Bathroom Renovation

Surely you remember the lone bathroom on the second floor of 1926 Foursquare. 

What a mess.

Firstly, please note the total lack of an exhaust fan, a single electrical outlet-

(that is ONE outlet which also functions as a lightswitch)

so exactly one socket in which to plug a hair dryer or something. 

Usually it sports a pretty night light. 

I am such a huge fan of GE's electroluminescent night lights!

You may also remember...

My beloved laundry chute. <3

My adorable gas flame space heater. <3

We had the heater removed last spring. That's around the time things got really bad.

View from above the medicine cabinet. Someone did a REALLY crappy job.

I effing hate this vanity. What I wouldn't give for a pedestal sink and a built-in medicine cabinet!

Alas, that is not in the budget for this round of remodeling!

Solution = paint it!!!

The paint... I hated that paint. I know it's not the paint's fault that we didn't put a vent in our bathroom when we first moved in, but the paint cracked like crackle paint and slimey paint-water ran down the walls every time we showered. So gross. So we were like screw you crappy paint! And we installed a fan and painted with better quality (Sherwin Williams) paint in hopes of not having a repeat of the crackling.

That is, we repainted after framing the ceiling over top of the plaster and installing new drywall and a fancy fan light. We also installed a new wall so that the end of the tub would be flush with the wall so we could install a tub surround. The tub surround went on perfectly on the newly built, perfectly flat drywall. However, on the curvy wavy plaster walls from 1926? Not so much. It was like an episode of I Love Lucy as we contorted ourselves in the bathtub, smashing our shoulders and bottoms against the vinyl trying to get the surround to curve and stick to the walls. But those things are designed NOT to warp so getting them to act flimsy and bend so that they would adhere water-tight was a nightmare! On top of all of this, the manufacturer-recommended caulk peeled off like rubber cement the day after it was applied. I swear that surround is made of Teflon. It is, to this day, the bane of my existence! 

 New ceiling.

 

New plate rails. (The walls were too wavy for wainscoting.)

New cabinet for towels and stuff.

Pretty paint!

New prints and a pretty fan light.

New hooks for towels courtesy of Target. God, I love Target!

Pretty hand towels hanging on our new wall!

So in love with our hotel shower curtain rod!

I am so incredibly glad this project is over with- for now! Still shopping architectural reclamation and salvage centers for the perfect pedestal sink!

THE FLOOD

Tuesday, April 19, 2011:

Husband is smack in the middle of remodeling our bathroom, and we're taking a break and eating lunch, when we hear a huge POP! Husband runs upstairs to make sure the piping for the new shower he's just installed is intact. It is. We shrug and go back to eating lunch.

Ten minutes later, our next door neighbor knocks on the door. "Do you have water?" he asks.
"Yeah," I reply, "The water's on, why?"
"No, in your basement, do you have water?"
"Uh, Jason's been up and down the stairs all day turning the water on and off, I think we're dry. Jason is the basement wet?"
Jason puts down is sandwich and goes down to the basement.
A long series of curse words drifts up from the cold air return.
"We've got water!"



Neighbor proceeds to explain that he's lived in our neighborhood for decades and that they have not had any problems with their sewer drain backing up since the early 1980s when the city expanded the sewer line out on the main road. That's 30 years and no problem with their main drain. Neighbor's brother lives across the street so he knows the houses in our neighborhood very well, and when he saw water in our basement he figured we'd have the same problem and ran over to tell us, first thing. We have the sweetest neighbors! We might not have noticed for hours if he hadn't come over.

It's a good thing we did notice because our 1-year-old, $5,000 furnace would have been under a foot of water if I hadn't run out to Home Depot for a sump pump. It was a bad Tuesday.