this had never happened to the elderly couple. In hindsight, I chalked this up to the well documented fact that most elderly people don’t bathe.
So, time goes by and tiles loosen up. We flash forward to several years later to when Sam is taking a shower in a stall that looks like a poorly made patchwork quilt. And Sam, being Sam, who likes to pick at things, goes to work. I came in later to a pile of previously loose and semi-loose tiles, now sitting at the bottom of my bathroom tub.
I make it sound like this was Sam’s fault, but it’s wasn’t. Once again, I had no one to blame but myself. I waited too long to do something about it (see my faucet story buried somewhere in here), and now I had a bigger mess on my hands. I was able to stick most of the tiles back on with various unsuccessful adhesives. Most of them didn't stay put.
Flash forward (again) to a couple of weeks ago when I find I'm finally forced to do something about it. The first step, after figuring out if I could afford to do it (a very painful story in itself- which I can't tell for legal reasons) was to find someone who would do the work. A couple of inquiries turned into a commitment and this pretty much set the pattern for the rest of the job spiraling out of control.
The next step was to pick out a tile color and to get the tiles before the contractor started tearing things apart. I did my best to avoid being involved in the whole excruciating color selection process, for several reasons (thanks Helaina), which I can't mention- again for legal reasons. After the painstaking color selection process was over, we were ready to roll.
On the big day, I hung around and waited for the workers to show up. I wanted to show one of them where the water main shut-off was "just in case". It turns out he didn't feel it was necessary, but I led him down the basement anyway. To no one's surprise but mine, it was completely inaccessible behind boxes crap stacked several feet deep. Forty-five minutes later, I showed him where it was and then left for work. Two hours later, I got a phone call from the contractor asking me who my plumber was.
I won't go into all of the gory details- at least not now and probably not ever. Let's just say that my three day job wrapped up close to a week and a half later. Part of this was because the size of the job doubled in size- which due to legal reasons, I won't mention. But it also involved three unscheduled visits from a plumber, two unscheduled visits from an electrician, multiple trips of my own to several hardware stores, a new fan, new lights and all of the associated costs that you would expect to go with it. I can't blame the contractor for any of this. They were decent enough. A fair amount of this was, shall we say, "self inflicted"- at least that's what I'm saying for legal reasons. But it's almost over. All that's left now is to find better lights and, unfortunately, "we" still need to pick out a paint color (which I can't talk about for legal reasons).
All of this brings us to tonight's clip. Enjoy.
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