Our Saturday morning checklist:

• Toilet
• Sink
• Marble

Our objective, to get up early and get these items for the condo purchased so we can have a relaxing Saturday afternoon.  It all sounded so good, so doable.  And yet as we headed out at 10:00 little did we know that six hours later we’d still be out running these errands.

As we left home our first destination was Boonthavorn, a large Home Depot-like store that focuses on ceramics, kitchens and bathrooms.  They reportedly offer slightly better prices and service than some of the other chains like HomePro.  Their showroom is beautiful and offers perhaps fifty bathroom displays and fifteen kitchen displays, which allows you to see how the different materials could come together.

But on our way to Boonthavorn we received a call from the Cotto Tiles delivery truck: they were parked out in front of the new condo and had seven boxes of tiles to deliver and no one was there to receive them.  When we purchased the tiles on Thursday, they said it would be Tuesday or Wednesday of the coming week before the tiles could be delivered.  Instead, here they are this morning with no previous warning!

We quickly reshuffled our schedule and thankfully traffic was light so it only took us a few minutes to reach the condo.  After accepting the tiles and getting them moved upstairs, thanks to a security guard’s help, we reviewed the construction progress.

As I’ve mentioned before, our contractor is using the fire-aim-ready technique: his laborers are doing work before there is a completed plan and that is resulting in a number of frustrating situations.

In the bathroom, they have installed a bench in the shower area but we haven’t yet worked out the exact details of the size of the bench.  They also installed a wall between the sink area and the toilet area, which we hadn’t finalized yet.  Below left: The bathroom as it appeared Saturday, with Tawn testing out the too-narrow bench.  Below right: The bathroom as it appeared a month ago with the bathtub still in and no wall between the sink and toilet areas.

In the kitchen, the tiles have been removed.  Hang on a second!  We have made it clear that we are uncertain that we will do any remodel in the kitchen, due to cost concerns.  The tiles should not have been removed at all.

(Sigh…)

To top it off, the contractor has been pressuring us to give him the plans so he can keep his workers busy.  The good news it, now they have something to do with their time: put the tile back on the kitchen wall, below.

Needing some nourishment to deal with this, Tawn and I tried the vendors located right in front of the condo.  Sitting on the shady soi, the bowl of bami moo daeng (egg noodles with Chinese-style pork) and plate of som tam Thai (green papaya salad) were really tasty and with the breeze, the al fresco dining was a good way to relax and wind down from the construction discoveries.

After getting over the frustration of our contractor’s style of work, we continued to Boonthavorn.  We must have spent about two hours there, looking at all sorts of options and trying to decide on a sink and toilet.

Above: Tawn with one of the final toilet selections – the “Bold Look” of Kohler.  One thing I discovered when toilet shopping is that I kept feeling the urge to pee.

Below: This shows what I have in mind for the bench in the shower.  The glass will only be on the front side, not on the right, but I like the idea how the bench sticks out through the class.  This gives depth to the room.

Below: While there is no place for one in our condo, I love the claw-footed bathtubs.  Maybe one day I’ll have a place where I can have one.  Isn’t the tile beautiful?

From there we headed east towards the airport to select stone flooring.  We ended up selecting some sort of veneer marble, which is a layer of marble put on a ceramic backing.  It was recommended by our designer as a less expensive option compared with solid marble.  It has the benefit of also being water resistant which, for a bathroom floor sounds like a good idea.

Finally, going on 5:00, we returned home.  This remodel is exhausting!