Rhonda Bracey: At Random

A very quiet day today. The PM and tiler both turned up early, and the tiler got on to filling and screeding the floor and wall area for the shower. But concrete (or whatever he uses) has to dry so he was done and gone by mid-morning. He’ll be back later today to do a bit more, then it will all dry over the weekend. He’ll start the waterproofing on Monday and that will take 3 days because I want 3 coats and up much higher on the walls than the Australian standard. He told me he’s not just waterproofing the shower area, but also the walls, floors and window ledges where water could splash, and the back wall where the bath used to be, and into the main bathroom area too. Each coat has to dry, so 3 coats = 3 days before he can start tiling. He can’t start tiling earlier from the toilet out otherwise he could be out in the measurements—the tiling has to start from the where the shower screen will go, which is why he can’t do anything until the waterproofing is all done. In my chat about our 3 previous experiences with bad waterproofing and bathrooms, I found that he and I are very much on the same page about getting the waterproofing done right the first time, because it’s way to expensive to fix later. An extra day for a 3rd coat? in the scheme of things, it’s a small price to pay.

The PM was also here first thing (it’s his day off!) and we pulled down the blue plastic that we’d had up to minimise the dust. He did a few things then took off for the day.

Much quieter today, though there was some noise at various times. Fewer people too! The project manager (PM) was here bright and early, along with the tiler. The tiler spent the morning starting the work on the floors, specifically concreting the hole through to the sane where the bath and its waste pipe had been (the blue level in the photo) and smoothing the window ledge and walls for the shower wet area. He left about midday as everything has to dry before the next stage. Luckily we’re in the middle of summer so we can keep the window wide open and the ambient temperature helps with the drying process.

We nearly had a potential long-term problem yesterday. Fortunately, our PM is on the ball. Before the tiler smoothed out and coated the shower walls, the PM called me in to see how high I wanted the shelves for the shampoo etc. to be. My husband has deliberately not seen ANY of renos and wasn’t going to until it was finished. But we needed him to come in and check the height for the shower shelves (he’s 190 cm, I’m 168 cm, and the PM is not much bigger than me). And then we realised that the shower head position was going to be about 5 cm above his head, which is not enough! So, the PM made a quick decision to call back the plumber and raise the fitting for the shower head (we couldn’t raise it too far because there’s a stupid [but necessary] bulkhead in the way, but it’s gone up about 10 cm more). Meanwhile the PM got straight onto clearing out the cement the plumber used to cover the chased section of new pipework that he’d only done the day before, before it hardened fully. The plumber came a few hours later and made the change in about 10 mins. Phew! The PM said this wouldn’t be an extra expense as it was his fault for not checking first.

Another cool thing—back in the day, tilers etc. would mix their cement outside and bring it in with a wheelbarrow,  which is not good for the floors it has to cross to get to the en suite bathroom. But these days it’s a bit different. Our tiler mixes in situ, using one of those big plastic tubs (the blue one in the photo) and a mixing machine that’s like a big blender! Easy peasy, and no mess! The only thing that comes from outside is a garden hose to add water to the mix.