Bathroom Renovation: Painting Touch-Ups, Plumbing, Toilet Trauma

I've decided to write a general sequence of the bathroom renovation progress instead of the daily stress we were having to deal with after the initial calm start. The first part of this project was to complete the guest bathroom downstairs so mom could use it while her bathroom was being renovated.

The electricians came in and changed the direction of the lights they'd installed. I was worried about the bugs and dust that could fall in.

The mirror with storage was installed, but was cheaper and flimsier looking than what we expected so the contractor said he would order another one.

We'd asked for a faucet with a hot and cold water handle which would be less confusing for mom. But this one control faucet was installed. The contractor said he would order the correct one.

Then the Costco Toto toilet we ordered was installed.

To our shock, the floor to seat was higher than what we expected.

The diagram showed that the height was supposed to be 15.6875" from floor to seat.

When we looked at the box the toilet came in AFTER it was installed, it said it was rim and 17.6875" to 16.5625" to the bowl the seat. 

That's when we saw that the specifications is DIFFERENT from the diagram. Arrghh!

We'd bought it at Costco because the contractor had told us that the cost of a Toto toilet would range from $2,200-$7,600 a piece and he’d have to raise our contract price by as much as 20%-40%.

However, when mom sat on the Costco toilet her feet were dangling in the air!

So we decided to bite the bullet and go to The Bathroom Store and just pay the money for a shorter Toto toilet. What a shock when the sales representative, 'Steve' told us they were having a 25% discount so it actually cost us $536.39! The Costco Toto toilet was $748.99 with shipping included. But then there's the tax. Steve also told us the Board of Water supply would be giving $100 rebates for water efficient toilets unless they run out of funds.

When I told the contractor about our upset, he said he would make it right and bring the 2 Costco toilets to the store for refunds. We then bought an additional low toilet from The Bathroom Store the next day. 

Sigh... 

On to the next problem...

When the bathroom door was cut at the bottom to fit, some of the wood veneer skin on the lauan door flaked off. 

It's an old door. 

It happens.

The contractor suggested we buy a roll of the veneer banding on Amazon.

Art hated to buy 25 feet of this banding for such a short bit we needed so he decided to glue the loose, thin veneers on both sides of the door. He then found a thin slat from his wood scrap stockpile, painted it the same color as the trim in the bathroom and glued it on.

Then I asked the contractor if I could now apply some clear caulk to the spaces on the grab bars. He did not recommend it saying it's bound to peel off and mold would just settle on top of the caulk.

I looked online and found this on GrabBars.com. 

You don’t have to caulk around shower grab bars; however, we do recommend applying a silicone sealant around grab bars in your shower. This will help prevent water from seeping into the holes where the grab bar is mounted, which could cause mold or mildew growth.

The best and easiest way to ensure your shower grab bars are their most secure and durable is to apply a silicone sealant around the upper half after they have been professionally installed into the tiles or shower wall. The silicone sealant will block out any moisture from getting behind the flange covers. If you do not seal around the upper half of your grab bar, water will get behind the flange covers, sit there, and begin to rust the stainless steel grab bars over time. This would then require you to replace the damaged grab bars.

So I did it. I caulked all the spaces.

However.... Arrghhh... When I asked Josh, the plumber about it, he said I should use a special silicon caulk. Doggone it!

Sigh...

So here we are now.

The lower Toto toilet and bidet have replaced the taller Costco toilet.

There's still the shower bar to go up so the height of the spray can be adjusted to mom's height.

Knobs have to be installed on the the new cabinet doors. The fan is still missing.

Shelf liners need to be placed. 

However, the contractor says mom can use the shower now.

She'll have to because he's already started the demolition of her bathroom although he said we could have two days to acclimate mom to the new configuration of the guest shower. 

POSTSCRIPT 1:

We had a confrontation with the contractor who suddenly arrived in the evening. He told us we are the most difficult people he's had to work with and we'd caused him quite a bit of consternation. He reminded us that he's had excellent YELP reviews. And yes, he has. That's why Art chose him.

I told him the debacle of the toilet choice and then getting fixtures installed that we hadn't chosen really made us lose confidence in him. He said the erroneous price information he gave us was because his previous client had asked for an extremely expensive toilet and he thought we might too. 

He said everything would be remedied with a punch list that we could provide just as he fixed the problem with the lower Toto toilets and nicer vanity mirror he installed.

So there's hope. Perhaps it will go better from this on end. 

We'll see.

POSTSCRIPT 2:

Since the contractor was pretty frustrated with us being frustrated with him, we decided to just return the Costco toilets ourselves instead of waiting for him to do it as he said he would. Our neighbor helped us load the toilets into our van and my brother and sister-in-law met us at Costco and helped us load it onto a cart to return them. The one saving grace was that when I explained what happened to the return desk, they immediately accepted the toilets and refunded us everything including the shipping! It was that easy. I was amazed!

Finally... something easy. Sigh...

POSTSCRIPT 3: (July 6th after over a month and a half of renovation)

A couple of weeks later the contractor arrived at our dinner time because he was upset that we were still angry and didn't seem to trust him. We were able to talk everything through. 

We explained that this all began with him sending us the text that our price would be raised 20%-40% if we chose the Toto toilet, installing fixtures we hadn’t chosen and also putting in other items that appeared cheaper than what we expected. He says that he never meant he would have to raise our price. He meant he would then have to raise his own costs. He asked why we didn’t go to the Bathroom Store. We told him it was because he sent us to a website that showed Toto toilets only in the $2,000 to $8,000 price range. And so it went.

I kept thinking back to when I was teaching my first graders a unit on how to manage arguments and confrontations. I used it on myself to control how I reacted to what he was saying. In the end, believe it or not... we were at a healthier place 🤞and he smiled and said he'd like to be friends. We do too.