And ladies and gentlemen, we have FLOOR!
The tile guys, (it was a father / son combo – how cute, right??) came over on Monday. They finished up late last night. I can’t believe how fast they got it done! They did our kitchen, utility room and the pantry. Kevin cut a hole in our pantry floor so he would have indoor access to our crawl space (clever, right??), and the guy was able to tile that door and make it look uniform with the rest of the floor.
He really did a beautiful job.
Our tile is called “nutmeg” and it looks like the spice – it’s brown with dark swirls. Kevin is not crazy about the swirls, and they’re growing on me, but I think they give it character and I’m okay with it. (The sample we saw didn’t have the swirls. Here’s a tip to anyone shopping for tile – look at more than one square). It also has a “distressed” feel to it and yes, we’re doing our kitchen in “earthy” tones.
Overall, we’re pretty happy with our floor.
There’s only one problem.
It’s not straight.
Apparently, our room is crooked. There is one wall that actually slopes inward and there’s a whole inch difference. Only, the tile guy didn’t realize this until it was too late (he shouldn’t have assumed the room would be all one size – older houses are often crooked due to settling, etc. However, lesson learned on his part). So the tile along that one wall (the left wall in the picture – I cut it off because it’s so embarrassing) are not straight. In fact, they gradually shrink to a sliver by the end of the wall.
To say Kevin was NOT happy would be putting it mildly. See, he’s done tiling – lots of tiling, so he KNOWS how it’s done and he can’t understand why the guy didn’t begin in the middle of the room and work outward as opposed to starting on one wall. It has really bugged and upset him. So today, he called the company we bought the tile from and he, and our tile guy, came over at lunch today to “discuss” it.
Though Kevin had a valid complaint and the guy really needed to see what he did wrong and why it’s unacceptable, I felt sorry for the dude. Here he is, his boss on one side, his customer on the other side and he’s having to juggle both defending himself and admitting he shouldn’t have assumed the room was an even rectangle.
I just awkwardly stood to one side and wished the new floor would suddenly crack and swallow me whole.
At any rate, we’re going to talk to the cabinet guy tomorrow and see if he can’t fudge one side of the cabinets about an inch to make it line up with the floor. And between the cabinets and the fridge, most of that side of the floor will be covered. However, there is one area that will be noticeable and the tile guy said to call him when our cabinets were in and he would come back over and manipulate some trim so that he can hide that one small part that is visible.
I’m honestly okay with this. It’s not the guy’s problem that our room is crooked and even though he might have done things differently, he honestly thought it would look better this way and as I said, the rest of the room just looks fantastic. (Now if this had been an issue along the right wall, then I would have had a BIG problem with it because that side? Will be nearly all open and very visible). And we can cover this – no one will be the wiser. But Kevin is still pretty upset about all of this. THIS is the biggest reason why he does things himself – because he knows it will get done right and will be done to his expectations.
At any rate, we’ll fix this. I’m confident our cabinet guy will get us taken care of (we can’t be the only house that has crooked walls) and it’s going to look fantastic.
I’m expecting the cabinet guy to be here for about three days. We’re going to call our appliance guys so they can deliver our new appliances on Friday.
We found a charitable organization that might take all of our old appliances off our hands, I hope.
In the meantime, we no longer have to walk outside and around the house to get to our fridge, which is in the garage – we can walk on our new kitchen floor and THAT is really satisfying.
Write From Karen 