A council estate raised British city girl trying to make it in rural Canada

Work ethics and tiling.

Obviously if anyone has read this blog, then you will be aware theres renos that have been going on for a while at home. And 99% of them done by Duck and I.

However - following my apparent abysmal laying of the slate tile for the floor and sides of the wood burner, Darcy very diplomatially suggested that "since you're shit at laying tiles we should get a pro in."

OK no arguements from me on that score

we have friends that have not long built a super posh house and their tile work is incredible, also turns out that after calling uncle Ken he recommended the same guy - with the caveat that "he is painfully slow  - good but slow".

I don't care how slow he is - i don't have to do it, Darcy doesn't have to do it - and if it looks good then we can move the tv and recliners into the only room in the basement touched by proffesional hands.

I contact the tiler (he's german and a trained stonemason / granite type chap) and he mentions he is booked for a while yet. Well thats a good sign, anyone worth their weight is booked up, I'd have been surprised if he said yup i'll start tomorrow.

Skip forward a few weeks and he finally gets time to come over and look at the place - gives us his numbers, tells us how much tile to buy (we wanted to tour around and buy it) and says "I can start next Monday".

Thats frickin awesome.

Now i'm usually pretty easy going, I may be a bit brash but its all bark and no bite. However when things start to piss me off .......................

The precursor to this is that the tile guy lives an hour and 10 mins away (fully aware we would be paying travel time - he estimates if he puts in 10 hour days he can have it done in 3).

Which means rght now this minute I should be stood in my luvverly tile bathroom. Dya think i'm in there marvelling at the stonework? Gasping in awe at the precision of the grout lines? warming my smelly pinkies on the underfloor heat pad? Of course i'm f****g not or it would be a shit blog entry.

So Monday comes - hes here at 8am - immediately decides that the shower pan he suggested won't work so he'll form one himself - only the concrete that he needs is back at his shop. So he waterproofs the walls, lays down and seals the underfloor heat and annoounces at 11.15 that "ok I'm off, i'll be back in the morning with the right stuff as its not really worthwhile driving all the way there and back.

OK I accept that, errors are made and if you can't do anything else, then right on i'll see you in the morning.

Tuesday he turns up at 8.30, builds the shower pan and now says he has to wait for it to dry before he can do anything else (again understandable) so we discuss ideas for the design on the main floor - I tell him what I want - so finally at 11.30 he leaves for the day again.

Wednesday - I have running around to do (going to the dump / into town for groceries / etc etc) so I leave at 8 fully expecting Mr tile Guy to be well underway when I get back.

Oh no - this is where it goes pear shaped - at 10.15 I get a call (i'm on my way home) "Hey amanda, I've tiled the floor in the shower and was just wondering of you really want the design we taked about for the main bathroom floor"

"Yes Mr tile Guy (we'll call him MTG from now on) - thats why we agreed on a design - because thats what I know darcy wants and as it's his bathroom so to speak - if he wants it he gets it"

"We'll yknow i'm not sure if it will look right"

"I hear what you're saying MTG but we know what we want so just do it"

"Well i've laid the pattern out on the floor so you can see what i looks like when you get back"

"I KNOW what it looks like, so what on earth is the problem wih you just fixing it down like RIGHT NOW"

"Well i'm half way back to my shop already"

"You are f****g WHERE????????"

This is where placid me loses it completely - he gets a full on lecture about scheduling his time / travelling time versus working time / bringing the correct materials to a job / prioritising workloads (I suspect he's taken on more work than he can handle at the mo) and his bad hair do (well not the last one but for everything else he got chewed out on it may as well have been said)

I get home to find he's laid all of 10 tiles on the shower floor - now i'm not business woman but even I know driving dor 2hrs 20 mins to do not even 2 hours of work - is costing him money - not me, cos i tols him because he was being an idiot I'm not paying travelling time - seeing as he seems to have spent more time travelling than working. If I wanted to pay someone to drive - I'd find a trucker somewhere and give him a wad of cash for nothing.

Upshot was he turned up here at 7.45 this morning - with his apprentice, and they are now back on schedule(ish)

Darcy reckons I scared him, Although I'll scare him proper if there is just one minute flaw in this bathroom.

Watch this space!

Hmm waas going to add a (small ;) )picture but its not letting me so i'll do it when he's finished. Come back next year for that one.