Kitchen Renovation II

My general contractor stopped by on Friday morning to talk to me about the state of my water pipes, and the news is bad. Andrea, the contractor, tells me that he can't believe I hadn't had a major pipe-bursting incident already. The water pipes are soft brass, and over time, they've developed dozens of micro-leaks. We stood in my gutted kitchen on Friday, and he shone a flashlight up into the recesses behind the now missing ceiling, settling on a brass pipe encased in a green and white growth of waterborne minerals. "See that?" he asked in his thick Italian accent. "That's no good." He moved the flashlight from pipe section to pipe section showing me other places where the pipes were bad. "We replace everything," he said.

The plumber comes on Monday to give me the big bad news about the estimate to replace every water pipe in my house. I told Andrea to have him look at the drain pipes, too. If there's more bad news, I want it all now. I'm pretty calm about all of this. I know it's going to be pricey, but it has to be done. The kitchen renovation didn't cause it, it just revealed a pre-existing problem, and that's a good thing. In the meantime, work is on hold.

In a side note, I'm totally impressed by how neat and tidy Andrea and his crew keep things. If I didn't go into the kitchen see that they've torn it entirely apart, I'd never know. They keep things clean, and in the midst of chaos, that's wonderful. They do good work. I asked Andrea to save me a piece of the wall tile to satisfy my nostalgia, and he did. He handed it to me the other night and said, "That's Rookwood." Rookwood? Rookwood Pottery tile? My kitchen museum curator self spanked my kitchen remodeling self hard. Cincinnati was home to Rookwood Pottery early last century, and in addition to tile, they made remarkable art pottery. I felt sick. "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked him. "If you knew, you never would have let me tear it out," he said. And then before I could protest, he said, "It's Rookwood, but it's ugly, damaged Rookwood." I couldn't argue with him there. Whatever it was , it's gone now. He's not getting his mitts on my 1935 Rookwood Pottery tiled bathroom, though!

Here's the state of my kitchen now:















Here's the fabulous Andrea and my chunk of remaining Rookwood.





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