Originally Posted by
Ker_Thwap
You don't really want to read all of this, I'm just venting... again.
Friday, I volunteered to help a friend re-do her bathroom floor. It had a sheet of curling 1980s vinyl over some 1940's linoleum. The plan we agreed on was to pull the toilet, pry up the sheet of vinyl, treat the surface of the linoleum, cut and paste the tiles in, replace the toilet. Boom, a one hour job.
When I arrive, she has the top layer pulled off, and she's digging into the dry cork dust brittle linoleum layer, exposing a section of the poorly installed and rotting hardwood floor. The linoleum is glued to a layer of thick paper/thin cardboard, which is glued to the wood. The sink/vanity is also now in play, and has to removed. The shut off valves are broken, and will need to be replaced. After an hour we scrape down the the paper, there's pretty much no way to smooth this enough to put on the tile.
She now wants to keep the hardwood. I explain this is a terrible idea, the wood is stained, rotted and has gaps between the boards. The toilet will be sitting a quarter in up in the air and will be wobbly unless it's shimmed, because I'm sure as hell not going to reinstall the cast iron drain pipe to the new floor level. My cat allergies are kicking in, it's going to take ten hours of labor to get the wood floor right. She says, don't worry about it, she'll do the wood floor part on her own. We soak down the paper sticking to the floor with some water, it turns into a brown slurry, and we get most of the paper off after another two hours. My throat is closing up, my nose is closed, I have to dash out of there. I reinstall the toilet, and warn her it's going to be tippy and she should pop some wedges under it. I left her to clean up the traces of slurry, and suggest she leave the bathroom window up, so it can dry.
I woke up about ten times Friday night gasping for breath, as I couldn't breathe through my nose.
Saturday, I return. She tells me the toilet is wobbling. She didn't bother cleaning the floor, and closed the bathroom window overnight. So, I'm working in a damp mess. I install the new valves, put the vanity back in place. The copper sink drainspout from the 1980s remodel snaps, another trip to the store. Another two hours in the house of cat, I did manage to get out before my throat closed up. I still slept like crap last night.
She now wants to put a wall sink in to replace the crappy vanity/sink combo. This would actually be a great idea, if not for the crappy pretend tile paneling that's on the walls. When it was installed, they just roughed out the holes for the pipes, knowing a vanity was going to cover the mess. The kicker, is that she's selling the house. I'd happily help a friend do a complete bathroom renovation, if they were keeping the house, but I have zero desire to provide more than a minimal amount of labor just to put it on the market.
Reply With Quote
