The Bathroom Saga Continues...!

OK so it's not Tiny Tuesday but I've had another busy day and this double macro was all I had time to take. I know it looks a bit gruesome - read on if you want to know more.

In July we had our bathroom redone - new tiles, new bath, new over-bath shower, and we had the loo, bidet & basin refitted with new taps etc. (I'm still not quite finished the re-painting of the woodwork but I'm nearly there.) The 2 fitters who did the main job were very pleasant, but...since then we've gradually found more & more errors, mostly due to their carelessness or excessive rushing. Getting them back to put things right has finally proved beyond us; we'd held some money back but that's now been more than spent on replacing things they'd damaged. Following some text-message promises which weren't fulfilled they've finally stopped replying to texts or voicemails. So much for "professionals".

Fortunately my DIY skills are reasonable so I've concluded that the best thing is to put things right myself - I'd rather do that than have them come back in a bad mood and make more mistakes. Today I set to work to remove and refit the hinged shower screen which had been hung with an uneven gap between the bottom edge of the screen & the bath, resulting in the rubber sealing strip becoming torn after being opened & closed several times. "Just 8 screws" shouldn't take long to remove should they? Well yes if the fitters have sheared off the head of one of the screws (it's only about 3mm diameter) and then hidden the damage under a chrome screw cover!

I tried a Mole wrench on the tiny bit of screw which was protruding but there wasn't enough for it to grip. Then I plastered the polished aluminium around the area with thick insulating tape to protect it and then cut a slot in the end of the remains of the screw (left-hand photo), hoping to get purchase on it with a screwdriver - but the screwdriver couldn't grip enough. "Drill it out" I thought - which required cutting another slot to make a cross, to help the drill bit not to slide off the screw (right-hand shot). Eventually following one broken drill bit and several blunted ones,  along with (remarkably few) choice words: success!

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the screen back on to our satisfaction...   :-))