This is the order our general contractor did things in: Demolition Plumbing- set pipes behind the walls Electirician-set work behind the walls Drywall went up Shower base began to be built up Floor warming system went down (in shower and in room) Shower base was finished (it was a multi-day process) Then floor tiles went in Then cabinetry Then plumbing fixtures were installed electrical outlets, switches and fixtures were installed cabinetry was installed then marble countertop sinks, toilets, faucets mirror over vanity then minor stuff, moulding, towel hooks, tp holder,etc.

live_wire_oak: I agree that remodeling a bathroom is a complex job and I am approaching it with caution. I have learned a lot from my unfortunate experience. Some of my lessons learned: Insist that the architect include an electrical and lighting plan in the specs, even if he/she claims it's unnecessary Ask each contractor to provide, in writing, names and license numbers of all subs they plan to use on the job. (My crooked GC "discovered" part-way through the project that his favorite plumber had allowed his license to expire several years earlier, and added him as an "employee" retroactively.) Ask each contractor to provide names of all workers / employees, including relatives, whom they plan to use on the job and to provide evidence of worker's comp insurance Establish work tasks and exclusions in writing before signing contract; e.g., will plumber or demolition company remove existing toilet; will solar tube include a light / fan; will electrical include hanging light fixture over vanity. (My crooked GC insisted that wiring was included but installing sconces or pendant lights was excluded.) Pay my lawyer to review contracts before I sign them No excessive downpayments Allow at most two specialty contractors to work on the project simultaneously Require receipts of materials from contractors (or purchase directly, if possible) from suppliers, e.g., shower pan, plywood for sub-flooring (likely damaged by water leaks). Provide rules ahead of time: no kitchen privileges to workers; no blaring mariachi music on a boombox in my house Know the local code and don't rely on the City inspectors to catch every transgression Tile Corrector: Even with permits, inspectors miss things, e.g., Local code requires a humidistat on bathroom fans; CIty did not catch this omission by the crooked GC in my house Local code specifies: "Control valves and showerheads shall be located on the sidewall of shower compartments, arranged so that the showerhead does not discharge directly at the entrance to the compartment ..." See attached photo of a new build ($4.6M home) a few miles from me (same city, but closer to beach) -- jet showerhead aimed at shower door.

