Having a Soak

My circa 1968 bathtub is wholly inadequate to hold anything more than a good-sized watermellon. (Why does that not look right?) I have a good-sized watermellon just around my mid-section. Getting in the tub is generally not too bad; getting out is an entirely different proposition. The MD and general lack of strength does not help.

We want our bathrooms done in a huge way, but no one I know can recommend a good general contractor or a good bathroom guy to do this. The few we have tried to contact on our own clearly aren't interested or have too much good work pending, since none got back to us. We are stuck - and have been for about two years.

The guy that did our bathroom in 2002 was OK, but not good. He was slow to do it and then did - and justified - doing a really piss-poor job on the tiling in the bathroom. Unbelievable. We even bought real spacers for those very expensive tiles and he still used TOOTHPICKS to space them - so naturally the job was very crappy looking. Needless to say, he wasn't invited to do any subsequent work.

So here we are with two small bathrooms that we want to happily spend money on to have them completely redone - new confirguration, all new plumbing, all new electrical, the whole works - and no one wants to do the job and no one can recommend anyone to me. How does that happen?!

I love a good soak, but I don't do it very often... the tub is around 18" wide and 5' (60") longe. I am 5'4" (64" long). If I were under 5' this would be a good size - for me. However, despite my physical flaws, I am unlikely to shrink anytime soon, and have no wish to (in fact, I'd like to be about 4" taller). So why is this so difficult to find?!