Something's Wrong With The Ole' Plumbin'
"Problems, problems,
Problems all day through..."
--The Everly Brothers, 1956.
Well, what began as a weekend project has become quite a pain. Jen and I have invested time, money, time, pain (my eyes and my knees and her back) into putting together our bathroom. This has been a deceptive mission for the two of us.
We decided months ago that we would stay (or she would commandeer) my house in the late Fall when we marry. As such, Jen wanted some personal touches to make it her home as well. We all know the home really belongs to Chumley and Guinness, but that’s another issue.
We stripped the wall paper, which initially came down fairly easily. We felt it was a positive sign. When we removed the mirror, we noticed holes in the walls where some sort of piping came through. Not an issue, buy some screen and plaster stuff and repair. That also went surprisingly easily. We bought a new vanity and that was when the curse of my lack of handiness (I blame the shop teachers of my youth and my family for not teaching me stuff—heh heh—like they could have pulled me away from Spider-man Comic Books to do AYTHING, yeah right) came to light. The cabinet’s back is open for the pipes. I live in an old house, where the pipes are coming through the floor.
After our error, I figured it would be too difficult to take out the floor on a new piece of furnature, and then replace it after drilling holes. Jen agreed and decided to paint the old cabinet. We turned off the water to notice that our shutoff valves did not work properly. So we decided to call a plumber and see how much it would cost to replace the valves. I took some bids and a plumber came in and said that they could install the cabinets relatively easily, and drill the holes. I tried to return the cabinet to Lowe’s and they would not take it back because it was a clearance item that was discontinued. We did not know it, because we still paid a tighty sum of over $175.00 for it. Knowing I would eat that sum, I decided to let the plumbers put the new cabinet in. Jen agreed.
Then all HELL broke loose. The plumbers, in a nutshell, took the old PVC pipe and fitted it to work in the new cabinet. They, however did not drill the holes properly and they missed flushing the baseboards with the cabinet. See pictures. Realizing their errors, they oversized the wholes (see pictures). Jen came home from work, went livid, and called the plumbers, who scurried out of my house quickly, to let them know of her dissatisfaction. She called the owners, who directed her to the plumbers who told her that they were contacting the owner of the business and they were pretty much feeling nothing could be done, because they showed me the work. They did and I did protest, but they said the way the pipes were was how it was going to be; then they proceeded in the fore-mentioned scurrying. We waited an hour, I got us dinner and asked jen if she wanted to leave the house for a while. “No,” she remarked, “I will be rude to someone who doesn’t deserve it. And I don’t blame you, you don’t know any better.” I was not sure if this was an insult or whether I should feel relieved that I was not the source or recipient of anger. So I went with the latter and brought us dinner.
After an hour, I called the owner back and he remarked how the plumbers did not contact him, after they told me they had. I handed the phone to Jen and let the show begin.
The conversation was classic. She remarked how we paid $340.00 to ruin a piece of furniture and a bathroom that she is going to have to fix. She is, for the record, much more handy than I could ever be. Then she commented on how it looked like they had no training in putting in furniture. She also remarked that it was creating more work for her and we hired them to alleviate our workload. When she explained the one inch (and may I say exactly one inch) gap, and the holes, it was obvious to her that the drilled the wholes wrong and tried to badly cover it up. Then to make matters worse, they used caulk on a freshly painted wall and smeared it on with their fingers, which is true, because that I saw. The plumbers, according to Jen from her ability to listen in the background had walked in while she was explaining the situation. The owner excused himself and Jen could hear him tell them he wanted “the truth about the Sweetwood house...” He used words like “never, never, never” blah blah blah. He returned to the phone and offered to send them back. Jen said she did not want more holes in the furniture. He offered us a sizeable discount and returned over half of our money and gave us a free hour of labour. He also apologized profusely.
We decided months ago that we would stay (or she would commandeer) my house in the late Fall when we marry. As such, Jen wanted some personal touches to make it her home as well. We all know the home really belongs to Chumley and Guinness, but that’s another issue.
