Hole-y Shit!
May. 13th, 2021 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThey say when one door closes, another opens. That's kinda the way doors work in general, but in this case, it was a bathroom door opening to reveal a hole we're hoping won't open.
The bathroom renovation has been proceeding apace. Painting is essentially done, tiles removed from parts of the room have filled holes formerly occupied by a medicine cabinet and laundry chute we had drywalled over, and a new molding is on its way to separate the tiled bottom wall from the painted upper one from the door around sink and toilet to the edge of the tub. As Eleanor was working in the vicinity of the toidy over the weekend, she got to wondering about just how stable the floor tiles were behind it. There's always been a bit of play back there, but since we don't walk at all on them, or clean nearly as often as we should, it wasn't a big thing until something inspired her to check the floor below it in the cellar.
Rot. Lot of rot. Fortunately, an unrotted floor joist was right below the damage, so it's unlikely that a visit to the Throne will lead to either of our summary executions any time soon. But rot is rot, and has to be unrottened. We even could sort-of put our fingers on the cause.
I can only find one extant photo of the pertinent part of that bathroom as it looked before we moved in back in 1994:
You can't see hardly any of the floor. You can see the sealed-shut window I was trying to open (we replaced it), the still-there blue toilet, and the suit I felt the bizarre need to wear on a house-hunting trip on what was probably a Memorial Day weekend.
I was stupider back then.
If you had seen below my cuffs, it wouldn't have revealed what fun lay ahead. For the prior owners lovingly covered up the original floors in kitchen and bathroom with cheap single sheets of linoleum. The kitchen one covered a series of Peel-n-Stick tiles from the 50s that Eleanor (mostly) and I replaced within the past 15 years or so- but the bathroom coverup was cheaper and wetter and within the first five years, we'd ripped it out to reveal the original 50s Mosaic ("Scrabble tile," I always called it) that had been largely wrecked in its first 30-odd years of life. We had something similar in our bathroom floor growing up:
Like those. Only multicolored and with less grout. We ripped it out ourselves in 2000; I have bad memories of listening to the Mets-Yankees Subway World Series while slamming chisels into those fuckers and pretending they were Roger Clemens.
After that, among the relatively few professional repairs we made early on before our dot-com investments tanked, our jobs became less profitable and the kid's needs became more needy, we replaced that tile with a professional job from a local shop known for its quality workmanship. At least the quality workmanship of the tile, which has mostly held up for 20-odd years. What was lacking was their workmanship in refitting the Throne to the bathroom floor as tightly as it was to begin with. Four bolts came out; only two went back in.
Earlier this week, a neighbor referred her I Know A Guy, who came over to check the damage. He found one of the missing bolts on the floor of the cellar. He also quoted us around a grand for replacement of the rotted wood, and only that. We'd be responsible for removing the tile, the toilet and any sub-floor that was too permanently glued to the tile there. He also seemed less than thrilled with doing it for us. But then, the better lawyer in the house, the one who didn't go to school for it, tossed out a hypothetical:
Maybe our homeowners insurance would cover this.
It went against my grain. Um, insurance usually doesn't pay for ordinary wear and tear, or botched repairs that either we did ourselves or somebody did 20 years ago and we noticed too late to sue them. But as I discovered when we switched companies last year, there's all kinds of riders in them thar policies; we'd been paying for sump pump backup coverage for 25 years when we don't even have one in this house. So for giggles, she called this morning.
It's covered. An adjuster would look at it. Well, by day's end, he'd only looked at pictures Eleanor sent, but that was enough to get them to commit to a $4,000 budget to remove, repair and replace. As in not us swinging the heavy equipment this time.
We still have to find someone to do it within that, but unless the first guy was out of his mind, that should give us enough to work with. We'll also have to figure out alternate arrangements while the work goes on for both our bathroom needs (a downstairs half-bath is also in need of sprucing up) and those of the dog, who would drive any contractor crazy if she was in the house at the same time with just barking and whining.
We were with the previous homeowners company for close to 30 years and, other than two catastrophic regionwide storms in '91 and '06, we never made a claim for anything. So I have no guilt in getting what we've been paying and paying and paying for all these years.
----
Beyond the big news, a few updates:
- I got dressed up again today for another Teams call and again nobody saw me. This time, I’m pretty sure it’s because a humongous Windows update was sitting in my traybar waiting to install in “quiet hours” but was still clogging my entire memory until I could download and install it. Once again, I did the whole thing through the phone option where nobody could see how snazzy I looked.
So, for the record, Your Honor, here’s what you would’ve seen at 2 o’clock:P
At least this wasn't a holiday weekend with me in that monkey suit. And soon as I rebooted the computer after installing the update, Teams loaded pretty as you please. Nobody was there to see me, but I was back in grubbies by then anyway.
- If you saw my post yesterday about the Tralf, it briefly contained a horrid inaccuracy that I quickly fixed, but it still somewhat misinterprets the reported cause of the venue's demise: apparently the place is closing primarily because their landlord, Arrested Development, is converting its "Theatre Place" building into residences. Which is kinda like builders tearing down acres of trees and then naming the streets and office parks after them.) There are already rumors about the Tralf rising again not far from where they've been the past 40 years. I hope they're true.
- Zoey is doing much better in the eyegoo department. A second med arrived yesterday, an antiviral, and it only has to be dropped in her peepers twice a day as opposed to the every-six-hour routine with the antibiotic one. We're hoping to have her back in general circulation by the end of the weekend.
- Emily sent a Mothers Day card which arrived today.
