Monday night marked a significant event in our household. Operation bathroom came to an end, at last. It all started in the summer when we came home from a mini adventure across the country to discover our upstairs neighbour had had a bath (it transpired he'd bathed his dog, even worse) which had drenched our bathroom. The trap was loose, he fixed it, he said.... The leak continued sporadically but still he claimed he'd fixed it, his intonation suggested we were imaging the water dripping through the ceiling, the water behind the tiles, the thick black mould on the wall, the ceiling so wet that Mr T accidentally poked his finger through it . According to our insurance company because he told us he'd fixed it we couldn't claim from his insurance, he "hadn't technically been negligent", the fact we were suffering from the consequential damage meant nothing, it wasn't his fault, apparently - something I am still annoyed about. Incidentally, in November he did finally fix what turned out to be a leaking bath tap, not a loose trap as he claimed. So he hadn't even bothered to fix it properly months before, despite his protestations that he had sorted it.
Anyway, there followed some months of bickering with the insurance company. We got quotes, the quotes were too high, £1,400 was more than they were willing to pay, we argued and argued, they asked the builder to reduce his price by £600, funnily enough he said no. Then there was a third party, who we could pay our excess to, they'd fix only the damaged area and charge the insurance company £700, or the other option was to take a payment from the third party of £950 less our excess and we could do the work ourselves.
So, we could have half a job done for £250, or we could have £700. After a Sunday afternoon pricing up tiles, plasterboard, plaster and various other bits in B&Q we decided to do the job ourselves. It couldn't be that hard, surely? Just a bit of plasterboard and some tiles, nothing too major..... WRONG. It took six weeks, we forgot to take christmas and the small matter of our jobs into consideration. It has been a long hard slog, weeks without a shower was the worst part, I hate baths, they make me panicked. I feel uncomfortable sitting in my own filth. The first shower since December was the cleanest I have ever felt in my life, I felt like I was in a hotel, utter luxury.
There have been arguments along the way, tile spacing, light positions, cupboard positions but we got through it and I have to say Mr T has done a most excellent job, it looks brilliant. He thought we'd have to call in Nick Knowles and his DIY SOS crew at one point, but I had faith in him, I knew he'd manage it. I even had a go at tiling, that's my big achievement, nothing compared to what Mr T has done but still, I tried to help.
We'll sweep aside the incident when I leant on the newly glossed door frame in one of Mr T's hoodys and when I got paint on the window frame. I wasn't a great help, I wish I could've been more use but really I'd have been more of a hinderance, this week I punched myself in the chest while pulling my sleeves up, I'm too inept for DIY.
In saying all of this, I don't know what I find more exciting, the luxury of a fully functioning, decorated bathroom or that Mr T no longer looks like Mr Twit and his beard is no longer visible from behind, in fact, he looks rather handsome now he's finally been able to trim his beard in the bathroom mirror.
Here's some pictures, sadly you can't see my ill advised purchase of a leopard print shower curtain, but still, what you can see is the result of 6 long weeks
The first picture is the underside of the damaged ceiling, who knows how long we'd actually been living with such horrendous mould, in fact, I don't really want to think about it.
Anyway, there followed some months of bickering with the insurance company. We got quotes, the quotes were too high, £1,400 was more than they were willing to pay, we argued and argued, they asked the builder to reduce his price by £600, funnily enough he said no. Then there was a third party, who we could pay our excess to, they'd fix only the damaged area and charge the insurance company £700, or the other option was to take a payment from the third party of £950 less our excess and we could do the work ourselves.
So, we could have half a job done for £250, or we could have £700. After a Sunday afternoon pricing up tiles, plasterboard, plaster and various other bits in B&Q we decided to do the job ourselves. It couldn't be that hard, surely? Just a bit of plasterboard and some tiles, nothing too major..... WRONG. It took six weeks, we forgot to take christmas and the small matter of our jobs into consideration. It has been a long hard slog, weeks without a shower was the worst part, I hate baths, they make me panicked. I feel uncomfortable sitting in my own filth. The first shower since December was the cleanest I have ever felt in my life, I felt like I was in a hotel, utter luxury.
There have been arguments along the way, tile spacing, light positions, cupboard positions but we got through it and I have to say Mr T has done a most excellent job, it looks brilliant. He thought we'd have to call in Nick Knowles and his DIY SOS crew at one point, but I had faith in him, I knew he'd manage it. I even had a go at tiling, that's my big achievement, nothing compared to what Mr T has done but still, I tried to help.
We'll sweep aside the incident when I leant on the newly glossed door frame in one of Mr T's hoodys and when I got paint on the window frame. I wasn't a great help, I wish I could've been more use but really I'd have been more of a hinderance, this week I punched myself in the chest while pulling my sleeves up, I'm too inept for DIY.
In saying all of this, I don't know what I find more exciting, the luxury of a fully functioning, decorated bathroom or that Mr T no longer looks like Mr Twit and his beard is no longer visible from behind, in fact, he looks rather handsome now he's finally been able to trim his beard in the bathroom mirror.
Here's some pictures, sadly you can't see my ill advised purchase of a leopard print shower curtain, but still, what you can see is the result of 6 long weeks
The first picture is the underside of the damaged ceiling, who knows how long we'd actually been living with such horrendous mould, in fact, I don't really want to think about it.
