I had seen so many people start renovations and begin DIY'ing their home that I was actually anxious to begin a project myself. For a bit of background, please read HERE.
We had used THIS picture from Pinterest as inspiration (very loosely based inspiration as this bathroom is much larger than ours).
Since I was on vacation and would be able to be more involved, I thought, what I better time than now. Contractor awesome, during a vacation and pandemic only leads to stress and problems no matter how relaxed you promise yourself you are going to be.
As a reminder, here is what we were working with;
Lets go into the debacle of what I encountered when I ordered from Home Depot and had them ship to our home. Key word for me should've been Home Depot. I have NEVER had a good experience ordering ship to home from them EVER. We normally order from Lowe's, but the shipping was so costly and honestly I didn't love everything I was ordering like I did from Home Depot, so we went with the latter.
Now, I will say with the exception of the subway tile, we did receive everything in a timely manner and many of what we ordered arrived before the expected date. However with all the good we experienced, the problem that we endured with the subway tile negated ANYTHING else that occurred.
The subway tile was a complete and utter fiasco and might I say, a shit show. First off, of everything that we ordered, the item that needed to be delivered first was the subway tile. It had an expected delivered of October 28. Then I watched it sit in Pompano Beach from the 30th to November 2 (the 2nd date I was then promised it would be delivered by). Keep in mind, this location is only about 30 minutes from my home. I called AAA transportation which is where it was chilling and first someone picked up and promptly hung up and then I called back, they picked up again where I was forced to listen to their personal conversation for about 3 minutes and where they hadn't the decency for myself or the other person to put me on hold. Then the woman told me she had no idea why I hadn't gotten it and wasn't "that strange". She then proceeded to let me know that it was not on the shipping dock which meant that it was on a truck and it would be delivered next day of which she verified that with me twice.
Next day it says it is out for delivery and slowly the day ticks away at at 4pm we still do not have the tile. The transportation company closes at 5pm (how convenient) and I spoke to a woman there again (not the same one) who told me it was out for delivery and wanted to know if I still wanted it delivered that day. "Ummmm, of course I do! I am paying for a contractor who is waiting for this tile, so yeah...deliver it today!" Around 630/7pm we get a call from the driver who speaks to the Hubs and says that he is half an hour away but were we called by the company to tell us what happened to our delivery. He proceeds to tell us that we have several boxes that are "missing" they have no idea what has happened to them and it is up to us if we still want what they have. SInce we had no idea what was happening we waited for the driver. When he proceeded to show up, he couldn't confirm how many boxes were in the original shipment which is crazy and he had no idea what was there. He estimated between 4-6 and when I looked at the boxes, they definitely had been opened by a box cutter or a pair of scissors as it was a clean cut and the top of the freight (all the wrapping) was all opened. It was so deplorable that my mouth literally dropped. Hubs refused the shipment and every expletive came out of my mouth when we got back in the house...sorry kids. How do I speak to two people and neither one of them think to say "hey, there is a problem with your shipment", which leads me to believe that it happened there.
Oh, but friends, it doesn't stop there. I proceed to call Home Depot Customer service and I will make this part brief and I will preface this by saying the customer service agent was VERY sweet, but I am sorry but being in a customer service-y kind of profession myself (higher education) after two hours (let that sink in) of being on the phone, if you cannot resolve the issue and the individual on the phone at the end has now requested to speak to a supervisor, you transfer said person to a damn supervisor. I got so fed up that I handed the phone to Hubs and she finally admitted that she was new. We spent two hours on the phone and now were encroaching on three (I wish I was kidding) and now you are admitting this?! I understand that you do not want to get into trouble or make it look like you can't handle your job, but THREE HOURS on election night when everyone is so anxious to begin with is bleeping crazy. I even began trouble-shooting with her on the phone because I am pretty darn good with IT stuff and she began to giggle at all my suggestions which at that point we went from us being cool with one another to me being infuriated. You don't know how to resolve my issue, but you are not even going to do ANY of my suggestions which would resolve the issue and let me get back to my kids which is why I wanted a supervisor and requested one twice.
And the nail in the coffin of why I will NEVER shop Home Depot again is when Hubs called the following morning to get the issue resolved, you know how long it took?! 20 freaking minutes!!! I get that she is new and training and I 100% know that you best learn when thrown to the wolves, but there needs to be a point where you need to say to the customer "I am new and I think we should escalate this, you have wasted too much of your time for us to be going around in circles". I would have understood and completely had respect for the situation and maybe a better taste in my mouth when it comes to Home Depot. Instead three hours of my life, vacation, sanity, and most importantly time with my kids was taken away because she was not trained on how to deescalate a situation properly. Use this a teaching tool Home Depot.
