Remodeling a Bathroom in Italy

This is the first in a series of posts about my experience remodeling an apartment in Florence. I had bought the apartment before the pandemic and I hadn’t realized how much work it needed and how much it would feel like living in a warehouse until I was able to start renovations.

The topic of the pandemic and surviving it in Italy arose on a recent tour I led for two lovely men from the US. I briefly shared the unfortunate timing, of living in my “warehouse” apartment with no furniture except a bed, no cosy living spaces, no couch, no TV, no Netflix, during the strict lockdowns. The clients said they “would have died of discomfort.”

What the inglorious and only bathroom in the apartment looked like:

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I was passed by a friend to a guy in the window business (my antique windows from the 1800s were single pane and drafty and allowed Siberian air into an already freezing in the winter house). The window guy passed me to a mason who (Mr. Sloppy Mason) for my bathroom remodel.

At that point, I had funds enough only to overhaul the bathroom, and I didn’t see the point of hiring an architect just for that. When I met with the mason, he suggested I also hire this guy he works with—supposedly an architect—(Mr. Do Nothing) who he said could communicate with me while I was away, and keep me abreast of the work. The plan was for them to do it when I was in California.

I decided it would be good for someone to “have my back” and advocate for me in the case of complications or work not done well. This is NOT what I ended up getting from him. My advice in retrospect: Hire an architect, or someone “to have your back” who comes through YOU and not through the worker.

Mr. Sloppy Mason and Mr. Do Nothing in one of our planning discussions that went on for four weeks:

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When the mason nicked a pipe and created a flood in my apartment, Mr. Do Nothing did NOT notify me. I heard about it from the young Greek student living below my apartment. She told me that the water had damaged the ceiling of her apartment but that my mason would be fixing it. When I messaged Mr. Do Nothing to ask about it, he was evasive.

Once I was back, and viewed all the things that went wrong, I realized that Mr. Do Nothing had not put any care into his role at all. He had not prevented the wrong color tile being installed, nor noticed that it was installed six inches higher on the wall than what I’d requested. He had not noticed (or he hoped I would not notice) the terrible installment of the baseboards and the sloppy grout job.

Yes, these are picture of the NEW baseboards, AFTER the remodel!

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Mr. Do Nothing also had not asked the electrician to contact me to go over where I wanted the ceiling lights. He’d allowed an absurd amount of lights to be installed in the ceiling making it look like an operating room. He’d done almost nothing for his fee.

Months after the work was finished and I had long since paid Mr. Do Nothing and Mr. Sloppy Mason, my Italian neighbor suddenly told me that there had been “a piscina” (a swimming pool) in my living room.

I realized the “nicking of a pipe” had been far more dramatic (and bad for my house) than anyone had told me, which put Mr. Do Nothing in an even worse light.

Had I known, I would have had more gumption to argue his payment. (Why did the neighbor tell me so many months after the fact? No idea. She was connected to me on WhatsApp and could have told me immediately.)

A year later when I could face it, I tried to fix the grout.

Exasperation and smoke coming out of my ears:

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When I had some new masons in my house installing the tiles behind the kitchen range, I asked them for opinions and help with the crappy grout job.

One of them said the only remedy was “to pull it all down”.

I googled endlessly about how to fix shower grout without dismantling the whole shower.

I made suggestion after suggestion to this mason— “Could we try this? Could we try that?”. For a few days he insisted nothing would work but finally his Romanian helper did what he could, and it’s a bit better.

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I paid my new electrician to remove half the ceiling lights in the bathroom.

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To save money, I painted the bathroom myself.

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Almost two years after the initial remodel of the bathroom, I finally got a vanity made.

The vanities available in stores and online were all modern and generic and didn’t appeal.

I worked with a carpenter friend to make one.

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I still had to varnish the vanity, and get the sink installed, and time was running out.

This was two years after the initial bathroom project. I had been doing a massive push for months to bring it all to completion and return to the US to take care of my cat who was too elderly to come with me.

(And the chaos of the remodel work would have been an extremely unsuitable situation for him.)

I knew he probably had a year at the most left to live and I was desperate to get back to him. (It turned out I had six months left with him upon returning to California.)

Rushing to complete the vanity — upside down in the living room:

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I had fire coming out my ears trying to get the plumber to show up before I departed.

Luckily once he showed up, he was in a jolly mood.

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Final “before and after” pictures

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