Sometimes you end up by doing a reno without planning for it. My husband and I had definitely decided that we were not going to do any more projects for at least a year. We needed a break.

Of course that was before our water main broke. That bill was over $5000.00 – ouch

Of course that’s also before our bathroom floor got damaged.

One of the things I always wanted to have done in the house was to have the old claw foot bathtub glazed. Taking a bath in the tub left the bather with wear marks on their butt (OK, I’m kidding – but you get the idea that the finish was very rough). I called around, got recommendations and hired a company that could glaze the tub without removing it from the house.

The tub turned out fine. That was not the problem. Part of the process requires the old finish to be roughened up with a solution of acid. This is to ensure good adhesion of the final finish. While cleaning the solution off the tub the installer-glazer spilt some of the diluted acid on our tiled floor. The acid ate through the finish.

We did not notice until the next day, however the installer was very gracious and accepted full responsibility for the problem. Thank God he had insurance. I can’t believe I forgot to ask.

TIP: Always ask if the trades person has insurance – just in case!

It took a couple of months to get the project underway and two weeks of being out of an upstairs / main bathroom. In the meantime I repainted the walls and mill work. We are now waiting for a new sink and toilet to replace what was here when we bought the house. It’s an expense we could have done without but the project turned out fine. (We also had to pay for tile upgrade costs and for installation of the fixtures because they were replaced later).

The only good thing to come out of all this is that we got the opportunity to replace the modern 12 inch tiles (that showed every spot of water, and every dog hair etc) with more period-appropriate hexagon mosaic tiles – and I think it looks better… So I guess it was worth it.