What can I say? Who travelled in 2020 after everything shut down on St. Patrick's Day? We didn't leave Vancouver Island and now we can't even travel north on the island. I miss not seeing new places and meeting new people. However, we weren't idle in 2020. Here's a piece I wrote about our 2020 project.
We’ve done our fair share of DIY renos and wanted someone else to do the renovation of two 1989-style bathrooms (before photo) from demolition to painting. “Support local!” was the cry so I hit Google and found a company approved by Victoria’s Better Business Bureau. Turns out it was a husband and wife team.
Husband was quite a chatterbox but he seemed to know what he was doing and had been in the business for over ten years. Two weeks, it would take to do the job and they could begin mid-August. The cost was reasonable so we said, “Make it so,” and paid our deposit.
Mid-August came and the wife texted us something had come up. Turns out a client whose kitchen they re-did, didn’t like the tiles she had chosen or the granite she had chosen. It had to go! So they spent August re-doing that job.
Meanwhile, we ordered vanities, sinks, toilets, and bathroom fixtures. Elated, we popped into a tile store where we chose wall, floor, and shower floor tiles. Each place offered great advice on what would work in our space.
Labour Day weekend, we moved into our guest room. Then we waited. Two weeks later, they came and demolished the bathrooms. Biggest issue was removing the bathtub. It was heavy and awkward but they managed taking it out with only a ‘minor’ dent in the wall. Half our 2-car garage began filling up with old wallboard, vanities, sinks, etc. They left the toilet in the powder room, just in case.
After that, it seemed a small job was done, then a week passed before anything else happened. One week they were getting materials in Nanaimo, the next week, their truck broke down— a week later they had a new truck. Meanwhile, they hired a young lad to help them and all the materials we had bought ended up in our garage.
By Thanksgiving, the husband had diverted the shower drain to the centre of the shower space, moved, with the help of his wife, a cold-air pipe that serviced the fireplace, and gave us a nook for shampoo bottles in the shower’s wall. They installed ‘mood’ lighting around the nook and somehow cut the electricity to the baseboard heaters in our living room. Glen fixed that after I complained of being cold.
By Halloween, the floor to the walk-in shower was laid and the walls were covered with a waterproof material. The husband had an argument with the hired help and fired him. This meant the extra work they took on, was now being done by the husband so he couldn’t work for us. Why we should it be us who suffered?
The first week in November, their house was robbed. Not believing in the abilities of the police, they tracked down the culprit and held him at bay until the cops came. They were then too upset to work. The next week their son got sick so they didn’t show up.
However, they did want money for what they had done. We paid an installment then they took off for Calgary to buy a dirt bike which cost exactly what we had paid. Coincidence? On the way home, a rock hit their windshield and that took a week to fix (any Albertan knows replacing an entire windshield every time you get a rock chip is a waste of money). At the time, Calgary had more COVID-19 cases than here so I was glad they stayed away.
They tiled the walk-in shower floor and by the beginning of December (yeah, we wondered where November went, too), they had tiled one of the three walls. Then the husband got COVID, or so he thought. Two clients dumped him as we waited for him to be tested. Turns out he suffered from a hereditary condition and was negative for COVID-19. By this time, it was Christmas. Do you remember how long the job was supposed to take? Yes, two weeks. It was now three months.
After New Year’s, they tiled the shower walls, but they had issues fitting the tiles around the curb between the marble-pebble shower floor and the bathroom floor. Several tiles were broken so this required buying a new box of tiles and of course, the new ones weren’t the same size. Mid-month, they got the powder room floor done and seated the new toilet.
Then the wheels fell off the cart (and you were thinking that they already had). The husband fought with a client over wearing a mask so we became his only paying customer. Then, the couple split up! Worse, the husband left the country! He drove a sports car so insisted his wife travel in her truck with all his tools down to Arizona. So began her first, two week quarantine.
Glen, fed up with “island time”, plastered and painted the two rooms. The wife helped him bring up the vanities then returned to the U.S. with the Calgary-bought dirt bike. Quarantine number two.
We soon discovered the plumbing for the sinks wouldn’t work with the new vanities so had a plumber fix the problem. Back in August, when we chose the vanities, we could also buy a custom-made, pre-formed counter/sink. We decided against this so when we measured them for the quartz countertops we’d chosen, the standard sinks we ordered didn’t fit.
By this time it was mid February, and “island time” was a phase I began loathing. The wife came out of quarantine and began tiling the shower walls and ensuite floor. She was now a single parent so several planned work sessions were cancelled due to commitments to her son. However, she did choose two beautiful sinks that would work with the vanities and our quartz counters.
Meanwhile, Glen hung the mirrors and increased the width of the vanities so our faucets would work. By mid-March, the tiling was done and grouted.
Easter saw us blessed with new counter tops. The plumber returned to install the sinks and adjustable shower head. Three weeks later, the shower glass was installed. Glen then cut, painted, and installed the baseboards and seated the ensuite toilet (he’s done this many times as our daughter loved tossing ‘stuff’ down the toilet and flushing).
It was a great day when we moved out of the guest bathroom and into our new ones.
If you add “island” time and “COVID” time to “bathroom renovation” time, it is equal to “baby” time — NINE months!
