A little power, a little painting.

Not a lot of "wow" to report from Friday. Our contractor finished putting in the flooring in the linen closet and in the back corner around the toilet. He also did some work patching over where the old electrical outlets and fixtures used to be and creating access for the new ones.

There will be 3 outlets above the double sink vanity
and 2 light fixtures above the mirrors.

Also, this is the doorway that formerly connected the closet and bathroom. It shows potential to become a wall soon.

A view that won't be viewable for long.

Remember the linen closet? It was painted a yellowish beige that didn't match the old white tile or the white door and woodwork. I'm not completely sure if the contractor intended to paint it for us, but it wasn't designated on the contract as something that would be redone. I decided to paint it white, because I already had some paint I could use, and because I took a serious nap today and who knows when I will fall asleep.

Before

After

Since it's Memorial Day, people were setting off firecrackers and stuff which got the dog all needy. At one point she actually backed into the closet with the wet paint on the walls; she's never been in there before. Silly Tussey.

Excuse me ... you're standing where the painter person is supposed to stand!

I'm floored.

Glory be, we have floor tile!

I only have one picture because we're not supposed to walk on it yet. Glue drying, or something like that.

In lieu of more photos, I will tell the floor tile story.

I believe in shopping locally when possible, so I started looking at tile at a local place run by a family friend. I did get good service and was shown this tile at the quoted price of $4.99/sf. I also saw some shower tiles I liked, and they said I could take the samples home.

I had the samples with me when I went to Home Depot to look at vanities. I ran into a former coworker who now works there and he commented that he loves that tile I had in my cart. I said thanks and then I realized he thought I had found it at Home Depot. I said, "Do you carry this? This is a sample from another store", and he said yes, it's right over here. He showed me a display and there was the very same tile marked $1.99/sf.

Again, I believe in shopping locally. I believe that I got good service at the specialty store, and I sincerely intended to support the little guy. However, HD was 40% of his price. That's 60% less, and when you're buying 70 sf of tile, that's a difference of $200. Gulp.

I bought the floor tile at Home Depot, and promised myself I would buy the shower tile from the local guy. The big boxes didn't carry what I had in mind for the shower anyway, but then the shower tile purchase didn't go according to plan, and that's a story for another day.

Here's a screenshot of the floor tile from the Home Depot website. It has a brushstroke/woodgrain look to it, and I like that it's big (12" x 24") and doesn't require lots of grout.

Just to see you tile ...

Today our shower got walls, and niches to put things in! We're talking about how arrange the tile, which will be very exciting to see. Drywall replacement and repair continues.

No more intercom, no more light fixture.

In with the new!

Today the tub base got installed, along with some plumbing. Mark did some homework on shower doors, he wants an extra tall one. Not much else to report, except it looks like our referendum for a new high school will pass! Confetti!

Nice to see something clean and new appear.

Old faucets out, new rough in.

Closet doors and framing GONE.

There's a door where there was no door before!

Today, circumstances at work necessitated me taking a full hour lunch break, so I came home to let Tussey out and snoop on the progress upstairs. Here's what I found:

There's a hole in the wall, dear Liza, dear Liza ...

The thermostat is GONE!
Looks like we've got a mystery on our hands!

When I came home again at the end of the day, there was yet another surprise!

Epic photobomb by Tussey!

I thought the doors would all get repurposed,
but this is a new one!

Our contractor's Dad was a State High math teacher,
so I found it funny that he showed his work on the wall.
Check out that old school long division!

Ah-HA! Thermostat wire found in the hallway!

It appears that some of the formerly tiled drywall
can be saved. The lower sections were repaired.

The shower base, unpackaged and ready to go!

Bye bye bathtub!

Day 2 marked the removal of the bathtub and lots of flooring. The new shower base appeared in our garage, so I expect that will be the first *new* thing to go in this week.

