when things go right

A few months ago, the shower in our addition developed a bit of ugliness. First the wall outside the shower started to blister. Eventually, a hole appeared, and then the hole got a little bigger. It occurred to me that the problem wasn't going to heal by itself.

At the time, a friend was having work done on her house. She kept saying wonderful things about the guy who was doing the work, and I got to admire the quality of work being done. One day, when I was visiting my friend, the construction person dropped by. We spoke, I got his card, and sent him email. He came by to see the problem and said he thought he could fix it.

Several months passed with occasional emails saying he hadn't forgotten about me.

Finally, he started the job last week. When he took the wall apart, he discovered that the damage was not as bad as it looked. The grout in the tile had failed, allowing a little water to seep into the wall. The water had caused a metal corner bracket to rust and expand, pushing against the outside wall and eventually creating the hole.

So he took some of the tile off, replaced the corner bracket with a plastic version, put the tile back, grouted and caulked it, painted the wall, and cleaned up after himself. He spent a day here, and then stopped by for about half an hour on the following three days. And then he left and it's beautiful. You can't tell that a repair was made.

Next up is a smallish tile job. In the other shower, the shower head is high enough up that a little bit of water splashes on the wall above the enclosure. The damage isn't severe yet, but it probably will be if we don't do anything about it. We've found some fairly attractive tile that will look good and protect the wall from further damage. Of course, after I ordered the tile, I was told that we might end up waiting six weeks for delivery. But when it comes in, we now have someone who can install it for us.

It's fairly easy to find someone good to do huge jobs (put an addition up, including foundation work? No problem!!). It's fairly easy to find someone with little experience to do small jobs (sloppy work R us). But it's great to find someone who doesn't mind doing smaller jobs who's experienced and competent and neat. Hooray. This guy's contact info definitely goes into my address book.