Sometimes projects are just too big to handle alone. No matter how much I wish I could learn every skill in the whole world, it’s just not feasible. So…when that happens you call in back up. Last time I wrote about the basement I talked briefly about our process of finding contractors. Tonight I’m going to tell you about our plumbers–and one of the most awkward things I’ve done over the last calendar year.
But before I get to that…let me just say that making a bathroom from scratch is a lot of work. And it’s complicated. We tried to tell ourselves that part of it was ready…since there was a floor drain. Okay, maybe that was just my wishful thinking. The reality was that drain in the floor or not, making a bathroom where there was formerly only a cement floor and cement walls was a real challenge.
So the weirdness begins. Derek and I are not architects. {Even though in my restless college years I did a semester as an interior design major…so I’m somewhat savvy with drawing up floor plans. Somewhat.} However, we drew up our own plans, on graph paper, to a very rough scale. We went to the hardware store and looked at tubs and toilets and sinks. The whole shebang. Then came home and figured how it would fit in the space we had. We made a plan.
Then the plumbers showed up.
They’d already come for the estimate and a second visit–when Derek was actually able to be home–to go over details. So on the day they arrived ready to jack hammer up the floor I thought everything was already in order.
But they had questions. And suddenly there was an issue with putting a tub in. And there was a question about how far the pipes could reach. And it would all end up costing more money than planned. And did I really want that? And how should they proceed? And how big is the exact unit that was going in?
I dug out the highly accurate floor plan we had made up–but the questions still remained and Derek was at work. So, I made some choices. I changed the plan. This was one of the most stressful mornings of my recent life. I axed the bathtub and shower combo, instead opting for a shower stall…which seems very small in theory.
While they tore up the floor, I stewed upstairs hoping that Derek wouldn’t hate the choices I’d made, and that a three foot shower would be big enough to hold a grown-up-sized showerer.
When they left, there was a hole in the floor and our job was to fix it–which you can read about in the last basement post.
In the end, it all ended up just fine. After the floor had been cured and we’d added studs for an additional wall–the downside of my choice for a shower stall…one more wall to frame–they plumbers came back and put in the shower. Derek is a genius, so he installed the toilet and sink for us. Things were really starting to look finished–then we turned on the shower.
As great as the plumbers had been, they made one little mistake. The shower faucet didn’t work properly. The “on” was “off”, the middle of the temperature gauge made the water hot…while cold was warm and hot was cool. Weird. A simple phone call and they offered to come back and fix it. Which leads me to a very. embarrassing. morning.
When I got on the phone with the man in charge of our project, he told me the crew would be by mid-morning–probably around 10:30 am. Cool. That’s great.
I wake up on the morning of the appointment. It’s 8am. I get up, throw on some grubby gym clothes. Stretchy pants and an athletic, long sleeved t-shirt. It’s purple {you know how I am with purple clothes.} It’s the kind with a weird athletic hood. You know, with a perfect circle for your head to go through–very effective for outdoor running, very stupid looking in real life. To paint a perfect picture, I need to tell you that I typically go to bed with wet hair. I sleep on it and it gets crazy and wavy overnight. In the morning I tame it down…but first thing in the morning, it’s a curly, beach-head mess.
So I throw on the t-shirt. As I pull it on, the hood catches up over my head. Totally fine, because I’m cold anyway, and no one is in the house to mock my appearance.
Since I’ve got some time, I clean the bathroom upstairs and get laundry together. Meanwhile, Panda {the world’s most precious baby angel cat} is meowing, meowing, meowing. Because, although she is adorable and my BFF, she’s also addicted to food–and in the morning she demands her breakfast.
I finish rinsing the sink, flush the freshly scrubbed toilet and grab two laundry baskets stacked on top of each other filled with clothes. Hood still up, hair still a mess, I head downstairs. It’s 8:30am.
As I descend the stairs I loudly declare in a sing-song voice, “It’s breakfast time for babies!” I’m obviously talking to Panda. She’s a baby angel, after all. And that’s just kind of how I talk to my cat–whether I’m alone in the house or not. I can’t help it. I’m weird. And in this moment, I looked really weird too. Like a purple scuba diver without a mask. Then it happens. From the kitchen I hear,
“Hello?”
It’s a man’s deep voice and it’s not Derek. For a split second I freak out. Then I see who it is. The plumbers. One standing on my kitchen mat, the other just outside on the deck.
“Mrs. Smith?”
Oh. My gosh.
Quick. I pull the hood off my head, run a hand through that crazy mane and sit the basket of dirty sports bras on the table.
“Hey, yeah. Morning…I was just, uh…”
“We knocked and knocked but you didn’t answer. Sorry for trying the door. It was unlocked.”
Ahh, yes, knocking while the water was running and the toilet was flushing. “I was just talking to my cat.”
“What?”
“What? I mean…I need to feed my cat. But that can wait. She’s too fat anyway.”
Blank stare.
“Nate said you guys wouldn’t be by until mid-morning.”
“Nope this is our first stop.”
“Okay…well, let’s go downstairs…”
Happy Friday. Try not to be too awkward this weekend. The bathroom is hard to get in a picture, but I did my best. Better, non-phone photos are coming next week.
Amy
