Hello Karen, Sounds like you had a good time..gatherings and visits with your mom. Is your mother any better? I hope so. 85-yrs is up there, 'even if she didn't have the disease you mentioned earlier.' Can she walk? She sounds like a real fighter, that's for sure. I wasn't planning on making a big dinner for Thanksgiving since Michael's appetite has decreased. I don't talk to my sisters or mother, and my brothers spent time with others. Wed afternoon, I asked Mike if he wanted turkey for Thanksgiving. He said he did. I ended up going shopping 2pm, got home around 7. Long day. Since there's just us three, and the dog who loves turkey, our T-day was quiet, too. Afterwards, I watched Christmas movies while Mike and Martin watched football. Mike watched in his room, dh in the living room. Yes, I posted on GW. Since my email only works 20% of the time, I can't check the box to receive emails alerting me when a new post is written. I didn't feel like talking plants before, especially since I'd been neglecting mine. For some reason, when I feel down and don't give plants the care they need, this is silly, but I feel like I'm cheating by visiting GW. IF that makes sense. Two days ago I finally got around to watering.. Also, my brother purchased succulents from China..'gifts to me. I couldn't find care on Google, so asked on C&S forum. Sux had been sitting in a box over a week. Regarding Mike. Details are long...We've been to the hospital and doctors several times since my last response. Last week, he had special urine and blood tests. They found Mike has a second cancer, but don't know the exact location..The doc said, 'idiot,' "The second cancer can be in the bladder, a tube?, or the thing that looks like a peanut? in Mike's kidney.???' I don't want shapes, I want names. The doc knows I research online. What the hell am I supposed to type? 'What's the thing in a kidney that looks like a peanut?' This doctor avoids questions and hesitated when I asked for test result copies. I swear to God, I wanted to punch his face. Okay, deep breath. He ended up giving me a copy of Mike's urine test results, which makes no sense. One would have to be a specialist to understand. If the test was regarding the spine, I'd understand 95%, but know nothing about kidneys or things that resemble peanuts! And which tubes??? Wednesday, Mike's having a test/surgery where they insert a tube, while sedated,' in his urethra..sp? A nurse from the hospital, unexpectedly phoned Mike today, told him to be there in an hour for pre-surgery testing. When he explained the reason she called, I thought, PRE-SURGERY?..the nurse told Mike whatever he's having done Wed's is considered surgery, not a test. I don't understand..maybe the reason is because he'll be sedated. Maybe, maybe not. I'm calling the hospital tomorrow for answers. The nurse told Mike he'll be given paperwork of the so-called surgery after the pre-surgery tests were done. He was given a generic form letter..it said, take b/p in the morning. That was the info she promised! I Googled docs name for reviews...found three..I'd bet all three were from the same 3 people since each site's reviews were identical. Doctors/IDIOT's name is Faramarz Eghrari... The urine report is from Genesis Clinical Lab, Department of Pathology, located in Berwyn, IL. Testing was done at Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park, IL. Karen, sorry for the long response, and thanks for asking about our Thanksgiving, etc. Bet you're sorry you asked... :) Thanks for listening. I've got a zillion things to do tonight, but feel like sleeping. My doctor up'd my anxiety medication because my b/p and pulse have been sky-high. Anyway, I'm happy you got to visit your mom..be thankful you have a considerate, good mother. Take care, hugs, Toni

The hourly rate only applied to this aspect of the job and it was to justify or explain the added expense. (The rate charged was $60 per hour so this amounted to an extra $3,240 on top of the original number in the contract!) The complex tile job was treated as a change or an add on might be. In the kids bath and the laundry room they did do a wonderful job, however as you can see from my post about the grout job and the "lines" visible between the sheets of hex's, I do not feel they did a wonderful job--but that is a separate issue. I guess what it comes down to is for these particular guys, tiling is not their "specialty". They did a huge kitchen reno for me and it was beautiful, but only the backsplash was tiled. It did not occur to me (stupid, I see now) to look into their work in bathrooms since baths are so tile-oriented.

Thanks for the replys, guys. Yeah, at first blush I thought it was pretty high, but the master bath accounts for about $13,900 of it. And as Bud noticed, there is a lot of cutting and detail work involved. And I forgot that in addition to the custom shower glass block walls, they are also replacing a small (maybe 3'x3') bathroom window with glass block. I'll definitely get another bid or two to compare, but glad to hear that it's not too far out of line. They said up front that they would not be the low bid, but they've been around 20+ years and came at the recommendation of my interior designer. BTW, she is just helping with design work on the whole project at an hourly rate, providing input and recommendations when I want, so I don't think she has a vested interest in recommending them. Her take is , sure, by all means get other bids, but hands down these guys will take care of you.

Why would windows be installed before the sheathing? I'm not a window pro, but I have built a couple of houses and your install does not look correct (I could be wrong). The window opening with the gap should have had a shim added to close the gap, prior to installing the window. See the link below on new construction installation. Here is a link that might be useful: link on window installation for new construction This post was edited by lkbum on Tue, Feb 5, 13 at 14:42