I'm sorry this is happening to you. This happened to me a couple years ago. So I recommend you do the following: Tell the contractor (whoever hired the tile people) to stop work and schedule sit-down meeting. Make the meeting be something like Friday so that you have some time to prepare. Do this communication by email. (Do every single syllable of communication by email from now on. Nothing verbal. If any verbal words are exchanged, confirm them by a follow-up email confirming your understanding of what at was said/planned/promised/agreed, and ask for confirmation in the email.) Get ready for your meeting: Document your understanding of everything that was done wrong. Put all the blue tape all over in the bathroom. You can download an online version of the TCNA handbook here: https://www.tcnatile.com/products-and-services/publications/218-english-publications/188-handbook.html It's a manual of industry standards for tile. It's less than $40. It also includes information about waterproofing. It's long, but you don't have to read the whole thing. Read the introduction (about 50 pages) and the stand-alone shower sections. You can skip all the other parts such as swimming pools, etc. Read about waterproofing and tiling on this forum and on the John Bridge forum. You need support for the meeting. Ask someone (a spouse, adult child, friend, neighbor) to attend the meeting with you as your support person and as a note-taker. Create your list of questions/concerns. Make them open ended and a bit broad, such as "How did you waterproof my shower?" "Do you have your TCNA manual with you; can you show me in there what method you used?" (probably he doesn't know what this is) "Why does the tile look so messy?" "What is your plan to fix all the problems?" Let the contractor talk and make sure your note-taker writes everything down. Don't interrupt of start arguing with the contractor. Always stay business like and calm. If the contractor gets upset that's his problem. Have the meeting. If they don't show up, send an email inquiring why. Go through your whole list of questions/concerns. If the contractor gets off track, always come back to the important question: "What is your plan to fix all the problems?" If the contractor gets upset, says things like "You're too picky", "We've never had a complaint before", or "You're too hard to please" ask them to stay on track regarding the sub-par work. If the contractor yells at you, stands up or starts pacing around (happened to me), ask them to stop yelling at you in your home and tell them to take a minute and let you know when they are ready to proceed calmly. If, through your research and the contractor's answers, you are reasonably convinced that the waterproofing was done wrong, and/or the tile mess can't be fixed without compromising the waterproofing, ask the contractor to re-demo and start all over with a new, qualified, certified and experienced tile professional in charge. Your contractor doesn't change; you don't pay more; this is on the contractor's dime. If they say anything about you paying more, or making a payment now, say that you don't feel that that is reasonable given the problems so far, but that you look forward to the new, competent crew, and if the work is truly professional you don't foresee any reason why full payment would not be reasonable at the end of the project. They will either agree to redo it or not; or they might want more time to think about their plan over the weekend, etc, etc. You might not get a definitive yes or no during the meeting. In our meeting (which was on a Friday), the contractor went off the rails several times saying we should hire someone else to re-do the shower and they would just finish the rest of the bathroom; that they didn't want to touch the shower anymore. DH kept bringing them back to "We hired you to complete the whole project and we trust that you will be able to figure out a plan to fix the waterproofing; so what do you think you will do?"...stuff like that happened 4 or 5 times. At the end of the meeting the only agreement was that they were going to work on their plan over the weekend and would contact us on Monday. After the meeting we confirmed this understanding by email. After the meeting, send an email with a general summary of the meeting, based on the notes, and re-cap any agreements, quitting, or what you perceive as the result of the meeting. Keep all your language business-like and clear. They might have agreed to re-do with a new, competent crew. Great! In your email, express how please you are at their business like approach to these waterproofing and tile problems. Say something like "We look forward to seeing you and the new tile crew on Monday for the re-demoing and starting fresh on the project. Have a nice weekend." They might flat our refuse and get mad at you (refer to the yelling comments above). If they flat out refuse, say "Oh my; so you are quitting the project?" After the meeting, confirm this by email. They might have huffed off, in which case you also confirm that my email. Something like "We were disappointed that you left our meeting this morning without letting us know what the plan is to fix all the waterproofing and tile problems on our bathroom project. After you have some time to thing about the project, please let us know how you plan to proceed. If this means you are quitting the project, please let us know right away so that we can start the process of hiring a new contractor. Hope to hear form you on Monday..." After the meeting, whatever the conclusion was, post the contractors answers here and/or on John Bridge where I hope you will get continued support from the pros on the forums. In our case, the contractor wanted to think over the weekend and then they quit by email on Monday. We had to start over. Months later they later sued us saying that we fired them illegally. We had no choice but to respond. It went to District Court where we were awarded ALL our money back plus extra for materials that they ruined. Why did the judge award to us? Because ALL communication with the contractor was done by email, and the judge could clearly see that they quit; she threw out their suit and award us everything that we put in our counter suit. Another huge reason is because our new tile pro, who is an experienced, over-qualified, certified pro, testified as an expert witness about all the things done wrong by the quit-GC. And don't be scared - we did all the legal stuff ourselves. It's not as hard as everyone thinks. Again, I'm really sorry this is happening to you. We also live in a Wild Wild West area (North of Houston) and the township doesn't care what anyone does in their house. You could string extension cords all over the house for every single thing, put an outhouse inside your bathroom, install a firepole in place of your staircase, and no one would care til you sell the house and finally an inspector comes inside.

I got the cabinets through Home Depot (20% off) they are not higher end but they have held up extremely well and we’ve been happy with them. I don’t remember the brand, but the color is cognac on maple. They’re standard kitchen cabinets. We got 2 regular drawer banks, 1 extra wide drawer bank, 2 sink cabinets and the closet you can see in the picture for about 1800 w/the discount. We bumped the shower wall 6 inches into the bedroom to make the shower bigger, pulled the cabinets out from the wall a couple of inches to provide more counter top. And curved the edge the counter for interest. Just for fun, this is what we had to start with. The tub was rusted and there were two doors, 1 from the hall & 1 from the master bedroom, we closed up the hall door. I think we got our moneys worth. LOL As for the labor, I found my Contractor through a plumber I had hired to put in a kitchen faucet. I asked if he had someone good he could refer and he referred Matt to me. Matt had his own company but just him and his guys. All of his work was by word of mouth, he didn’t advertise or push for business, he didn’t need to. I think I got fair pricing from him because he didn’t have the overhead a lot of the larger companies might have. He wasn’t the least expensive and he wasn’t the most expensive. Finding someone who was willing to work on our schedule and not having to have it done ASAP is what really helped me to be able to keep our costs at a minium for both labor and materials.