One of the goals during our last trip to Phoenix was to get a few items knocked off our to-do list. The hope was to keep from having a ton of stuff that needs to get done right after we complete the 2 day drive down at the end of October. Since the trip was originally planned for nearly 2 weeks, it was a reasonable goal. When Japan came into the picture and our trip was cut to less than 6 days, it became a little more aggressive. Some clear priorities emerged – the most important item was getting our tub replaced before the end of the one year warranty. Why did we need a new tub? Unfortunately, at some point during construction a noxious liquid was allowed to sit in the tub for a prolonged period of time, seeping into the cultured marble and leaving an ugly yellow stain around the drain.
Getting a tub replaced in one day is apparently close to impossible. But the woman in the builder’s office made an extraordinary effort to get it done. The tear out and replacement was complete by 9 AM. It scared the hell out of me. The easiest way to removed a tub is to break it into pieces. As we sat in our living room, it sounded like World War III was happening over our heads. Then the new tub had to be carried up to the 3rd floor. Which also scared the hell out of me, but they managed to pull it off without putting any major dents in the walls. The first glitch happened at 10 AM, when the person scheduled to replace the surround pieces showed up 2 hours early, before the plumber had arrived. Okay, can’t expect perfection. The plumber was late (of course) so by the time the surround was installed and caulked, it was almost 2 PM. The last person arrived at 3, to patch and paint. Then we hit glitch #2 – the caulk was still wet, so he couldn’t tape it off to paint.
The company responsible for painting closes their office at 3 PM. It was Friday, so clearly we hit an impasse for the weekend. On Monday I was able to get the painting rescheduled for Tuesday morning. Since our flight was that afternoon, it was cutting it a little close. When the painter arrived he realized that he didn’t have the right paint color. This was in spite of my informing both the builder’s office and the painter’s office what paint color was needed. Funny, because the Friday painter actually saw the area that needed to be painted (white semi-gloss) and he was the person who gave the wrong color (tan flat) to the new painter. So I wasn’t sure whether to be more annoyed with the person who saw the room and still provided the wrong paint or with the person who accepted the wrong paint color even though he had been told by two other people what the color should be. Confused yet?
Fortunately, the paint store is very close to our house and he was able to get the correct color and get all of the work done well before we needed to leave. In addition to our round of musical tubs, we also managed to get all of the cabinet and drawer handles (38 total) installed in our kitchen. In theory, this should be easy to do. The DIY shows all seem to do this using a template to drill the holes, which makes it go quickly. The only problem is that you will end up with handles that are level and square to the cabinet doors, not necessarily to each other. And our cabinet doors are not all level and square to each other. Guess what your eye notices more? It was a painstaking process to get all of the handles level, but they look awesome. My contribution was primarily handing things to my husband, helping hold the long level and cleaning up the wood shavings after every thing was done.