A major renovation — and a bit of a disaster

We’ve lived in this house for seventeen years, and our floor tile was showing its age. It hadn’t been the best quality in the first place, and it chipped and pitted at the slightest excuse. In addition, it was beige, and I’m royally tired of browns, tans, and beiges! We made the decision to replace all of the tile, this time with porcelain tile of much better quality. Of course, having someone working on the flooring means that all of the furniture had to be moved out, so we spent a couple of weeks packing up books, pictures, and the other things that personalize a home, and then we moved the furniture to the garage and to the two bedrooms that were going to keep their carpeting. We used sheets of plastic and strong tape to close off kitchen cabinets, closets, and anything else that needed protection, and then we left on the cruise I’ve been telling you about. One of our daughters came over each day to unlock the house and lock it up again when the workers were finished.

This is what a couple of the rooms looked like before the new tile went in. Isn’t that laminate flooring in the living room just crying out to be replaced? 😉

We came home at around 10PM on a Sunday and walked in the door to thick dust on every surface. We’d expected some mess, but this was beyond anything we’d anticipated! Okay, the bedrooms were still habitable (though crowded with furniture), so we unpacked and went to bed. We spent the next two days cleaning: we vacuumed walls and windows, swept and mopped floors, cleaned splattered grout off of walls and window blinds, scrubbed bathrooms, etc. On the third day we moved the furniture back in and began the unpacking process. Once that was done, we were happy with the tile.

Here are the same rooms after the new tile went in! As you can see, the new tile is grey and rectangular instead of square.

All was well until yesterday, two weeks after coming home. That morning, the water in the bathrooms began refusing to drain; in fact, water was even leaking from the bottom of one of the toilets where it meets the floor! Ack! Have you ever tried to find a plumber on a Saturday? It’s not easy, believe me. (Note to self: schedule all future plumbing emergencies for weekdays.) We did find plumbers to come out, and they spent almost six hours working on our problem. What was that problem? Well, apparently the flooring people had dumped thin set down the toilet drain; thin set turns into something closely resembling concrete. Things seemed fine until the ball of solidified concrete reached an L-joint in the pipes, and that’s where it stopped dead. In addition, it seems that one of the toilets had been put back into place (they had to be removed during the work, of course) without a proper wax “honeycomb” in place. No wonder things were so bad!

But we’ve got all of the pipes back in order now, the floors are mopped, the cleanup towels are laundered, and I really do like the new tile!