First off GRRRR. Ok feel a little better now.
I am in the process of remodeling our bathroom. I posted a question several months ago about what you would want in your dream bathroom and took the advice to heart. We started remodeling just the week before Memorial Day and it still isn't close to being done.
It took three trys to get the right bathtub with each try setting us back one week. Now I find out that one cabinet has a door split in two and the sink cabinet didn't come with sides. I just ordered the sides and they should be in on Aug 11th. :( We have to stain our own baseboard. Huh? Thought that's why I am paying you! So I am going tomorrow morning to get the stain. I did however vol. to paint the bathroom on my own time. I didn't think they would wait on me to paint though. It maybe December before I have time to paint the bathroom. It just seems that this is getting drug out way tooo long. We really thought it would be done in a month at the longest due to the bathtub having to be ordered three different times.
What are your thoughts? Should they be done? We have another bathroom that we have to do as well, but are seriously thinking about looking at someone else.
O I forgot to mention that they haven't cleaned up a stich after themselves and have put things in EVERY room on our house including the kitchen on the main floor. This bathroom is on the 2nd floor with our bedrooms. Grrr! Sorry for the rant I just keep hoping this gets better before my hubby goes off on them.
Remodeling is such a pain!!! Be thankful you have a second bathroom...when my hubby remodeled our bathroom we had to go without!!! (and he isn't exactly speedy...) We didn't have kids at the time, so that helped. Whenever we have hired workers they never clean up after themselves. :( Grrr!!! Good luck with everything.
It always takes 3 times longer than you expected. Its always more expensive too. But when its done, youre so happy and wish you had done it years before.
We remodled several times in this house. The biggest being the intire kitchen, all bedroom bathroom and closet doors and house full of baseboards. I had a house full of daycare kids at the time and only missed one day when they were painting the kitchen. I help a lot, and love to do the construction along wth the crew and that helps to know whats going on. I make a big speach to them first and lay down a few rules of where they can leave tools, and what they need to do before sanding, sawing and spraying. This is my home and I already live here so I dont want sheetrock dust sucked up in the a/c unit and blowen out into all the other rooms, so they have to give notice when they will need to do certain things and I will shut off the a/c. I want to have notice if water will be off, or power turned off. I need to know when they are leaving and what time they will be back so I can plan my day around them. I dont want to be in the shower when they arrive at 6am, but I wont be happy if I shower at 5 and they dont arrive till noon. I could have gone to the store and finished all my errands had I known theyd be that late. A lot of construction crews work in new places and no one lives there, so its difficult for them to think about how hard it will be for the family if they leave their tile cutter on the kitchen floor and a stack of hard wood in the hall, and walk out at 4:30 with the water off. I give them a decent place to leave all their things so I know nothing will dissappear over night. I love remodling! But you have to put up with a lot of mess and stuff. I also make cookies for them and have bottled water in an ice chest so they dont have to keep going out to their truck and drink out of that icky orange cooler strapped to the tailgate,,lol,,, oh also, Ive had several end up bringing me stuff to mend. Once they find out I sew and do mending they have stacks of jeans and work shirts with holes and buttons missing. They are always so glad to find someone who can fix stuff.
My husband is a remodeling contractor...I can tell you that almost ALL remodels generally run over a bit--various reasons. The client adds something, something is delayed in shipment-and for some contractors they work on more then one job at a time and delay everyone.
That being said-if it's a standard side bathroom-yes, they should be done.
My husband only books one job at a time and works with his partner - and just with one person on a bathroom he'd be done by now--factoring in a bit of overage.
Whenver he bids a job he says up front that XXXX date is or isn't realistic. He also ALWAYS cleans up after himself and tries to make it seem as best possible like they aren't even there. He also makes sure that in the contract it lists who is doing what, who's buying what, etc....
Sounds like you have the type of contractor that makes my husbands job harder-cuz everyone has 'that' story and he has to prove he's not THAT GUY.
The only thing you really can do is stop payment. They MAY walk off the job, but at least you'll hopefully only have paid for work done to date.
