I Got My Bathroom Back!!!
I have my bathroom back!!! ❤️ 🥳 A day early, it was supposed to be released to me today Friday but they got to that point a day early, bar some finishing touches. But the main thing is, I got to start using it again for toilet yesterday!! ✨ No more trips all through the day and in the middle of the night to the temporary facilities at the yard. YAY!!!😁 They told me I could use the shower too if I was careful not to get water on the door frames/the sink because they still needed to add in silicone to seal off moisture getting behind them, but I chose not to just to make sure nothing went awry for the long run. Today I pooped for the first time in 4 weeks in my own home 😆
I noticed in the evening there was a little leaking when I flushed the toilet. I reported it the first thing in the morning and they got to work on it right away. When I got home from grocery shopping and hunting down new shower curtain hooks, the leak had been fixed and the silicone added and the bathroom officially finished, unless I notice any problems. They still have to do something to the radiator to make sure it's functioning properly but they said that once all the bathrooms are done, they'll go through all the radiators in all the bathrooms and do whatever is needed to make them work as they should.
I've put most things back to where they belong now that all the plastic protections have been removed and I got my entry hallway back (the door to the bathroom is there, and they needed the coats and shoes spaces for their stuff so I had to empty it all) - and it's great not having to go through a plastic zip door whenever I'm coming in or getting out of rest of my apartment :-)
The new bathroom furniture is much better than the old one - now I finally have a sink cabinet and also the mirror cabinet above the sink is much better than the old one! For one thing, I can see myself down to the waist on it, instead of just barely my head and that by going on my toes (woes of a short person - everything is designed for average or tall height!). The shelves on the mirror cabinet are more suitable height now too - they're tall enough to hold all my hair spray etc. bottles standing up! Even the sink itself is better - there much more room to put things like a tooth brush or soap than the old one had. I didn't personally choose any of these - I chose from among the various default selections the housing co-op had chosen for everyone to choose from because I thought they were good enough! Everyone could have made customizations, and a number of my neighbors did, but they all cost extra of course but the renovation company is happy to make them. The renovation is already expensive enough so I myself went with from among default selections re: tiles and such, only ordering a tall laundry cabinet (otherwise there would not have been anything to store dirty laundry, detergent in etc. at all! Even though the bathroom originally came with such a cabinet which wasn't going to be replaced - weird) and a bigger shelf thingy for shampoos and soaps etc. for the shower. So I selected those things, and made a custom addition order for the renovation company to acquire the products, transport and install them. Cost me 516 euros extra all in all in custom work, for which I'll either use my tax return (all of it) or Mom gives me pre-inheritance, we'll see.
Here's some pics:
The pics are all taken from the door. The wooden door visible in one pic is the sauna door. The one with all the bottles is the mirror cabinet, with the doors open and mirroring the contents. I'm not a great photographer so these are a little more contrasty than in reality and the gray tiles are little bit more lighter than here but it's about right. The other color options were two of pure white and various shades of beige/brown and I have unfortunate associations with those bathroom colors that makes me of think of hospitals... so gray tiles it is!
But: my bathroom is back! My bathroom is back! A pretty new bathroom! 💖 🥳 ✨
Marcin
So the renovation company (I guess it's huoltoyhtiö in Finnish?) is renovating the bathrooms in all the flats, or just of those inhabitants who wanted it? If someone wants, is it possible to arrange a renovation individually? After living in Finland for four years, I still don't know exactly how those things work here. But I always lived in vuokra-asunnot so I didn't really have to deal with those things myself.
Don't worry, being tall also comes with many disadvantages! I actually have to bend down a bit to see my face in the mirror in my bathroom. Sinks are often too low for me. The same for desks. In planes there is no enough place for my legs. Also in many buses. I like VR trains because there is always enough place for legs. Also it's more difficult to keep balance while being tall because the centre of mass is higher. It can be dangerous during the winter when it's slippery outside. The good thing about my height is that I can reach the top shelf easily or replace the bulb in the ceiling light without any ladder or stool. I guess it's always a trade-off!
intothisshadow Post author
"Huoltoyhtiö" is the term for a company that does the day-to-day maintenance on apartment buildings, so things like mowing the lawn, sanding the walkways when it's icy and slippery in the winter, yard work, parking lot painting, if there are plumbing problems or leaks you call them and they either are able to handle the problem themselves or if not, call in a specialized professional such as a plumber or an electrician. They were involved in the planning of the bathroom renovation in the sense that the "isännöitsijä" together with to housing co-op government was part of it, but the actual planning for the renovation was made by another company specialized in that and then the actual renovation is being done by yet another company, all chosen by submitted competitive offers from a bunch of companies by the isännöitsijä and the housing co-op government.
Yeah, it is possible to arrange a renovation individually and a handful of apartments owners had done so over the years. I think it would've been possible to sit out this bathroom renovation if your bathroom had already been renovated in the last few years, but those owners would've still needed to pay their apartment's part of some of the expenses. In the end all the owners decided to participate because even the bathrooms that had already be renovated earlier were getting to be around 10 years old when the planning started, and the planning took around 2 years so by now they'd been at least 12 years old. Also one of the reasons why it was decided to do as an entire housing co-op level project was that about half of the bathrooms were still in original condition (25 year old) and this was the best way to make sure that all the bathrooms were done to decrease the risk of leakages and moisture damage resulting from simply because approaching end-of-life for those original bathrooms. But yes, as the owner of the apartment, it's entirely possible to arrange an individual renovation of a bathroom, or a kitchen or whatever you want. I think you need to get some portions of your plans approved by the housing co-op (depending on what you want to do) and must use certified professionals for things like plumbing or electricity work, but it's totally doable and common.
Ah, you have the opposite problem re: mirrors and desks. It had never occurred to me center of mass being higher but of course it is when you're tall! I guess, unless you're medium height, seems like everything is either too high or too low!
Marcin
By the way, do you have talkoot in your kerrostalo? I wonder how common it is in Finland. It was never organized in the building that I lived in in Tampere, or maybe I didn't notice it. However, I came to Espoo this year, and we had talkoot a few days after vappu, I heard they are organized twice a year. It was new to me but really nice. We had a grill meeting, it was a great opportunity to meet my neighbours!