Biting The Hand That Remodels

We have officially been "under construction" since April. In that time we have had new plumbing successfully installed, a fabulous new roof placed above our heads, "can" lights put in the children's rooms as well as 2 new light fixtures (one for the kids' hallway and one for EvaJun) 3 ceiling fans wired and the world's prettiest tile laid in what we used to call the outside room and now call the room with the world's prettiest tile.

While the children and I are in Hawaii, the interior will be painted and the teak floor laid throughout. Hooray!

And here is where it all goes wrong. The tile in the children's bath has been totally screwed up. Totally, completely, absolutely and any other adverb you can come up with.

Currently, there is no shower, only a tub, in this bathroom and now that the boys are a little older, they are less about the baths and more about the showers and that has meant showers in our bathroom and quite frankly we want those shaving cream addicts, expensive shampoo down the drain users out. The solution is nothing more complicated than tiling the 3 walls around the tub and installing a shower system. It is a smallish room so Hugh and I chose a very plain white 3 x 6 subway tile to do the job. This tile, however ordinary, is rather extraordinary in that each piece is handmade in Mexico with a glaze so thick and shiny that it looks like frosting and you are tempted, if not to take a bite out of it, to run your fingers across in hopes of grabbing a little taste of fluff. This glaze is what sold us... there were roughly 345, 786 choices of white tile to choose from, and we were giddy in the way that only others who have been forced to spend hours making minute design decisions can understand.

The bath is duly gutted and prepped and the sweet hexagonal floor is laid and the shower tile is up and whoo-hoo... not grouted but we can tell it is going to rock. Yes, we can. Rock!

Because of the massive mold and mildew issues that we have in this coastal community of paradise, we opt for a dark gray grout. The bright white tile offset by the charcoal... happy happy joy joy. Until the actual grout happens. Apparently, the grout dude is visually challenged. Or maybe spastic. Or both. Or maybe he hates us, because it is the worst application in the history of tile. Roman emperors would have fed this bozo to the lions and the Greeks would have tossed him off the nearest available cliff.

There are wildly varying widths and layers of thickness and it is ugly and it made us cry and then get drunk and send 12 iPhotos off to our contractor who is on holiday in Hawaii. HA! Aloha this buddy.

Not to worry, we will re-grout. With white. It will look fresher and cleaner and really, you folks should never have gone with that gray color because blah, blah, blah... 4 workers descend upon the bathroom at 8 am and are not seen until 9:30 that night. We look at the room, say, "Oh, yes, looks much better... thanks so much." They look at us blankly, mutter something that sounds like, "muy loco" and leave.

In the morning Hugh approaches the bathroom with a bottle of cleaner and a rag, ready to shine it up and guess what? Up close and personal we realized that the frosting glaze that we fell in love with had been sanded off on about 80% of the tiles.

MotherF*cker.

Another crazy person email is sent off to Hawaii and now we are demo-ing again and starting from scratch and I am thinking of taking up smoking.

***

I know you are all thinking: Shit, there she goes again with the moaning about the remodel and really, why doesn't she just shut the hell up already? And I hear you because I can barely stand myself at times and truly all the people I know in my real life are soooo over us and our house and truly, we won't have a friend left in the world if we don't stop monopolizing every conversation with our complaints and never-ending cell phone calls with our contractor.

But, I live in chaos. It rules my life and I am so sick and tired of things not being done right the first time and the subsequent small battle that ensues to have it redone.

So, Internet, I have to talk to you

If you want furniture call me, it all needs to be out of here by the 22nd of the month.