Beyond the bathroom, all four of us are sharing the hallway bath which was previously exclusively used by the kids. It's been illuminating to be in there ... it was in serious need of a deep clean and Drano. Mark cleaned the tub and floors on Saturday. Today I'm going to make sure the kids only put back in what they are using every day because there's precious little shelf space in there. When I cleaned out my own stuff I found a ridiculous quantity of hotel and travel size shampoo. It's my mission to use ALL of them up during this renovation, with the added advantage that they're tiny and I can put them in odd places.

I gave everyone a new rule to abide by, which is unless you are naked, you have to leave the bathroom door open so someone else can get to a sink. Also there is no reason to be naked in there for longer than a few minutes. Take your shower, dry off, put something on and open the door! (No one is going to follow this rule, but I tried.)

The former tub stall. We're putting in a shower
base so it will be a large walk-in shower.

Toilet and tile are gone, too.
Drywall will be replaced.

Double sink vanity and two mirrors will go on this wall.

The door on the left will be replaced with drywall
and a door from the bedroom will be here.
Thermostat will be relocated to the hallway.

This tile will likely be next to come up.

The new walk-in closet won't have a sink.

Mark harvested the light bulbs from the other fixtures.
He was about to take these when I insisted that
NO ONE wants these light bulbs, most especially me!

Blogging the bathroom

After a three year blogging sabbatical, I'm back (though maybe not for long). Life is jam packed right now with two adults working full-time, two teenagers, one dog, and more housework to do than available minutes to do it. What does a middle-aged woman do when the stress of every day living becomes too much? She renovates a bathroom.

We chose our house very quickly in spring of 2007. There were many good reasons to choose it, but the bathrooms were not among them. With my agreement to sign on the dotted line for this house came the qualifier that both upstairs bathrooms would be remodeled within a year. We moved in, we acclimated to central Pennsylvania, we got the kids' bathroom remodeled, and learned about local contractors, vendors, and options. I planned to put all this education to good use on the master bath project, but when other unexpected projects came up and finances tightened, those plans got put on hold.

Seven years is a long time to hold a grudge, but this bathroom and I reached a stalemate. I hated it. I hated everything about it. I hated the carpet (who carpets a bathroom?). I hated that you had to walk through the walk-in closet to get to it. I hated the fact that there was a SINK in that closet, but no drawers or cabinets to put things in. I hated when the shower tiles started falling off the walls and we had to put one of those vinyl surround things up on top of them. I hated the clunky vanity cabinets in the bathroom. I hated the salmon-mauve wall color. Finally, I hated that the thermostat for the entire 2nd floor was in there. Yes, in the bathroom, where the temperature can fluctuate by ten degrees when someone takes a shower.

Last fall I put my foot down. No more home improvements get ahead of this bathroom on the to-do list. No roof. No landscaping. Nada. Must ... renovate ... bathroom ... first!

Finally, we are getting the bathroom done. Choosing everything has been stressful, especially when most local showrooms are only open while I'm at work. The internet has been wonderful, except the day when I found out the shower tile AND the vanity were both on backorder. Sales rep Stewart at a tile store in Alabama came through for me. He found my allegedly discontinued bullnose tile and got it delivered here more quickly and cheaply than the local place could, but that's another blog post.

For now, I just want to chronicle the journey.

Entry from the bedroom.

Door to bedroom.

Double bi-fold doors (metal).

The sink, with no cabinetry, but trifold mirror!

The lovely carpet (barf!).
Salmon and beige are not anyone's favorite combination.

The shower, before the tiles fell off.

Shower with vinyl surround to hold up the tiles.

The throne. 

The intercom above the toilet, so you can make household
announcements heard in every room while you're on the throne.

The linen closet interior is painted an icky creamy color.

The original flooring--better or worse than the carpet?

Vanity has no functional drawers.

Lower cabinet doors don't close all the way.

These clunky things are too high to reach and make the room seem smaller!

These are slightly cool vintage fixtures.

The thermostat is between the door and the tub. Fluctuate much?

The kindest way to deal with this bathroom? Put it out of its misery! Demolition day one:

 And so it begins ...