The best part is...the useless bulkhead in the shower is gone. Why on earth would a builder build something that serves absolutely no purpose? I feel I could breathe again in the shower with the much higher ceiling.
Do you also see the off-centred recessed shelf? I would rather keep the middle wall clean so I settled for it. There was exhaustion pipe behind the wall into the attic outside of the house, so if at all possible, before you became fixated on a certain design, make sure all the plumbing and pipes behind the scene would support you vision, see here.
This time around we didn't use our regular contractor. His father is ill so he moved down to the States to be with him for a while. I use another contractor a friend recommended, and I can't say I am all that thrilled so far. As much as I understand there's no such contractor that'd do "perfect" work, I still expect to see best efforts and necessary skills put into making sure tiles are "perfectly" stacked to human eyes. You probably can't tell from the pictures but I do see uneven gaps and surfaces. I can't help but wonder if I would probably do a better job than this contractor -- after all, I am a perfectionist. Another downside about this contractor is that he is not neat at all. The drop cloth must have been used for hundreds of times and never been washed. I think it trapped more dust into the house than the reno itself.
Enough said. The contractor is however very efficient. For a one-man shop, he seemed to have accomplished a lot within a day. Was my friend happy with his work? Yes. Could our expectations be different? Absolutely.
Tomorrow the floor tiles go in. It should be fun (and dusty) again.