Dear Diary - I Love My New Bathroom !

Dear Diary - 

Rather than photographing the next 7 days of drywall dust and watching paint dry, I'm skipping right to the finished bathroom.   I hope you love it as much as I do... oh...wait... you can't unless you are soaking in my tub! 

In the original bathroom, the wall on the right hand side was
level with the door frame.  Now as you step past the shower,
the wall is set back to accommodate the new vanity.

See... I wasn't lying when I said that tub was
NOT going through that doorway.

Love, Love, Love my Tub!
(I should cross stitch that and hang it over the tub)

This wall was also extended to accommodate a larger shower.
I can actually bend over to pick up the soap now.  wink wink

Finally.  Someplace to hide - I mean - store
the toilet bowl brush now.

Ok, you just HAD to know THIS was coming!!

Thanks for letting me share these photos with you.  It's been a long week for me, I bet you'll never guess where I'm heading to relax! 

Bonnie

Dear Diary - Day 5,6,7 & 8 Bathroom Reno's

Dear Diary - Day 5 

Cat slightly unimpressed.  Still.  

Get over it Sushi, Life's too short. Put on your big girl pants and deal with it.

Pipes !!!!!    I have pipes!   Looks a little better than the first time don't you think? 

Progress:  Many hours of sawing through the cast iron pipes and I now have modern day plumbing.  The reason the shower leaked: 

1. the shower plumbing was installed level to the floor - duh, even I know that's not right.
2. the shower plumbing was hooked up to drain by way of the sink.  No wonder there were so many problems.
3. the frame to hold the shower base was a 3ft x 3ft / 2x4 frame with little or no support in the middle.  So when you stood in the shower, what was actually holding your weight was the drain itself and as the floor had rusted around the drain pipe, the weight was pushing down enough to allow the water to flow beneath the shower as opposed to out the drain.

Dear Diary - Day 6 

I Painted the tub - Bittersweet Chocolate.  A slight improvement don't you think?  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT !

Don't worry about the green pipes - they aren't staying. The pillows are staying though;  the tub is still occasionally used as a lounge area.  Had to move the toilet out from between the bed and the tub. I was getting a little too cranky trying to get my rear end past them every night to get to bed. 

 

Yesterday, Ryan was kind enough to put plastic back up to keep the drywall dust out of my bedroom.   The cat was kind enough to paw at it all night!  AGAIN! 

Floor !!!!   I have a floor!    Oh sweet progress.  Now that the floor openings are gone, the cat has a little more freedom once Ryan is finished for the day.  However - nighttime is another story as long as the plastic remains up.

Dear Diary - Day8

I was delighted to come home to see the tile on the floor today.  Things are whipping into shape now!   However.....

I almost fainted when I came home and saw the closet. Half a closet??  It was supposed to be a FULL closet.  When we started out the closet was at the top.  Now it's at the bottom.  Ryan must have read my love note upside down!!  

Oh God !!!

Dear Diary - Day 2,3 & 4: Bathroom Reno's

Side note: Just so there is no confusion... these bathroom renovations were done about 2 years ago.  And because I am posting days 2, 3 and 4 together -  I thought I should clarify that since this weekend was Day Light Savings Time - you really did only lose one hour, not three days.  I had kept a journal of the renovations and thought it would be something interesting to post now.

Dear Diary - Day 2

Cat still very unhappy with the changes we have inconvenienced her with.  Most of her unhappiness is caused by the fact that she cannot actually drink from the tub taps since the tub is unhooked from the water supply, but she just hasn't figured that part out yet. Her obsession with getting through the plastic turns out to have been a mouse - ….better than a bat !!!   Ryan found it when he put his bare hand under the floor board to check things out and his hand grabbed something squishy and furry instead - grooooosssss. 
 

Paige could not find the cat last night and discovered that it was wondering between the floor boards and the kitchen ceiling tiles.  Now I have mice, bats and a CAT between my walls and floor boards. It appears we are  now going to have to keep her locked up  somewhere constantly. 
  
Does anyone know of a cat whisperer;  we may need one….These day logs could turn out to be very entertaining.  I should take a before and after picture of the cat - I wonder how much fur she will lose over this??

