“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”

In spite of my desire to get here more often to hammer out my thoughts about my life and the world in general, it's been two months since I've written anything.  I've missed a lot of opportunities to write because a lot has happened.  The more that happens, the busier I get and the less time I carve out for things like this (which, ironically, helps me unwind).

I have just completed the first week of a new job that I took over a month ago - I waited until the bonus paid out at the previous job, took a week off between the two job (more on this later) before starting at the new job.  In short, though, at the conclusion of the first week on the job - I'm feeling pretty good about this change.  It's a step up in both pay and responsibility, it's closer to my house and I have the ability to control my own destiny.  There's less flexibility - and that may cause problems but I'll work that out at a later date.

The bathroom disaster in this house has, somehow, gotten worse.  The contractor that has been the 'go to' guy for the duration of ownership of this house (and most of the previous house) - screwed up part of the tile job.

The first of several red flags was that the floor wasn't pitched properly to drain water.  This was discovered right after the glass shop told me that they couldn't install the glass wall because the stub walls were out of plumb.  When I called the contractor who built the shower and installed the tile, he swore up and down that the walls were plumb.  I told him that he could bring a 6' level and check it himself.  When I told him the floor didn't drain properly - his response was that he could remove the tile around the drain, skim coat and replace those tiles.  I know enough to know that wasn't going to work. 

Mostly because the actual drain itself isn't level.  The *real* answer is that there's no 'quick fix' - the drain has to be removed and the floor has to be removed - and the liner would have to be replaced because it won't survive all of that.  That also meant removing at least the bottom row of tile on the wall.  See where this is going?

So now I've got, at minimum, a floor that has to come out with the liner, the drain and one row of tile.  I kept looking and it didn't take long to find the next red flag.

This is the right corner of the shower wall - the whole wall seemed to move with very slight pressure - as in "I leaned on it" and found that all of the grout was cracked from floor to ceiling.  Knowing that he'd cut corners so many times prior to this in this project with what I'd found - I suspected there was no waterproofing underneath the grout.

Once I reached this point, I checked the grout spacing against the manufacturer's direction and, surprise!  It's double the maximum spacing indicated by the grout manufacturer.
The drain wasn't level and the floor retained water and his evasive responses left me to wonder what else he didn't install properly so I decided to tear it all out and find out.

I'm no tile expert but I do know that when tile is properly set, it doesn't come off of the wall/floor intact after having set for over a week.  Furthermore, I know that mortar should be stuck to the mounting side of the tile.

I took the shower down in a haze of anger at what I was finding so a lot of them fell off of the wall and broke when they hit the floor - easily 80% of them came off of the wall intact.

Then, when I thought it had peaked - I found the worst part of the whole thing - the shower liner and the $600 Schluter drain system.

Again, I know very little about how this stuff is supposed to be installed but I am pretty sure that the point of a shower liner is to keep water INSIDE of the liner.

The drain was not level because it wasn't installed properly and the liner was cut because someone doesn't know how to admit that he's fucked up.  He thought it would be buried/forgotten about and not leak. 

I removed the $600 drain and threw it into the dumpster (it can't be reused) and kept working.

This is more proof that he had no fucking clue what he was doing.  There was a triangle cut out of the subfloor so that he could get to the hose clamp for the drain - apparently, a lack of a plan has a suitable solution of hacking the shit out of something that he could bury in concrete.

When I contacted him a second time with pictures of his handiwork, his reply was 'your on your own at this point'.  (The spelling error is his, not mine).  This will not be the last he hears from me but I'm focused on getting this thing back together because it's been too long and I know where to find him when I'm ready to get my money back.

Some day, this bathroom will be back together and functional - and then I can tear up the other bathroom and not repeat this fucking nightmare. 

Between this bathroom and my new job - I have time and energy for little else.