Say Adios to the old bathroom! Yahoo! Finally!!! After scheduling and rescheduling and re-rescheduling, finally the reno begins today!
As you may, or may not recall, last year about this time, we had planned to reno the bathrooms (one at a time of course - always have to have at least one functional bathroom!) and instead ending up spending beaucoup bucks replumbing the entire house instead. sigh. When we bought the house we knew there were things that had to change and we prioritized them pretty well. We decided that if we did one major project every year, we would eventually have the home we knew this house could be. And of course that kitchen reno when did immedistely after we moved in was the first thing on the list! The bathrooms, obviously, were second on the list, but got bumped back one, as I just explained. so this year, at last, the bathrooms! Yeehah! They are small of course. Back in 1962 when this house was built, houses tended to be smaller. One car garage (which for us is now our utility/laundry room), small bedrooms, small living rooms, small bathrooms.....small is the operative word. But since we were downsizing, that was a good thing. This house had good bones and was in the location we wanted to be. We knew that this house could eventually be the right home for us and we are patient people. Patient people with vision. We could see what was possible. We saw, in the kitchen, beyond chipped blue Formica counter top and the handing cabinets that completely prevented seeing into the next room even though it was called an "open-kitchen". We saw beyond the drawers that fell apart when we tried to open them and the stove with the crusted, rusted and tilted burners. We could envision that cramped closet that held the washer dryer so compactly that nobody could actually use the dryer as a pantry instead. And ultimately, we brought the vision to life. It looks so awesome now. I just love our kitchen . Now we are doing the same thing with the bathroom. That horrible peach tile, for example which is literally taped to the wall. I'm not joking even a little bit. Tim had to use black electical tape to secure some of the tiles to the wall while we waited for our reno guy to be available. Every time I cleaned, I did so very very gently and carefully so as to not dislodge any further tiles. It didn't always work. And that peachy colour - awful! Especially with the wierd yellowish white walls. What colour is that anyway? It reminds me of french vanilla ice cream. Whatever colour it is, it looks terrible with peach. And of course back in 1962, apparently waterproof wallboard wasn't yet a thing. Sooooooo yeah, I'm guessing that behind the tile that wallboard is pretty much hanging on with toenails. To be honest I am a little concerned at what is behind the walls. Old houses are scary behind the walls. The stuff we do not know is lurking behind walls is terrifying to contemplate. But I guess we will find out soon. The faucets drip no matter how tightly you turn them off and the paint on the ceiling was peeling because before we moved in, there was no exhaust fan in the bathroom. No Exhaust fan!! In Florida. In summer. In a bathroom. Of course there was peeling paint! (before we had an exhaust fan put in I mean) But there is no point in looking backwards. Nope. We are only looking forward now and we cannot WAIT for our new bathroom to be done. Our reno guy says that roughly 3 weeks from now we will be back in business with two functional bathrooms. One of which is gorgeous brand new and I am so excited! Woohoo! In the meantime, we will deal with the inconvienences brought about by living in the midst of a reno. We are of course lucky to have the second bathroom, but in the middle of the night, traversing to the other side of the house in the dark to pee will take a little getting used to. And the guest bath is even smaller than the main bathroom if you can believe that. But it works. Finding places to put things temporarily was interesting. Tim broke down the guest bed and has all the pieces including the mattress leaning up against a wall in the guest room so that the vanity, toilet, tub and so forth had a place to be that isn't in the middle of the living room for the next few weeks. But that entailed stripping that bed of everything. Sheets, pillows, blankets. Those are stacked in the guest room closet now. Everything that was in the vanity of the main bath well..that's here there and everywhere. The shower rod, curtain and liner are in the utility room. The shampoos and soaps are in the guest room shower of course with toothbrushes and toothpaste. But most everything else (I'm astonished by how much stuff we had in that vanity!) is now all in a jumble in a laundry basket in the guest room. If you need something, you have to dig for it. And since all of the things that we used to reach for sleepily, without thought, we now have to give consideration to. "Where did I put the sunscreen? Where are the band-aids? That new bottle of shampoo?" And then mostly, just having someone else in the house that you really do not know always weirds me out. Working around the noise and the mess and that other person that isn't a friend or a family member is always a challenge for me. But in this case, it's one that we welcome. Few strangers have been greeted more happily than our reno guy. "Hurrah! You have come to save our bathroom! Welcome in!" We have had great fun choosing new tile, paint colours (still haven't made a final selection there), lights, mirrors, etc.etc. and we know that in the end, this is all going to be worth the time, the money and the inconvenience. When it's all done, you know I will post photos so you can see the before and after. That's always fun right? And in the meantime, wish us - no structural issues - please!
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AuthorYup, this is me. Some people said, "Sam, you should write a Blog". "Well, there's a thought", I thought to myself. And so here it is. Archives
November 2024
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