Ryan slipped off the floor joist and put his foot through the kitchen ceiling. .  He's ok - but he feels bad. He was worried about my reaction, but when I laughed - there was much relief in his face. He was able to fix it temporarily and later he's going to replace the entire ceiling with drywall for me.   Hey... accidents happen and at least the damage is only a few tiles and not HIM!

OOOPS!

Dear Diary - Day 3

Cat is settling in a bit better, although Ryan listens to her meow all day long when she is locked in the back room.  He says she is clearly unhappy.  

Here is Ryan working along side one of the many notes (instructions/wishes...what have you...)  I leave him every day. He thinks they are to-do lists, I tell him to think of them as love notes - it will make the day more pleasant. 

Below is a picture of the ugly red striped velvet wall paper that was discovered when Ryan removed the wall between the bedroom and bathroom.  Phewww.  Glad that is getting covered up!  I did have a brain-wave though (I get them occasionally) while this process was going on, so I added it to my 'love notes' - I asked Ryan to heavily insulate the walls between the shower and the bedroom.  Now when I'm sleeping and someone is in the shower - I cannot hear them.  Niiiice.

Dear  Diary - Day 4 

Ok... it's Movie Night and I don't feel well.  All I want to do is lay in bed to watch a movie., but how are we going manage this??? 

Paige and I ended up snuggled in the bed and Holly didn't want to crowd in - so she came up with a comfortable alternative.

Cat can't figure out why Holly is in the tub with no water.  
She's still not sure about all this.

Still licking her lips - hoping the taps will work again.

What a mess renovating the most used room of the house!  The cat and I can't wait until it's finished.

Stay tuned....

Dear Diary - Day 1: Bathroom Reno's

I had been waiting over 20 years to renovate my bathroom from hell.  Finally,  I could stand the stress no longer and I made the decision to go deeper into debt and just get it done once and for all.  Brace yourself - I don't exaggerate when I tell you - it was disgusting!!   The picture below is the main bathroom of the house and it is very tiny; If you can imagine the width of the tub - you can see how small the bathroom really is. Directly to the right as you enter the door is one of those 3ft x 3ft TIN shower stalls. Part of the original bathroom wall was taken out and the crappy shower was installed 3 ft into the adjoining bedroom.  The shower leaked constantly onto the kitchen ceiling directly below.  If you happened to be in the kitchen at the same time as someone in the shower, you inevitably were dripped upon.  If you happened to walk into the kitchen when the ceiling fan was on and someone was in the shower, you were unexpectedly sprayed in the face with the water that was dripping onto the spinning fan blades.  

This picture is what you see the moment you walk into the room. After renovations, this cupboard will extend to the floor and it will be an open concept  cupboard with decorative baskets because apparently - children are allergic to closing cupboard doors.

I certainly made no effort to tidy this bathroom before taking the 'before' picture, because this is exactly what the bathroom looked like each time you entered it. No room for storage or a large enough can to handle the ever flowing garbage.

Tiny Toilet Corner with peeling-outdated-sponge-painted walls. 

Stylish floor tiles, ...gag,...displaying the cat's favourite rolling toilet paper toy that somehow always managed to find its way out of the garbage.  Right Sushi...????

And the reason why I wanted my tub refinished.  The worn finish was starting to work its way up to seating area of the tub, and I just couldn't risk a worn finish on MY seating area.

YUCK!  I feel the anxiety building just remembering when I used to have to stand in this shower! The floor was so old and rusty, I had tried to paint it. Anything was better than standing on the rust. Then of course it peeled and I knew it would, but it was a necessary - yet temporary fix. As you can see, I caulked the hell out of the drain to stop the indoor kitchen downpours. Yes, that is a plunger that was necessary to live in the shower with you, because you HAD to plunge or the slow moving drain would cause the build up of water to run out over the side.  I was ecstatic the day I found a round bathmat.  I folded it over for the picture to show you the true definition of GROSS.Then the mat decided to camouflage itself to match the rusting floor.

When the contractor came to give me a quote for the room I said, "I don't know how you are going to get the tub out of this room, it won't fit through the door" 

He said, "Oh, it will fit.  I'll just turn it on it's side."

Meanwhile, I'm thinking: 'You think so do you???'

