I can't say this enough: I'm extremely grateful to Tunnel to Towers and the other organizations that pooled together to help build our forever home.
Unfortunately, the timeline I gave T2T incurred some cut corners with the contractors. As a result, some standard features of a smart home went missing. This is on me, and maybe a bit on the contractors—not on T2T at all.
Here, you can see my attempt to repair the shower bench in my accessible bathroom. Not only is this outside my skill set, it is so far beyond repair that I fear nothing of the original bench can be salvaged.
At least two of the support boards are split in multiple places. The connecting sections are rotted through.
I oiled it often, but we have hard water, and this thing was not mounted to the wall in a way that it could be moved or removed for cleaning and maintenance. The entire thing was bolted together and screwed directly into the frame through the tile and grout.
As a result, the bench needs to be replaced. There may even be structural damage. The bathroom tile was an issue too: missing grout in some areas, wall tiles installed without spacing, and gaps where grout never existed.
Several handrails were installed, but most had to be removed because they rusted almost immediately. Two were installed into little more than air—the tile itself was holding them up. We had them removed and the holes grouted over.
A home has a long memory
For the first four or five years, I couldn't use the bathtub at all. It took so long to fill with hot water that the bath was effectively cold by the time it was full.
We eventually got help from Jeff Elie of Courage and Sacrifice—thank you—after our refrigerator quietly leaked, destroyed the kitchen flooring, and periodically flooded the basement. His crews repaired the kitchen, sorted the bathtub plumbing, repainted several rooms, and moved the shower control so it was reachable while using the shower.
I had no idea the shower bench had become this bad. I haven't used it for more than a year because it felt unsafe.
The next rebuild
I've now been cleared by the VA to get quotes from contractors for a remodel. The Specially Adapted Housing grant should cover the bathroom and perhaps other overdue accessibility repairs. We just finished the initial paperwork and photograph process. Here's the snapshot.
WRITTEN BY
David J. Bixler
Veteran, father, creator, and relentless problem-solver.