The Marble Shower
The new wood floors
looked great! The floor installers had
ripped all the nasty rust and blue colored carpet from the concrete slab, put
it in the back of their old pick-up truck and replaced it with the most
beautiful oak flooring we had ever seen.
We had endured the sights and smell of that carpet for over five years
and the hardwood floors sparkled with their fresh polyurethane coating. This was the first phase of a major
remodeling project to our home in Arlington, Texas, which began with the wood
floors and continued with a brand new kitchen, including new cabinets,
countertops and a new tile floor and would end with a marble shower in the
bathroom. I coordinated everything with
the subcontractors and carefully priced and planned each phase of the
project. Mary and I stood spellbound
admiring the beautiful hardwood floors.
“Have
you ever seen anything like them?” I asked.
“Gorgeous. I’ve never seen one thing improve a house as
much as these floors. Was the carpet
really that hideous?”
“It
really was. Did you see all that dust
and dirt that came out of it when they dragged it away? I don’t ever want to have carpet in this
house again.”
“I
agree, but we have to take care of these floors if we want them to keep looking
this good,” said Mary.
“I’m
one step ahead of you,” I replied as I retrieved a mop and a bottle of special
polishing spray I had bought from the flooring store. “It’s pretty simple. You spray a little of this on the head of the
mop and it turns the mop into a magnet that attracts the dirt. And at the same time it polishes the
floor. I’m going to do this every
evening.”
“We’ll
see,” answered Mary as she rolled her eyes.
“And what are you going to do about the dogs? Aren’t their claws going to scratch the
floor?”
“I
thought of that, too.” I went into the
bedroom and retrieved a bag containing 4 baby booties and 4 pieces of
Velcro. “I’m not too worried about
Shasta, because dachshunds have pretty little feet, but I have something for
Chewy. Chewy, come here,” I called. Our black Chow Chow suspiciously stuck her
head around the corner, questioning what was going on. I lured her to me with the promise of a butt
rub; then I put the pink booties on her paws one at a time and then velcroed
each in place. “Pink goes well with her,
don’t you think?”
“You’re
a nut case,” answered Mary.
At
first Chewy skated around the house on the slippery floors like a child on
their first pair of ice skates, but in a few days she got the hang of
them. Not once did she try to take them
off and soon it became a daily ritual putting them on her in the morning,
taking them off when she went out and putting them back on when she came in.
“I’m
surprised you don’t spray that polish on Chewy’s booties so that she can polish
the floor as she walks around.”
“That’s
a good idea,” I replied.
Every
night I was true to my promise and polished our floors. Afterwards, I would sit and admire how
beautiful they looked in our home.
Over
the next 3 months, the other home improvement projects progressed well and the
new kitchen exceeded our expectations and our budget. All that was left was the marble shower in
our master bedroom. Mary and I had
visited several homes with synthetic marble showers and decided that although
expensive, they were the best alternative because of looks, durability and
maintenance. There were not many marble
plants, and we decided on Precision Marble in Fort Worth , Texas
“So,
you would like the beige marble with a bench?”
said the middle-aged man who, by the size of his stomach, liked to drink
beer.
Mary
looked over at me, knowing that it was the first I had heard of a bench and
said, “Don’t look at me like that. You
have no idea how hard it is to shave your legs standing up in a shower and I’ve
always wanted a bench.”
“How
much more is it?” I asked.
“$750,”
answered the salesman.
I
debated all the options and realized the best one was to succumb. “No problem,” I said.
“Do
you want us to take out the old shower, or are you going to do that yourself?”
the salesman asked.”
“How
much?”
“$175.”
“What
do you think honey?” I asked.
Knowing
my long history of disasters with home projects she answered quickly, “We’d
best leave this to the professionals.”
When
it was all said and done, I signed a contract for $5,200. But, it was a once in this house investment,
and we did plan to stay for a while.
“When
can the crew come out to remove the old shower?” asked Mary.
The
salesman looked at his schedule and then answered, “How about Tuesday morning?”
“That
will work for me,” answered Mary.
“All
right then and how about we start putting the new shower in on Thursday?”
“That
quick? That’ll be great!” answered Mary.