The first day of the demolition, he met me at the door as I returned home from work and he said, "I couldn't get the tub out the door so I had to remove the wall so now it's in your bedroom.... along with the toilet."

After the renovations are completed, this tub will most definitely be a permanent fixture in this house because in order for Ryan to gut the tiny room, replace the plumbing, sub-floor and tiling, he had no choice but to remove the wall to put the tub somewhere.  Once this was complete, he then had to put the tub back before he could install the marble shower and replace the wall.  That tub is going nowhere. Ever!  This was also a deciding factor in having the tub refinished.  How could I spend all this money and leave a damaged tub that I was never going to be able to remove in order to replace it. Besides, why would  I ever want to; the tub and I have too many fond memories.  There isn't anyone else whom I've laid naked against so much.

So we were a few weeks completing this project with no tub or shower,  a missing wall between the bedroom and the bathroom and a bathtub and toilet to stub my feet on in the dark when I would wake up in the mornings and forget they were there.  Thanks to sisters and neighbours who let us borrow their facilities since the two piece bath just wasn't going to cut it for 3 females. 

So... let's condense a few weeks into a few days.

Dear Diary - Day 1

Cat not adjusting well to renovations.  Kept me up most of the night. She has tonight to prove to me she can settle in and accept that the tub is NOT in the bathroom anymore.  If she can't do that, she's going to be locked up for the night  because as you will see from the photo - it's hard for me to get out of bed and chase her in the dark of the night.   So this picture is my bedroom - with the bath accessories IN it while the rest of the bath is completed.  Because I was so paranoid that this disruption in the walls would cause the hibernating bats to seek warmth in my bedroom, Ryan hung plastic where my wall USED to be.  Sushi decided the plastic would make a good scratch post and with no claws - she only succeeded in rattling and swooshing it ALL night long.

I couldn't wait to paint the outside of this tub. 

This is where the toilet sat: Note the Timmy cup is now the toilet (not really, but it is plugging the sewer pipe). This mess of old cast iron pipes is what the contractors were trying to figure out what to do with until 10pm one night ... then they finally called it quits for the day.

I think they got the hint when they heard me say "good night" from the other side of the plastic.

The view from my pillow.  It was kinda scary actually. 

Stay tuned .........

 

Déja Vu

Wallpaper is not my friend.

It seems like only yesterday I was scrapping off 5 or so layers of the vintage stuff in the upstairs bathroom. (Oh, I need to make some corrections here... it was about 20 years ago; not yesterday, it wasn't just me doing the scrapping; Bonnie was helping me, and it wasn't a bathroom at the time; it was a kitchen and soon to be a playroom.)

When we bought our century home 23 years ago, it was a duplex. One family had lived upstairs and one had lived on the main floor. We decided we didn't need 2 kitchens (hey, sometimes I wonder if I even need one- I don't spend much time in there!) so we thought it would be great to have a playroom for the kids to keep all their "stuff" in one spot.

When the time came to take off the layers of old wallpaper, Bonnie offered to give me a hand. When you have the extra help, the job really does go that much faster... especially when you have some interesting discussions along the way. Bonnie- remember our little debate about the temperature of the water to use in the spray bottle for wetting the paper? I was using hot water every time I filled mine, thinking it would work that much faster. Right? Well, Bonnie insisted it didn't matter what the original temperature of the water was because when it came out in the spray form it would be cold. I'm still up in the air on that one :^)

Needless to say, we got the job done and 11 years ago, the playroom changed again... this time into a bathroom. The whole room was gutted, so down came the old plaster and up went the new drywall. But guess what?? Instead of painting I decided to put up the dreaded wallpaper... again!!

So what you see here is what I'm working on at the present. No more wallpaper for me!! I have the paint already bought, so I can't change my mind.

Well, enough of a break. ( It was definitely time for one: I couldn't figure out why the paper on the upper part of the ceiling was drying so fast after I had sprayed it. Duh! Shut off the ceiling fan Tracey!!)

After having my (some what) healthy snack, it's time to pick up my scrapper and get back to work. I'll re-fill my spray bottle with hot water (sorry Bonnie- old habits die hard!) and add a little vinegar to it too! (Vinegar!...so that's why I keep craving french fries! LOL!)

Tracey