Spare me a thought - please

GraceB

Project Chaos has started today! Let me explain and you’ll know why I’m asking you to spare me a thought.

One week after John (my partner) died in February I found a crack in the bath. (Bit of background for you. When we moved in John replaced the bathroom. He put a bath in and we had an over-the-bath-shower. To make it easy for me to get in and out of this, John made me a step. John was a highly skilled and very experienced gas heating engineer and plumber. He was also a skilled lead worker).

So, I find this crack and was advised to ring the house insurers which I did, but naturally they wanted to know when this happened, how and by whom. They also wanted photographs submitting but I had no idea how to successfully photograph a hairline crack in a white acrylic bath(!), and there was an excess to pay. I therefore implemented something which we’d been discussing – and went for the option of bath out, shower in and I’ll just pay for it myself.

I was lucky enough to have 2 recommendations for plumbers and quote both to quote for “bath out, quadrant (corner) shower cubicle in”. I went for the most competitive and waited a good number of weeks for him to be free to come and do this. He duly came on the pre-arranged day, removed the bathroom door to make his life easier and took the bath panel off. We then ground to a halt!

When John had put the bath in he’d not plastered the walls underneath the bath or the floor. This means there was bare breezeblocks for the wall and uneven floor.

I had to find plasterers to quote as my plumber couldn’t do this for me. Again, I was lucky enough to be given 2 recommendations. Both plasterers gave me quotes and I went for the most competitive. I then had to re-schedule all the works back in liaising with both the plumber and the plasterer, not to mention myself! (By the way, both plasterers said the more highly skilled and experienced the plumber, the more likely they were to leave the walls and floor under the bath bare). I remember at the time he did the bathroom, John said something about not worrying about what was underneath the bath as no-one could see it.

The plumber came today and removed the bath. The plasterer (who looks to be 12 but is obviously older as he drives and is fully qualified!) is due tomorrow evening and he’ll plaster the walls/sort the floor out so it’s level. This all needs 2 days to dry out. The plumber returns to me on Thursday/ Friday and puts the cubicle in, does the tiling and all the attendant plumbing and boxing-in work.

In the middle of all this, I’d also followed through with something else John and I had discussed doing and ordered a 3-seater, 2-electric recliner sofa. That comes Thursday!

Wednesday night my nephew and a neighbour are going to put my existing suite into the garage so the new sofa can be delivered Thursday morning. The old suite will be collected Friday by a local charity. In the midst of all this, I’ll be taking my toiletries bag to my neighbour’s or to my Mum’s so I can have a shower every night.

I feel exhausted just posting this and the week has only just started. As I said, please spare me a thought as I think this week is going to be crazy.

(Oh I’m starting a new craze by the way. I now have a combined bathroom and inner hallway as the bathroom door is temporarily in the garage. It seemed mad for the plumber to put this back on, for the plasterer to take it off tomorrow and put it back and then for it to come off again Thurs).

GraceB

barbara12

Hello Grace my OH is a gas heating engineer...
Anyhow back to you , what a good job you have done getting everyone organized to do the work ..its not easy..I hope it all works out to plan and you have a nice new bathroom..just one point we had a recliner settee and chair and had to to change it, has it was so heavy we couldn't move it to clean..so please heck it out before they deliver ..x

GraceB

Thanks Barbara. With the current suite we struggled to move the sofa between us - on my own I don't stand a chance so I'll not be any worse off!

I'll probably get my lovely nephew Matt to shift the sofa for me once a year so I can hoover under it and do the skirting board with a wet wipe clasped in a grabber. (It works - try it!).

I've always had excellent organisational skills - good job too with how life has turned out. I always did the planning for when John and I tackled anything, whether it was a holiday or a project around the home. He did the practical side of things, but I'd help where I could.

GraceB

frogmorton

Gosh Grace!!

What a saga!

The shower is, however a great idea and you will be so happy when it's done.

You have all my sympathy because we just moved house and I know exactly how hard it all is :roll:

I will more than spare you a thought

Best of luck and you will LOVE your new shower

Love

Toni xxx

stickywicket

:too-hot: :splash:

Phew! Rather you than me, even though I feel dreadful 'wishing it on you'. I do hope you can, eventually, look round your home with the satisfaction you deserve.

barbara12

Grace I did love my recliner and still miss it,but still have the chair.. glad to see you have someone to move it for you..it will be nice to relax when all the plumbing is done..x

GraceB

Thanks for the replies and the positive thoughts.

The plasterer came today. I had a text at lunchtime asking if he could be here for 4pm. I managed to get an hour's leave and left work so he could do this. (As the office was like a furnace it worked well for me!). He was here about an hour and a half and, to me, it looks to be okay. I suppose I'll find out when the plumber comes back on Thursday!