And those are all the tiles I have to tell for now.
The bathroom renovation has been proceeding apace. Painting is essentially done, tiles removed from parts of the room have filled holes formerly occupied by a medicine cabinet and laundry chute we had drywalled over, and a new molding is on its way to separate the tiled bottom wall from the painted upper one from the door around sink and toilet to the edge of the tub. As Eleanor was working in the vicinity of the toidy over the weekend, she got to wondering about just how stable the floor tiles were behind it. There's always been a bit of play back there, but since we don't walk at all on them, or clean nearly as often as we should, it wasn't a big thing until something inspired her to check the floor below it in the cellar.
Rot. Lot of rot. Fortunately, an unrotted floor joist was right below the damage, so it's unlikely that a visit to the Throne will lead to either of our summary executions any time soon. But rot is rot, and has to be unrottened. We even could sort-of put our fingers on the cause.
I can only find one extant photo of the pertinent part of that bathroom as it looked before we moved in back in 1994:
You can't see hardly any of the floor. You can see the sealed-shut window I was trying to open (we replaced it), the still-there blue toilet, and the suit I felt the bizarre need to wear on a house-hunting trip on what was probably a Memorial Day weekend.
I was stupider back then.
If you had seen below my cuffs, it wouldn't have revealed what fun lay ahead. For the prior owners lovingly covered up the original floors in kitchen and bathroom with cheap single sheets of linoleum. The kitchen one covered a series of Peel-n-Stick tiles from the 50s that Eleanor (mostly) and I replaced within the past 15 years or so- but the bathroom coverup was cheaper and wetter and within the first five years, we'd ripped it out to reveal the original 50s Mosaic ("Scrabble tile," I always called it) that had been largely wrecked in its first 30-odd years of life. We had something similar in our bathroom floor growing up:
Like those. Only multicolored and with less grout. We ripped it out ourselves in 2000; I have bad memories of listening to the Mets-Yankees Subway World Series while slamming chisels into those fuckers and pretending they were Roger Clemens.
After that, among the relatively few professional repairs we made early on before our dot-com investments tanked, our jobs became less profitable and the kid's needs became more needy, we replaced that tile with a professional job from a local shop known for its quality workmanship. At least the quality workmanship of the tile, which has mostly held up for 20-odd years. What was lacking was their workmanship in refitting the Throne to the bathroom floor as tightly as it was to begin with. Four bolts came out; only two went back in.
Earlier this week, a neighbor referred her I Know A Guy, who came over to check the damage. He found one of the missing bolts on the floor of the cellar. He also quoted us around a grand for replacement of the rotted wood, and only that. We'd be responsible for removing the tile, the toilet and any sub-floor that was too permanently glued to the tile there. He also seemed less than thrilled with doing it for us. But then, the better lawyer in the house, the one who didn't go to school for it, tossed out a hypothetical:
Maybe our homeowners insurance would cover this.
It went against my grain. Um, insurance usually doesn't pay for ordinary wear and tear, or botched repairs that either we did ourselves or somebody did 20 years ago and we noticed too late to sue them. But as I discovered when we switched companies last year, there's all kinds of riders in them thar policies; we'd been paying for sump pump backup coverage for 25 years when we don't even have one in this house. So for giggles, she called this morning.
It's covered. An adjuster would look at it. Well, by day's end, he'd only looked at pictures Eleanor sent, but that was enough to get them to commit to a $4,000 budget to remove, repair and replace. As in not us swinging the heavy equipment this time.
We still have to find someone to do it within that, but unless the first guy was out of his mind, that should give us enough to work with. We'll also have to figure out alternate arrangements while the work goes on for both our bathroom needs (a downstairs half-bath is also in need of sprucing up) and those of the dog, who would drive any contractor crazy if she was in the house at the same time with just barking and whining.
We were with the previous homeowners company for close to 30 years and, other than two catastrophic regionwide storms in '91 and '06, we never made a claim for anything. So I have no guilt in getting what we've been paying and paying and paying for all these years.
----
Beyond the big news, a few updates:
- I got dressed up again today for another Teams call and again nobody saw me. This time, I’m pretty sure it’s because a humongous Windows update was sitting in my traybar waiting to install in “quiet hours” but was still clogging my entire memory until I could download and install it. Once again, I did the whole thing through the phone option where nobody could see how snazzy I looked.
So, for the record, Your Honor, here’s what you would’ve seen at 2 o’clock:P
At least this wasn't a holiday weekend with me in that monkey suit. And soon as I rebooted the computer after installing the update, Teams loaded pretty as you please. Nobody was there to see me, but I was back in grubbies by then anyway.
- If you saw my post yesterday about the Tralf, it briefly contained a horrid inaccuracy that I quickly fixed, but it still somewhat misinterprets the reported cause of the venue's demise: apparently the place is closing primarily because their landlord, Arrested Development, is converting its "Theatre Place" building into residences. Which is kinda like builders tearing down acres of trees and then naming the streets and office parks after them.) There are already rumors about the Tralf rising again not far from where they've been the past 40 years. I hope they're true.
- Zoey is doing much better in the eyegoo department. A second med arrived yesterday, an antiviral, and it only has to be dropped in her peepers twice a day as opposed to the every-six-hour routine with the antibiotic one. We're hoping to have her back in general circulation by the end of the weekend.
- Emily sent a Mothers Day card which arrived today.
And those are all the tiles I have to tell for now.
All right!
Date: 2021-05-14 11:14 am (UTC)