Also-for what its worth-it is easier to paint before you add your cabinets,etc back in. If that is the hold up maybe you should just have them do it.
And finally :)-in this economy everyone says they can do anything because jobs are so tight-so you may have hired someone who actually is usually a roofer, but 'says' - sure I can do a bathroom...cuz jobs are scarce.
Watch Holmes on Holmes on TLC-you'll know you're not alone!
I think I answered your original question :)
We just completed a bathroom remodel in our master bedroom. It took approximately 6 weeks. Originally it was going to take around 3 weeks; however we ordered this beautiful moroccan lantern tile (3" each) to go on the walls floor to ceiling and there were so many cuts involved at the ceiling, floor and corners of the room -- as well as the fact that each tile required 6 spacers around it to make it even -- it took our tile guy much longer. Thank God we weren't paying him hourly!
I will also say that they aren't ALL clean; our guy is and we absolutely love him for that. He's remodeled a kitchen for us and now two bathrooms. Whenever the other subs come in, however -- electrical, plumbing, etc. -- not so clean. So it really just varies. Our guy used to work for my brother who is a general contractor and my brother is an absolute neat freak and requires his subs to go above and beyond in cleaning up people's houses after EACH day of work. I dare say my bro is quite successful and gets many referrals just for this fact alone.
They don't need to wait for you to paint. Tell them to finish up the bathroom and you'll paint later. Good luck and hang in there!
IMO, you have some vaid issues and some that are fairly typical of contractors we know. You don't mention if the remodel required gutting the bathroom or not. When we had our bathrooms gutted (all the way to the studs, with complete replastering, for various reasons) it took a little over 8 weeks to do two of them at the same time (they shared one wall). I wouldn't guess that one would have been too much quicker.* Of course, this was based on a quote of six weeks, but we knew to expect slippage. The cabinet door thing is annoying, but (unless they are being built on site) probably not the contractor's fault. On the other hand, they should have guided you to order a full enclosure for the sink cabinet. If you "volunteered" to paint the bathroom, you should expect to paint the trim too. As for cleanliness, hold them accountable. We stipulated that they hang plastic sheeting to contain dirt and dust, which worked quite well, as did laying down plastic in the areas of foot traffic. I can't imagine them leaving things around the house, but then I'm the type of person who would make them follow me around pointing out each item and making them pick it up... after all, if they're going to act like my children, I will treat them that way ;)
* Our project required people to do tear-out, roughing the walls, plastering, installing windows, electric, plumbing, tiling, installing cabinets and fixtures, and painting. The glass for the shower surround was even longer, but that was because they couldn't do the final measurements until everything else was done.
Hopefully this helps to put things in perspective. At the very least, I would get some estimates (and, more imprtantly) refererrals from other contractors before doing anither bathroom. Soon the mess and the hassle of this one will be a distant memory, so I hope that you love the finished product...
Three tries to get a bathtub? There's something not right with your contractor. Your husband SHOULD go off on them- let them walk off the job andhire someone else to finish it up!
I would be reporting this contractor to BBB. Also the mess up with the bathtubs are bad measuring on their part, I would be looking at the contract you signed closely about clean up, taking longer and so on. Also it seems like they are dragging it out, maybe to get paid more unless you had settled on a set fee no matter if it takes longer.
We redid our own bathroom and it took us 3 weeks, and we were some what new at doing it. Our dads helped out and they had done this before, we got all the proper permits, and it only took us a week till we could use the tub and toliet, second week had the tile all done and sink in. Third week shower working, baseboards & walls painted. The first week hubby took off of work, the last two weeks he was working full time and I was working part time and we still got it done in 3 weeks.
There is NO way I would hire that contractor again. Especially in this economy I would think you could find someone good. Too bad you don't live in MN. I have a wonderful remodeling contractor. We just wrapped up a basement finish with a fraction of the problems you mentioned for your bathroom. 4 years ago the same guys did a big addition for us that also went very smoothly. When things do go wrong they own up to their mistakes and fix them. It can be difficult and expensive to find a new contractor to fix another contractor's problems. They don't like to do that. I might consider it though in this case. Good luck.
