Oh hell no.
Remember how, last week, the guys working on my garage told me they “might not” be able to complete the project? Amazing news! They totally showed up, got to work, and made it happen, and now my three-months-in-progress garage renovation is done!
I’m totally kidding. They showed up Monday morning, and fifteen minutes after they arrived I was telling them to please get their tools and get off my property, thanks.
Here’s a lightly paraphrased version of the conversation that took place in between them arriving and them leaving.
“We really need more money for this project. We’re losing money on it right now.”
“…But you didn’t tell me that. You just stopped coming.”
“We lost a lot of time because you took two weeks to decide whether you wanted skylights.”
“…But you didn’t tell me you couldn’t work on anything else until I decided. What were you doing in the garage for those two weeks?”
“Well, we were working only a little bit.”
“…You were only working a little bit? What were you doing?”
“We were working.”
“…Then how were you losing time waiting for me to decide on the skylights?”
“We weren’t really able to work.”
“…So you weren’t working?”
“Well, we were working, but it was taking too long.”
“…So what does that have to do with the skylights?”
“You didn’t tell us what to do about the skylights, so we couldn’t work.”
That is when my head exploded for the second time in a less than a week, and I told them to go away please.
Sooooooooo…shit. Now I really do have to find a new person to come in and finish up (which obviously means that I am going to pay 2-3x the amount I originally budgeted, because that is how it works). Fine fine fine.
Apropos of nothing, here is a teeny, tiny DIY. It is a TV console table that I picked up at HomeGoods for a crazy-low price because all the tiling was broken, so I thought I’d retile the bare spots myself, and was planning to just show you the table as a part of my Awesome Garage Reveal, but apparently the awesome garage reveal is going to be more of a sad, limping maybe-it-will-happen-one-day-but-who-knows, so?
Here is my not-especially-mind-blowing-but-still-pretty mini TV console retiling project, which would look much, much more impressive had I been able to show it to you with an actual TV sitting on it. And walls behind it. And a floor underneath it.
But hey.
In case you’re in a tiling kind of mood, here’s what you do.
See those missing tile patches and wood dents? That’s why a $350 cabinet cost me $25.
If your piece has existing tile that you want to remove, you’re going to want to have these things (plus a small hammer to smack them with).
Put down a dropcloth, and go to town. It should take approximately five seconds to remove the tile, unless you have an especially well-made piece, in which case why are you hacking off the tile?
Ask your strangely math-wizard-ish partner to help you calculate how much square footage of tile you’ll need. The space I was covering was 1 1/2″ wide, so I staggered pink and blue-emerald 3/4″ Venetian-style glass tiles
Working a few tiles at a time, apply glue to the surface of the furniture and then stagger the tiles. Use tiny bits of masking tape to hold them in place while they dry. (Because I am many things, but “a perfectionist” is not one of them – I also hacked up a few excess tiles to pastiche into the spaces at the edges.)
Last step: Use a Sharpie to fill in any bare spots on the wood, because excuse me, who exactly has time for sanding down and painting and the whole shish kebob?
Not I. I’m busy begging people to patch holes in my wall and not have to give them my firstborn child in exchange.
