Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Aaaw Hell

Second son got married last year and they're trying to blend two households. Seriously, they're living in her house while remodeling his. The plan is that when his house is suitable for a feminine occupant they'll move to his house and sell hers. So, we're in the throes of a huge remodeling project. One that involves carpentry at the basic, framing and square level. Electrical wiring. Plumbing. All the goodies.

Matt owns a craftsman style house. It's about ten years old and was a bachelor house with two bedrooms and two baths. It was built by a guy who did fine woodworking and the detail is simply amazing. The only problem is that it was kind of small. We've extended the living room and master bedroom, installed a huge closet, done all the necessary framing, installed floors, floated drywall, installed doors and windows. The next project prior to move-in was to refurbish the master bath. His lady wanted a jacuzzi, jet-type tub. There was no tub in that bathroom, the guy living there had installed a really nice one-piece shower. It succumbed to the sawzall and was loaded in the scrap trailer.

Matt and his lady ordered a tub and we began by tearing out a wall and the old closet to lengthen the bathroom. Today we installed the new wall, but before we finished framing, we put the new tub in the bathroom, still in the box. The plan was to rough-install drywall then rough-in the plumbing, so before we quit today we cracked open the box holding the tub to get an idea of how we'd have to install the fixtures and drains. Wrong tub. It's the proper brand and all the model numbers on the box are correct, but it's the wrong tub. No jets. It looks like someone at the factory put the wrong tub in the right box.

Well, hell. We had to tear a couple of studs out of the new wall to get the tub out of the room, and he headed to Lowe's to make someone's day. As I type this, there's some guy at Lowe's with a very pissed off customer. Truly, truly pissed. Wrong bathtub. Project on hold. Exceedingly pissed.

I don't know if I'll be doing any plumbing over at his house tomorrow. Then again, I could profitably spend the day by mowing the yard.

2 comments:

Old NFO said...

Better BEFORE install than after... :-)

El Capitan said...

I feel your pain...

Mom insisted on a new clawfoot tub to replace her grotty old tile shower, and the easiest way to get the tub inside the house was to cut a hole in the exterior wall, rather than tear out an interior closet, doorway and built-in vanity to get it inside the bathroom.

I was unhappy that my parents bought a house with the brick veneer on only three sides, but not having brick on the rear of the house turned out to be a benefit!