I fully expect by the morning though to find at least one small paw-print where the plasterer levelled the floor with cement. My cat has already had a good look in there.

The firm delivering my new sofa on Thursday have texted to say my delivery will be between 12noon and 7pm. Need to keep my fingers crossed it's nearer the 12noon than the 7pm option.

GraceB

GraceB

Well, the plumber was very pleased with the quality of the plastering. Work is going well. The shower tray is in, all the plumbing done, pipes have been boxed-in and all the tiling done.

Tomorrow, he'll be back to grout the tiles and install the shower doors. He'll also re-hang the bathroom door and take the old bath, etc., away. The job will then be complete. The plumber anticipates he'll be here for about 3 hours tomorrow morning. The shower is a corner one - 800mm x 800mm in size, so it's nice and big.

The sofa arrived and it was late morning. (I'd been told it would be delivered between 12noon - 7pm so an early delivery was wonderful). The sofa is comfy and looks good. I think I'm happy with the placing of the stool and my new floor lamp, but we'll see what happens tomorrow. It's lovely being able to put my feet up properly.

Now I have to hope that the charity due to collect my old suite takes it. (The charities down here in this part of Kent can be fussy). It's in good condition, has the necessary "fire" labels on it so I hope that this can be re-used by someone and raise funds for a charity into the bargain.

Oh - my cat resisted the urge to "put her mark" on the floor! Don't think she liked the smell of the wet cement drying out.

GraceB

GraceB

Well the job was finished on time and this morning I had my first shower. It was lovely!

Afterwards I noticed a tiny leak one side of the shower doors. I rang the plumber and spoke to him early afternoon. Whilst talking to him he asked me to shower down the inside of the doors on that side of the shower. All of a sudden I had water cascading down the interior - and exterior - of the doors! The shower was turned off extremely quickly and a towel flung onto the floor. My plumber was extremely apologetic and is coming out tomorrow (Sunday at 9am) to see what's going on with the seals and make the necessary adjustments. I then had to wash the towel out as there's a bit of bare floor there so I then had cement marks on my peach-coloured towel.

I'm not too worried as I remember sometimes my late partner John would leave a job all okay and then a day or so later get a call to say a leak had appeared. I fully expect this to be a minor adjustment and - once the seals have re-dried again - I'll be up and off.

Oh, in a previous post I said the shower was 800x800mm. I was wrong - it's 900x900mm so it's nice and big. Just need to get this adjustment sorted, some fresh emulsion on the walls (my lovely nephew will again probably help me to do this) and then get the vinyl sorted. No point getting new vinyl until the walls have been re-painted.

My sofa is lovely. It came late Thursday morning which was a bonus! It's charcoal grey in colour and the accent colour in the room was red so I've stayed with that and built on it. My friend Rachel is coming over in next few days to do her "magic" with my red cushions as I'm no good with things like that. I've got a red rug which is now in front of the fireplace. The previous rug is now in the bedroom as John and I chose that together and I don't want to get rid of it. It's important to me that I keep things predominantly as we chose them together.

The old suite was collected by the charity and they were delighted with it. I'm pleased it can be re-used by someone and generate funds for a charity into the bargain.

As I've said to a few friends, I felt it was right to continue with the plans to change the suite and the shower had to be done, but we'd previously talked about getting the bath changed for a shower. However, it's been very strange doing this without talking things through with John and sadly, I'll never know if he'd have been pleased with what I've achieved.

GraceB

stickywicket

John loved you, Grace, so of course he would be pleased that you are happy with the changes.

I'm glad you like your new furniture and I trust, and hope, the shower will be easily sorted. Well done on getting through another difficult period.

tkachev

I ever saw my bathroom (as I was staying elsewhere and was too ill to visit) until everything was completed. Now you've got me wondering if they plastered all the wall down to the ground as OH and his Dad and friends did all the work and short cuts are common. So chances are they didn't.

I hope the leak has been fixed now. Good luck with the flooring and painting.

Elizabeth

GraceB

Thanks everyone. Yes, leak sorted easily. Plumber explained the doors are the equivalent of a shower curtain and will let water through if too much water is directed against them. The shower is so much easier for me to get in and out of and I'm grateful that I've had this put in.

I've got to get some emulsion for the bathroom and try to see if I can do at least some of this myself. However, my brother and his family are in Kent first weekend of August so I may just offer to buy him a drink if he can spare a couple of hours to put some emulsion on the two walls for me. (The flooring is having to wait for financial reasons!).

The sofa is comfortable and my cat has also made herself at home on it. She has a new bed on one end, over which there's a blanket. She's just started sitting on the back of the sofa but again I've got that covered to protect it.

GraceB