UPDATE: nothing was resolved, they never re-ordered the shipment and they just gave my husband a refund, but had never communicated this with us. In fact, we didn't even know this took place until we call on Monday to get an update and the individual literally stated "what re-order." So you know what we did...ordered from Lowe's. You know what came in absolutely perfect and without any issue...our order from Lowe's...you know where I will not order from again...you guessed it?! Home Depot....have I mentioned what a great teaching opportunity this should be for customer service.
UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: A week and a half after the shipment was due, we hear a random knock on the door and AAA transportation is at our house with our tile and then proceeds to be shocked when we refuse the shipment and tell him why. Let that sink in...a week and a half AFTER it was already supposed to be delivered. Hullo Home Depot?! Some people are paying tile people and cannot wait that long. Thank you Lowe's for coming through like a responsible retailer.
In other news, this became the current state of affairs.
A couple of inbetween stages pictures including the time we brought in the vanity only to remember that the floor hadn't been done yet, but it gave us an idea of what the vanity would look like in the space (do I sound like an interior designer blogger now) as well as to have the discussion of how high the tile should come up. So, totally on purpose....cue shrugging emoji.
The step of death is officially gone and I couldn't be happier. In the house dubbed" wow, I have never seen this before" by every contractor, handy person, electrician plumber, etc. who has stepped into our home, this bathroom was no different. Our current contractor found wood planking that was never intended for the shower (which caused black mold and luckily hadn't escalated) as well as an electrical wire (an actual cable wire through the shower to hook up a tv) that ran through our shower (let that sink in) and a dry wall screw that served no purpose until we realized it was from the other side of the wall, since when it was extracted our entire guest bedroom closet collapsed (thankfully no one was in there at the time). In his words, the bathroom was basically put together with duct tape.
Oh and the icing on the cake was that the step served no purpose, it was done with concrete blocks and was simply done for aesthetic reasons. Another let that sink in moment. The. Step. Was. Aesthetically. On. Purpose. Cue face palm emoji.
So when this happened...
all we could do was look at each other...shrug and say "I guess we are doing the closets too..." And yes, my husbands stuff is in what will be the Commodore's room...don't judge, I know half of you are in the same boat.
The bathroom took a little longer than anticipated since in order to get what we wanted (updated handles) we had to re-route the plumbing which pushed the tile guy back since he had other jobs lined up and he had to circle back to us. A 100% worth the wait! He is a guru of tile and I cannot believe how quickly he tiled the bathroom and how perfect it looked based on a quick looksie I gave him of the above "inspiration" photo. This was two days...TWO...and technically it was only one because the floor legit took him twenty minutes and he peaced out for the rest of the day.
I have never been so thankful to find a contractor who lived in our neighborhood and shared our aesthetic and was able to run with everything we were looking to achieve even with the barriers.
Next up was grout. I was most excited about this as I see grout as icing on the cake and I was super excited about the idea of charcoal grout. But it is always a little nerve wracking when you have an idea in your head of how you want something to look and you have no idea how it is going to transition in your space or if it will at all (hullo crop tops at over 40). Especially since I was going by someone else's space and not our own. We have talked before that I buy things because I like them and not necessarily because I know they will fit in the area and it is always a 50/50 with me if it works out. So far, everything we have picked out for this space has been perfect, so it is just about waiting for the other shoe to drop. Lucky for us, it was a complete and utter winner.
The Hubs had me second guess myself because the floor had so much white and he began to think that going back to our traditional Delorean Gray was the way to go, but once we walked back into the bathroom again, the black of the design aligned up in a way and there was enough of space that if the Delorean Gray was used it would look really broken up and not connected (trust me, this makes sense in my head). So we stuck to our guns and boy am I glad we did.
Excuse the eggshell coloring of the pictures, but I was taking them in evening and we used warm colored lightbulbs so it makes everything look cream colored.
Full steam ahead and this is the finished product.
I absolutely love it! The space looks huge without the step and I didn't think I was ever going to love white wall paint, but it totally transformed the space.
Also, how do you not buy Baby Yoda (Grogu?) Christmas Towels when they are offered on Target...I digress.
Anywho....Our plan is to buy a glass door for the shower, so for right now we are just going to use our original shower curtain until we can get what we like and have it installed.
I already have a "spa" day planned for EV complete with bathtub water paints, all the bath bombs and piggy paint nail polish. Finally being able to step out of a tub and not be scared to fracture a rib or break a foot has been glorious (its the little things y'all).
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