We stripped the wall paper, which initially came down fairly easily. We felt it was a positive sign. When we removed the mirror, we noticed holes in the walls where some sort of piping came through. Not an issue, buy some screen and plaster stuff and repair. That also went surprisingly easily. We bought a new vanity and that was when the curse of my lack of handiness (I blame the shop teachers of my youth and my family for not teaching me stuff—heh heh—like they could have pulled me away from Spider-man Comic Books to do AYTHING, yeah right) came to light. The cabinet’s back is open for the pipes. I live in an old house, where the pipes are coming through the floor.
After our error, I figured it would be too difficult to take out the floor on a new piece of furnature, and then replace it after drilling holes. Jen agreed and decided to paint the old cabinet. We turned off the water to notice that our shutoff valves did not work properly. So we decided to call a plumber and see how much it would cost to replace the valves. I took some bids and a plumber came in and said that they could install the cabinets relatively easily, and drill the holes. I tried to return the cabinet to Lowe’s and they would not take it back because it was a clearance item that was discontinued. We did not know it, because we still paid a tighty sum of over $175.00 for it. Knowing I would eat that sum, I decided to let the plumbers put the new cabinet in. Jen agreed.
Then all HELL broke loose. The plumbers, in a nutshell, took the old PVC pipe and fitted it to work in the new cabinet. They, however did not drill the holes properly and they missed flushing the baseboards with the cabinet. See pictures. Realizing their errors, they oversized the wholes (see pictures). Jen came home from work, went livid, and called the plumbers, who scurried out of my house quickly, to let them know of her dissatisfaction. She called the owners, who directed her to the plumbers who told her that they were contacting the owner of the business and they were pretty much feeling nothing could be done, because they showed me the work. They did and I did protest, but they said the way the pipes were was how it was going to be; then they proceeded in the fore-mentioned scurrying. We waited an hour, I got us dinner and asked jen if she wanted to leave the house for a while. “No,” she remarked, “I will be rude to someone who doesn’t deserve it. And I don’t blame you, you don’t know any better.” I was not sure if this was an insult or whether I should feel relieved that I was not the source or recipient of anger. So I went with the latter and brought us dinner.
After an hour, I called the owner back and he remarked how the plumbers did not contact him, after they told me they had. I handed the phone to Jen and let the show begin.
The conversation was classic. She remarked how we paid $340.00 to ruin a piece of furniture and a bathroom that she is going to have to fix. She is, for the record, much more handy than I could ever be. Then she commented on how it looked like they had no training in putting in furniture. She also remarked that it was creating more work for her and we hired them to alleviate our workload. When she explained the one inch (and may I say exactly one inch) gap, and the holes, it was obvious to her that the drilled the wholes wrong and tried to badly cover it up. Then to make matters worse, they used caulk on a freshly painted wall and smeared it on with their fingers, which is true, because that I saw. The plumbers, according to Jen from her ability to listen in the background had walked in while she was explaining the situation. The owner excused himself and Jen could hear him tell them he wanted “the truth about the Sweetwood house...” He used words like “never, never, never” blah blah blah. He returned to the phone and offered to send them back. Jen said she did not want more holes in the furniture. He offered us a sizeable discount and returned over half of our money and gave us a free hour of labour. He also apologized profusely.
In the end, Jen was satisfied. We bought some wood (exactly one inch) to fit in the gap. We re-plastered the area to repaint. We are waiting to remove the caulk and touch up the paint (uh that is more of my error than anyone due to a poor job of taping and not staying in the lines. I was a rotten color-er as a kid as well.
So what did I learn? Know that an old house’s projects will burn you. I also learned how to paint better and not to hire someone because I liked their TV ads. Lastly, I learned to eat my pride when the future wife is ticked at somebody else, and let it ride.
Oh, and the bathroom is still not done.
posted by Eric Sweetwood at 8:50 AM
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