On
Tuesday morning 3 grungy, overweight workers dressed in t-shirts and blue jeans
came to the door with a sledge hammer and a box of garbage bags. Mary pointed them to the shower and they
walked through our master bedroom, across our new hardwood floor and the
destruction began. I came home from
lunch and couldn’t believe my eyes. The
entire house was a dust cloud from the broken ceramic tile. Pieces of tile covered the bathroom floor and
vanity like shrapnel. And then there was
my new hardwood floor. There were shards
of tile all over it that had apparently leaked from the garbage bags that the
crew was dragging across it. It was an
absolute nightmare! And then instead of
cleaning up the pieces, they walked over them, grinding the jagged pieces through
the beautiful finish of the floor and into the hardwood! I couldn’t contain myself.
“What
are you doing?” I yelled.
The
lead man replied, “We’re ripping out your shower.”
“But
look what you’re doing to my new floor!”
He
looked down and didn’t see the significance.
“We’ll be done in a couple of hours and then we’ll sweep it off.”
“I
mean the scratches! You’re scratching it
all up!”
“Hey,
calm down. I ain’t got to take you
yelling at me.”
“Get
out!” I yelled. “I’m calling you’re
manager.”
The
lead man signaled to the other two and they made a few grunts as they walked
across the shards and then left. I
pulled out a broom and a heavy duty vacuum and started cleaning up the
mess. The new floor was a disaster with
scratches every few inches and dust permanently packed into every nook and
cranny. The old shower was only
partially removed, but they had worked long enough to knock a hole in the
ceiling and into the attic allowing cold air to pour in.
Mary
and I looked at the mess.
“Maybe
you should have let them finish,” she said.
“Now we have even a bigger mess.
And it’s supposed to go down below freezing tonight.”
“They’ll
finish all right! I’ll get a different
crew out here immediately. I’m going to
call the manager of that tile place right now!”
The
phone call made its way to the owner of Precision Marble and it did not go
well. I demanded that he come and see
the damage his men had done to my new floor.
He evidently received a different story from his crew and was very
defensive, but agreed to come to our house.
While I waited, I took a package of post-it
sticky notes and placed a yellow note with an arrow pointing to each
scratch. When I was finished, the floor
was carpeted with yellow paper. The
owner knocked on the door a few minutes later.
He was a nice looking Hispanic man, in his mid-thirties. He stared at all the sticky notes in
disbelief.
“It
was a brand new floor,” I said. “And
they ruined it.”
“How
much will it cost to refinish it?” asked the owner.
I
quickly calculated. “It will cost about
$500.”
“Fine,
I’ll send you a check by the end of the week.”
“And
when are you going to send a crew to finish the job?” asked Mary.
The
owner looked directly at me and said, “We’re through with you. Find someone else to do your shower.”
“What
do you mean?” I asked. “You’re not done
and you put a hole in my ceiling.”
He
looked at me and smiled, “I mean, I’m going to pay you $500 and I don’t want
anything more to do with you, now good-day.”
Mary
and I looked at each other and were horrified.
“What
are we going to do now?” she asked.
“We’ll
just call another marble shop.”
I
looked in the yellow pages and there were only 3 other shops in our area. I gave Gerry’s Marble and Granite a call.
“Yes,
I would like for you to complete a shower for me.”
The
salesman took all of our specifications and then asked me to hold while he
priced the job. After about 10 minutes
he came back on the phone. “The owner
doesn’t want to do your job. He said
something about a nut-case with sticky notes all over a wooden floor.”
“That’s
because Precision Marble spilled tile all over the floor and then walked over
it.”
“I
guess that’s the reason,” he continued.
“Precision Marble is our owner’s brother.”
I
tried the next shop and received the same answer. I soon realized that all of the marble shops
were divisions of the same family and no one would complete my job.
That
night, a blue norther brought icy temperatures to Arlington , Texas
The
next day I continued calling marble shops until I found a shop not related to
Precision Marble. They were nearly 100
miles away and I had to pay a 15% premium and wait almost 6 weeks. The check came to repair the floor, but I
waited until the new shower was done to have it refinished.
When the remodeling
was complete, we felt as if we had survived a small war. Unfortunately, within the next few months my
employer relocated me to Tennessee. And,
of course the house that we bought needs a new shower. But this time I think
I’m going to go with fiberglass.
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