Home Improvement

For the third time since we've moved into our little home, we have a toilet sitting on our patio. THE THIRD TIME!!! Our neighbors just laughed it off the first time, but by now I worry that they're regretting us ever moving in! I mean, really. Can you get any more white trash than that? (My mother-in-law pointed out that at least we don't live in a trailer. I suppose then we'd simply be trailer trash...)

Anyway, yes, it's summer vacation and home improvement projects are underway.

Craig and his Dad already installed our new sliding glass door and it looks lovely. Kudos to my men for that one. In fact, it looks so nice that I'm forgiving them for taking three plus days to get it done when they originally assured me that it would take only one. ComPLETEly forgiven. Really!

No, seriously, I really am very happy with the door. It looks nice, and perhaps even more importantly, it shuts very tightly, so it keeps out the weather AND the bugs. I'm in heaven.

Now Craig and his Dad are working on the bathroom (hence the toilet in the yard). This is the last bathroom that we need to renovate, the master bath. It has a shower which, when we moved in, was being held together with painter's tape.

(Exhibit A)


And based on the big water stain on the ceiling of the room below it, I think the painter's tape just wasn't up to the task. So we have never actually used that shower. It's also a very small bathroom, with floor tile original to the 40-year-old home (read: one-inch square tiles that remind me of a public restroom).

(Exhibit B)

(We did throw away the moldy piece of carpet you can see here which was being used as a bathmat. Ew, ew, ew.) A paint patch we discovered under the sink proved the original owners painted it turquoise (which matched the toilet and sink) with sponged-on pink and purple patches. Wow. Someone liked for things to be very colorful.

(Exhibit C)

We did at least take down the pink curtains before we even moved in.

(This also explains our formerly pink living room, huh?) After finding that paint, I did a little detective work and began looking for clues as to what color my bedroom may have been. Any guesses? (Take the poll!)

Again, wow.

So the Smith men have a lot of work ahead of them. So far, they've ripped out the wall with the door that leads into the bathroom and moved it back about a foot or two. This bumped it a few inches into our closet, but it's worth it to have a slightly bigger bathroom. (I can say that easily because the inches we lost were on Craig's side of the closet!) They've been moving studs in the walls (the bathroom actually looked better once the drywall and tile were all gone and you could see the insulation and studs. Top ten signs you have the ugliest bathroom in the world). This included the drywall for the ceiling, adding new (and thicker) insulation to it and then putting up new more water-resistant drywall. They've also put in all new wiring so that we will now have a fan, a heated floor, and a light on either side of the mirror, rather than a really tacky light built into the medicine cabinet. Also, I think we'll have an outlet that allows TWO things to be plugged in, not just one. Luxury beyond my wildest dreams! (And triple-yay for having a father-in-law who is not only über-handy, hard-working, and willing to drive here all the time to help out, but ALSO an electrical engineer, so he did all that in a few hours. We owe him more thanks than we can possibly begin to express.)

So that's what's going on right now. Our house feels like one big construction site, but it will be worth it. I can't wait to have a real bathroom some day!