Sink Costs

The tile guy is here, tapping and tapping on the floor, breaking away chunks of misplaced cement. It's a noise which is sure to awaken Jim, who came in last night to get started on his stuff. I know he will be angry when he wakes up early; he is not a morning person and will not get out of bed before 10:00 AM or so. I warned him last night about this; perhaps I should have put him up at a hotel for the night.

As the renovations continue I get more and more tired of the dust and noise and disruption. There are still tiles in my living room; the tilers were supposed to have all the tile done yesterday but they ran late and did not finish. My hope is that they finish today and can have the grout done fairly early tomorrow. This delay means another day without a toilet. My hope is that this will all be done for the weekend and I can finally relax in the mornings.

The costs of these renovations continue to frighten me. I went out yesterday to buy a sink. You can purchase a standard sink, one that goes into a counter-top, for as little as $50 at places like Home Depot and Rona. However a wall hung sink that is sized right for wheelchair access costs substantially more. The most basic, industrial wall hung sink, the kind you see in prison washrooms or other institutions, costs around $150. If you want something with a bit of style or flair, you can expect to spend between $200 and $500.

I found a local plumbing supply house that had a couple of leftover sinks in their warehouse from industrial jobs where they had an oversupply. One was the basic prison sink; it was $129. The other was a larger, more defined sink, still square and squat but at least not as ugly as the prison sink. I asked about the price and was told it listed for $500. I said no thanks and headed for the door. The sales clerk asked me to wait a minute and he went to talk to the boss. He came back, we negotiated and we ended up at $150 plus GST.

The sink is not the only part. Then there are the taps, ones that are good enough quality to take a bit of a beating from me pulling on them as I reach over the sink. These cost $229. After that there are safety bars, towel bars, corner shelves for the shower and all the other little things that you want and need in a bathroom. All in all the bill came to about $900.

Renovations are expensive. What gets me most of all about these renovations is that I don't want to do them; I am compelled to do them if I want to continue to live independently. What's worse is that, at best, I will only enjoy these renovations for perhaps a year or two. Then I will most likely have to move into a care facility. That future bothers me more than the money, and spending all this money on a bathroom I don't want bothers me a lot.