~ The Floor Saga

Finally! My floors are scheduled to be fixed.

In August, we noticed that some of the tiles in the house ‘popped’ if you stepped on them. After going through the process of getting in touch with the tile company, having someone come out to look and verify that yes, something was wrong, then waiting til the ordered tile came in, we thought the tiles would be replaced.

Wrong!

At the beginning of September, the crew showed up with the box of tiles that were ordered and they got to work. We already had a box of tiles left over so they assumed there would be plenty of tile to get the job done.

Wrong!

A few guys are working in the master bathroom and a few guys are working in the kitchen. One of the guys comes out of the master bath and the conversation went something like this ...

Tile Guy: Umm, we have a little problem

Me: Problem?

Tile Guy: Well, it seems the box of tile we ordered is the wrong color. And, the box that you had? One of the tiles is damaged and can’t be used.

So, I need to know if you want the master bath fixed today or the kitchen because we only have 5 tiles that can be used.

Thinking that the problem would be resolved in a reasonable amount of time, I chose the master bath. So, they assured me that they’d order more tile and the rest of the floors would be fixed in no time.

Wrong!

The next day, one of them came back to grout the tile in the master bath. Before doing that, we decided to go through the entire house to see just how many tiles would have to be replaced so they made sure they ordered enough. The final count? 90 to 100 tiles have to be replaced throughout the house. Ugh!!

So, I told the guy not to bother with grouting the bathroom because we found another 6-10 tiles that have to be replaced in there. No sense in grouting when you’re going to have to pull the surrounding tile up, right?

He leaves with the assurance that the tile would be ordered and the floors would be fixed asap.

Wrong!

When they went to order the tile, they couldn’t find enough of it in the right color. From what I understand, they searched all over California and in some parts of Arizona. Seriously, how tough can it be? Finally, while I was in Oklahoma City, the manager of the tile place came out with a few tile samples to show KJ. KJ picked one out, the guy wrote down the number that was on the back of the tile so he could get it ordered and then he left. He did leave that sample here for me to look at when I got home.

I get home and I’m home for about a week and we didn’t hear anything. When I finally caught our developer and asked him about it, he immediately got on the phone and called the guy who came out a few weeks before. He tried telling our developer that he left several samples at the house for ‘the wife’ to look at and choose and they were just waiting to hear back from her.

Wrong!

I explained to our developer that yes, he brought some samples out, yes he left ONE sample, not several but that KJ had chosen the tile he wanted, the guy wrote the number down so he could get it ordered and that was that. So, our developer took the sample to the tile guy.

A week or so later when I still hadn’t heard anything, I caught Dusty (very good-looking guy who works for the developer) and asked him. He immediately called the guy, got him on the phone and then handed the phone to me. I was told the ‘tile is on order.’ Sighs.....

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I finally got the call that said my tile was in. You can picture me doing the happyhappyjoyjoy dance now. They’ll be here first thing Monday morning to fix all the tiles and while I’m thrilled that my floor will no longer be pock marked with pieces of blue tape, I do have one small concern.

It goes without saying that this was a bad install job. Who’s to say that the rest of the tile won’t start popping up and we’ll have to go through this process all over again??

Maybe I should keep a roll of blue tape handy . . . .