Things that went wrong.

So I did want to detail a few things that went wrong in the renovation. Nothing major and nothing I want to tear up and fix but things that a little (more?) foresight would have prevented.

• Contracting is your work, cleanup is mine Life is busy, I wanted to do some work myself. It's hard to tell how much to trust the contractor. But I would have been much better off if, each day when the contractor's men left, I went in and swept up the mess. Cleaning, picking up the shavings, throwing out the lunch bags, just gives you the right, floor level view, of the work that's been done. "Inspecting" can be done too fast, you can't see under the mess, but cleaning gives you a great view, as well as giving the contractor a fresh start the next morning.



• People cost more than things I've certainly learned this in the world of work, that if costly software and really expensive computers save you ANY labor, it's more than worth it. In remodeling, this means that there's really no point in me saving a bundle on fixtures, when it's the labor costs that are going to completely sink me. I bought a very nice bathtub at the ReStore for $50 but I needed a bathtub that was enclosed on TWO sides -- the labor for creating an enclosure on the 2nd side is going to be at least $100.
  
  
  
  
• Level, but not level. There's no doubt that you have to find the right contractor to work on an old house. I thought I'd picked well, because he and I agreed on the type of floor which would be perfect -- brick laid over crusherfine and sand. However it turns out that his motto was "we'll make the rest of your house look like crap" had a hidden truth in it -- if the corner wasn't straight he couldn't bend to meet it, if the wall was uneven, oh well, his flooring was straight -- the gap was my problem. So despite my repeated entreaties to make the floor level with the two thresholds, not with absolute, we wound up with a half inch drop to the kid bedroom -- a hard brick drop -- talk about a trip hazard. What would have fixed this? A written list of my "goals" for each part of the project, posted in the bathroom.
  
  
  
  
• Half walls vs. full walls. In my mind's eye, plumbing is underneath the floor. Despite discussing with the plumber where the vents went, I didn't clue in that the plumber needed a full view as well as a floor plan. He ran a vent pipe up where there was only supposed to be a half wall -- it got rerouted but still didn't wind up in the correct place. What would have fixed this? If we'd marked on the floor plan and posted that in the room, I would have known the pipe was going to stick up in the middle of the room.
  
  
  
• Get the tub in I didn't know how much room was required for code behind the shower end of the tub or between the tub and the wall. This was rather critical because there was a tight turn between the sink and the tub -- my plans "worked" only if everything was snug. It wasn't the plumber's job to maximize floor space. I kept asking the contractor's men if they had measured the tub, but what needed to happen was that we needed to MOVE THE TUB INTO THE BATHROOM AND LOOK AT IT IN PLACE. Then we needed to mark the (floor) bricks and notify the plumber of the marks. Instead it sat in the yard, unmeasured, and the plumber put the pipes in the wrong place, losing us almost a foot.
  
  
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  Don't puncture the structure In a "real" house with 2x4 framing you can open any wall and run plumbing and electrical behind the sheetrock; generally your problem is a concrete slab floor. In a new adobe house you can carve channels in the adobe wall with abandon (almost). However, in an old adobe with questionable walls you have to pause before you poke, carve, and change. The walls stand for so long, with so much damage, but do you really want to bring this wall down by hanging a mirror on it? I remembered this for the mirror over the sink but forgot that the washer and dryer needed hot and cold water in, cleanouts (two), and a drain. The plumber took one look and asked the contractor for a box in front of the wall -- so that each of these items pierced the wall, but did not require an excavated channel. That was a wise decision but it lost us four inches and brought the washer and dryer uncomfortably close to the tub.
  
  



• The best laid plans So what happened to the greywater? We got exhausted after five weeks without a bathroom. I forgot I'd ever cared. Now, that's only a mild regret. What I really regret is not having put in a drain. If you have an uneven bathroom floor, or if you put the washer in the bathroom, or if you live in a house who's structural integrity requires the floors to stay dry, there should be a drain in the bathroom. I really wish I'd added a drain in the vicinity of the washer -- just so that I could control the flow of water in the case of an overflow. And it would be nice to have had the greywater plumbing. And the pipes for radiant heat (which we scotched when I was told it would take a 4th plumbing inspection). Oh well.