But maybe that's the best way to do it? If we had known we'd be living with a sticky bathroom floor for a few weeks, where we had to slip our feet into the shoes stuck to the floor (they really were!) before sitting on the throne, we probably wouldn't have had the guts to get 'er done. Ignorance is bliss right? Plus, it's kind of an adventure as you figure it out one step at a time. And it's not like we hadn't thought about re-doing that bathroom from the moment we walked through the house - we just hadn't planned out the renovation stages, or what type of flooring we were going to lay, or whether we needed a new vanity (turns out we did).
Wait, you haven't heard this story before, have you? That's because I have neglected to share our bathroom renovation story on this here blog. Shame shame. How about I take this second-year anniversary to fill ya in ....
.... It was a dark and stormy night. No, it wasn't. The story really begins back in July of 2009 when we moved into our fixer-upper 1950s house. Most pressing project? Tackling the purple shower-less bathroom. This was our only bathroom, so getting that shower going was kind of a must. (We showered at the gym for weeks!) ...please ignore the farmer tan!
First up: chipping away the flimsy plastic tile surrounding the tub. Easy peasy.
Next: soliciting the help of my dad to get this bath turned into a shower. (Here he is removing the old plumbing from the tub.)
Long story short short-ish: there were many obstacles along the way...
Frustrations taken out on certain purple walls ...
(Yes, we had a window in the shower, yikes!)
Fun playing with water ...
Late night playing with torches ...
A little help from the pros (had this block-window installed) ...
Walls uncovered and unusually tall showers put in ...
(we didn't want to be discriminating against any tall house-guests we might have, naturally. Of course we don't currently know anyone over seven feet, but ya never know!)
Heavy and dusty Wonder Board installed just by C & E
(Probably the most strenuous part of the project)
Someone donned his masonry hat and tiled our entire shower!
And by September, we finally had a new shower, complete with recessed shelf!
But that was just the beginning of this bathroom renovation.
Then came the big Super Bowl 2010 bathroom floor demolition, which soon afterwards left someone out on the curb:
Evan's dad helped us patch that up. We laid some plywood, spackled around the nails to make a perfectly smooth surface to lay our new flooring.
There was some father-son time out on the front lawn as they discussed the logistics of cutting our floor to size.
As usual, they made wise decisions that resulted in ...
A finished bathroom!
Errr ... never mind. No project is ever done. I don't quite remember what the problem was here. I think our tub/shower was leaking? Whatever it was, E wasn't happy. (But he got it fixed anyway.)
Although we had decided to replace our vanity during the re-haul due to moldy wood on the base (and because it was just so out of date), we kept our medicine cabinet for a while, trying to decide what to replace it with. But removing the mirror revealed some crazy wires!
Thankfully pops Pierson knew what to do (that's him on the phone, while E donned his headlamp ... not sure why we decided to tackle this project at night!)
After some wire wrangling ...
We had a mirror and new light-fixture installed!
And here's the bathroom today!
(that little white shelf has to go, by the way. It's drawn blood from the scalps of far too many people to be considered bathroom-friendly)
Now, a little teaser for the E&C Super Bowl Project 2012:
It's going to involve a little electrical work, some heavy lifting, and hopefully a bag of popcorn in the end.
Like all of our best house projects, this one isn't completely thought through yet. But it's going to be fun!
More to come soon!
What have you guys been up to this weekend? Any antsy house-project people out there? Were you happy for the Giant's win?! (You can see E's favorite game-time food, lil smokies, on the stove.)
