January 24th they started the kitchen and foyer
floors. We're having slate installed in both places. The contractor we went with does only "wet-bed"
tiling. That means they put down a bed of "mud" to set and
dry before they do the tile work. They start by laying out black plastic on the
subfloor then
stapling a fine wire mesh over the plastic to the floor. Over the
mesh
they spread the compound and let it
set
overnight.
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Here's a stack of the slate
they're going to install. It should take them three days to
install it and three
days for it to cure. Once cured, we're
going to seal it to protect it from spills and stains. The sealing
should take 24hrs to dry - just in time for them to
install the hardwood floors
next Tuesday.
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Here's looking down at
the foyer. We're hoping between the slate curing and us sealing it,
we can replace
the stairs. We've been
staining, sanding, and polyurathaning for a week in preparation for the job.
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So I get to the house Tuesday night
after they've laid the wetbed and imediately rounding the steps I
smell
cigarette smoke. At first I thought maybe it was the
mud. I put my nose down close to the kitchen floor,
but it just
smells wet. Then I think maybe it's the slate or the boxes the slate
came in. Putting my nose
close to the boxes they smell like dirt
and cardboard. I kind of shrug it off. In the middle of all this I
also
notice my drill on the kitchen counter and a bag of foam
insulation. In preparation for the floor installation,
Jen
filled the gap between the drywall and subfloor with spray-in foam
insulation. At first I thought they
needed to remove some for
the slate, but realize they had taken it upon themselves to remove
it from
another part of the room they weren't responsible
for (not that they were responsible for any part of the
foam to
begin with). In moving the stair treads and risers around
to work on, I finally found the cigarette
evidence. In two
places I actually found ash on the treads and risers I was preparing
to polyurathane.
So now I'm pretty pissed. They've obviously
been to other parts of the house to rummage through my stuff
and
borrow my drill. They've smoked in my house. And they removed foam
insulation (the stuff ain't cheap)
we installed. What do
you do? I'm already stressed enough about how well the slate
will look, and now
their lack of profesionalism is making it
worse. Do I leave a note or call the main office to complain and
risk pissing them off? I just can't believe someone is
inconsiderate enough to smoke inside someone
else's house
without permission. I can't believe they were stupid enough to leave
the bag of foam on the
counter in plain sight. Couldn't they
have put the drill back? What the hell. I've put to much time,
work and
consideration into this place to have some loser treat
my home this way.
We decided to wait until today and see how
the slate looks. If it's great and meets our expectations
we'll
forgive the infractions.
If the quality of the installation is questionable, they'll hear about
it.
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It's beautiful! The entire house
now reeks of cigarettes, but it's beautiful. This picture
doesn't do it justice.
The more light you put on it, the
more colorful it is.
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This is a shot looking
down to the foyer. It does't show much of the tile, but I like the
shot anyway.
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Here's the foyer with lots of
light to show the colors and patterns.
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Alas! There is a problem. The slate in the foyer
is over 2" short of the door jam. It doesn't even match the
stair tread for the stairs going down. Using these pictures Jen
went into the store today and explained the
situation. They
argued a little, but in the end agreed to put another layer of slate
down in the foyer (it
doesn't exactly pop in and
out). I just hope it's as beautiful as the first layer. For
reference, the Wawa card
is the size of a credit
card.
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So they came back to
fix the foyer. They simply laid another layer of slate down overtop
the first. They
were supposed to be back 3 days ago to grout it,
but he called out sick and now they're doing the
hardwood. Who
knows when it will get finished.
In the mean time Jen I
decided to do a little work on our walls. The original casement
and baseboards was
this huge 8" stuff. When we took it off
the walls, it ripped the drywall in many places and left ridges in
the
years of paint in other places. All of this didn't
look so nice after the first coat of paint went on, so we
went back and sanded. We sanded and sanded. I think it was ten
hours on Saturday and six on Sunday
to sand the livingroom,
hallway, office and master bedroom. In the picture below you
can see what was
rough and unsightly now smooth and
finishable. You can also see the sanded material piling on the
floor
at the base of the
wall.
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All of our windows,
doors and baseboard areas had this nice halo around them when we
were
done.
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Sunday afternoon we
started painting.
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