Welcome to another episode of "Homeowner's Boo Boos and Blunders". This uncertain market continues to give me fuel for my blogging fire. Sadly enough many vendors with which designers keep wholesale accounts are now extending their lower prices to retail clients to pay their leases. While this is a "great thing" to the consumer, or so they think, this opens up a design mishap can of worms for their homes. Sure they now have access to products at a lower price, our small design mark-up, but they now have access to too much- too many options, too many style choices, that without good knowledge of these products, can cause issues when installed wrong or used improperly in a home application. Case in point, my latest source of posting material... read on.
My cabinet company is doing a kitchen for a client who claims to be an "investor". She has gone to many of the same companies that sell wholesale to me with my tax id, because I am actually a legitimate business. She is paying cash and that looks awfully pretty to them right now, so she now gets the same discount as me. Lovely. When we first met, I designed a beautiful bathroom in addition to her kitchen. The home is in the $400K range, so is deserving of higher end items. The bathroom that she gutted had specific proportions that had to be adhered to, as she was limited on space. I designed a great use for the space, allowing ample space for a corner tub and an expanded shower, per her request. After doing all of my hard work she then informed me that she would be doing this all herself, because she got her own wholesale account and didn't need my assistance. I asked her what her plans were and she informed me that she was putting in a 5' corner tub. I explained to her that it would not fit, as she only had exactly 5' of space to work with and since the tub was a drop in,that left no space for the build out (wooden 2 x 4's that frame the area to support the weight and anchor the tub). She insisted she knew what she was doing and couldn't find a smaller corner tub for her price range or from that store. I could, but she did not want to hire me, she wanted to go it alone.
We continued our work on the kitchen and she continued her interior design work in her home. She had a plumber install a 5' corner tub, with the frame for tile bringing her tub area to 66" on each side. Now she had to have a smaller shower, which in a home of this caliber, is not desirable. It was already only 36" wide to begin with. She did not understand enough to consider the reasons to expand that space and why they were necessary. A large man should be able to pivot freely in a shower without encroaching upon the walls. A woman should have enough space to bend over to shave her legs. It's part of good ergonomics, which is a design principle I live by and try to instill on my clients. It creates a desirable and most functional space. Now her shower measured 33" wide and that's before the tile. Oh gosh, the tile!
Client X found a great price on split faced travertine and decided- Hey, this is beautiful, let's put it in my shower! Ouch, I hope a loving couple doesn't want to ever shower together. They will come out bleeding after scraping each other up against the hard, uneven surface of the open, chattered stone. Split faced travertine is a natural stone with a chiseled, rough pattern stacked above each other like bricks on a 12" x 12" mesh backing. There is no grout in between each individual piece, so the water hitting this tile will run through to the wall behind. I hope they've used backer board! And even if they did, I'd imagine that continued exposure might create all sorts of new organisms in that bathroom. They might very well create a new species in there! Then there is the fact that a split faced stone is even more porous than a natural stone in a countertop. You can't seal those crevices, so every bit of grime and body filth that washes into that stone will remain there. Yuck! Natural stone that is appropriate for a shower situation should have the ability to be fully grouted for stability, as well as hygiene and have the ability to be sealed to prevent germs, mold and mildew regularly associated with a moist bathroom. This was completely the wrong choice for this room, but she didn't ask my advice. I'm sure she thought it would look great and very high end so it will work. I am guessing that her unlicensed installer thought the same. This, once again, is why hiring a designer is so so important. These are all such costly mistakes. Will they affect her resale value? Definitely! Will they affect her ability to sell her home? Most likely. Buyers are a bit smarter these days and so are real estate agents and appraisers. Personally I'd prefer to shower without reaching over and scraping a butt cheek, but that's just me!
Stay tuned, I'm sure the saga will continue...
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