What seems the easiest project...

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I picked up a new faucet at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for a steal - $9. Well, here it is successfully installed in what we lovingly refer to as our Harry Potter bathroom, or the tiny bathroom under the stairs. Before we had the ugly cheap model that could be picked up for about $9 brand new. I think this makes quite an improvement over the old one. I decided last night around 5pm to put this in, really thinking it would take me 30 minutes, tops, to take out the old one and install the new.

You'd think I'd know better by now.

Thom and I (admittedly mostly Thom) toiled and strained and swore for several hours at this thing. Taking the old one out: piece of cake; putting the new one back in without a leak: not so much. After many scraped knuckles and enfuriated tempers, we gave it a rest for the night. I think the basic issue was the very tiny space in which we had to maneuver. I did go to HD last night to get a basin wrench but we couldn't even fit that in the tiny hole underneath the tiny sink.

After some rest, some church, and a good bagel, I gave it another whirl. It seems that laying on my back with my foot up in the air and my tongue out made the basin wrench finally fit in there. No leaks! Much improved! We'll put in a new toilet and tile floor perhaps after the New Year and then that bathroom will be more or less complete.

The plan is still to do the full bathroom upstairs during Thanksgiving week (although I am admittedly a little afraid to attempt to do this with our usual savior, Paul, being out of town that week). If nothing else, this little lesson has reminded me to assume the worst and plan for way more time than I generally think I'll need.

New Terlet!

It is a sad, sad testament to my life and what it has become when I am excited about buying a new toilet. Really, really sad. As Thom just pointed out, "We're not going to see some cool concert, we're not throwing a party, we're excited because we just bought a pooper." Yeah, that sums it up.

Despite how pathetic it might be, I am excited about my new toilet! After some pretty hard-core research and price comparison I marched down to our local Home Depot and bought this dual-flush sexy thing. 1.1/1.6 gallons per flush. Woosh! Earth friendly and awesome - who could ask for more?

I did read on the online reviews that the seat and wax ring that comes with it (it's an all-in-one model) are on the cheap side so I'll make sure to get new of each. My plan is to start the madness the week of Thanksgiving. No classes and we're not going anywhere so we'll see how much of a mess I can make.

Great Deals from ReStore for Bathroom

So my plan now is to just buy up everything for the upstairs bathroom as I'm able and then do it all in one fell swoop. I made my first foray today into the ReStore in Brewer, ME and was pleasantly surprised. I think I expected a whole bunch of reruns and yucky crap but they had some really nice seconds - and, sheesh, TONS of tile. I got two great deals that I'm pretty happy with - a bathroom faucet to replace our low-rent version in the downstairs bathroom for $9 (on Lowe's website it sells for $68).Also a new granite vanity top with attached undermount sink for the upstairs bathroom for $120 (from Lowe's - originally was $314 but has one little scratch near the faucet area). The picture here isn't exactly the same but it's close.So, we have a few items left to get: toilet (already picked out from HD - dual flush awesomeness), the faucets for the sink and the tub/shower, and then the doors for the vanity. I did decide to reuse the vanity we have in place - it's not exactly what I want but I found this great place that will make MDF doors for dirt cheap. My plan is to reuse the box we have but repaint it white and then attach the new doors. I also think I'm going to reuse our medicine cabinet - it's a bit groovy for the style we're going for but I think it might look cool if I repaint the gold frame silver. If not, oh well, maybe the ReStore will come again to my rescue.

Piecemealing the Bathroom: Tile and More

Recognize this sexy light? Yes, I think it was in my grandmother's kitchen too. Well, in the face of great adversity (or the lack of matching lighting) we have decided to do it up really old school and go with this light for the ceiling in the bathroom. It's certainly retro. It's chrome. And, you know what else? It's cheap! $20, baby. Which means, if we hate it, it's not the end of the world. I think it will go with the other lights pretty well. And, that's right, it's only $20.
After doing the bills this morning I found we had a few extra dollars left so I went ahead and ordered our accent tile for the bathroom and then made a trip to Lowe's for the extra white subway tile. We plan to do something somewhat similar to what we did for the kitchen backsplash but instead of interspersing glass tiles throughout we will do one stripe all the way across, probably about two-thirds of the way up. We had a bunch of the subway tiles left anyway so this will look nice, we think.

While at Lowe's I investigated backerboard for the tub surround area and came across this stuff by Georgia-Pacific called DensShield. It looks lighter and easier to cut and you don't need a vapor barrier. I think this is how we'll go, when we're ready.

I also thought a bit more about the lighting situation. The vanity lights that are currently there are the light/outlet combo type; obviously not to code. I thought, no problem, I'll just slap up a new electrical box under each light and we'll install GFCIs. I'm wondering though if it's actually more complicated than that and if this is a job for an electrician. I read something online that said we'd need a new breaker. Ick. What do y'all think?

Piecemealing the Bathroom: Lights

See them there pretty lights? They're outta here, dude. Since we had to use the last of my summer grant money on plane tickets for the holidays (we love you, family) we will be piece-mealing the upstairs bathroom together. The first thing to go will be these lights. God, I hate them. We instead got these nice ones from HomeDepot that are a little more 1920s-looking.

It says these are "brushed nickel" but they really are more chrome-like. The problem is now finding something relatively along the same lines for the overhead light in there. I'd like something that's more angular, like these, but that doesn't look like a woman's breast (if you've been light shopping lately you know what I'm talking about). I'm not having much luck.

In the meantime, I'm planning and plotting how to piece-meal the rest together. We desperately need to replace the toilet and I'd like to do the floor at the same time. However, as you can see from the photo above, we also have an issue with old cream-with-gold-flecked tile lining the walls as wainscoting. I think I can just take a utility knife and score around the room since the bathroom appears to have been redone in the 1970s or early 1980s with drywall so I can just replace the drywall there for now. I'm fine waiting on the tiling for the walls (if that is indeed what we decide to do). The big problem is the shower since it is tiled all the way around the outside of the bathtub and the entire inside of the shower/tub area, including the ceiling. I am not sure we can afford the new tile yet but I also don't think we can live with blueboard for too long in terms of wrecking it with our only shower in the house. Thoughts?

Contented

Before

You ask, "Is it deja vu?" And I reply, "No, I've just been discontented." Now I am officially contented. After painting the guest bedroom first one time and then again, I have returned yet again to put my discontent to rest. After searching for what appears to be over a year, I believe I have finally found the correct shade of green that I absolutely love. If you hadn't already guessed, it's called Contented (Sherwin Williams).

After

Thom proclaims that he liked the last iteration but I am clearly the more picky one in the pair. The other green was just too -- something. Too bright, perhaps. It was certainly just "too" for my taste. It just didn't seem to go with the rest of our palette in the house, which is much more muted and earthy. This color is finally the one. I think I am officially done painting the interior of our house! Hip hip hooray!

It's nice to be back at the home improvement game. I still have big hopes for the bathrooms getting done but the last of my summer grant money may need to be used for holiday plane tickets. I think the next semi-big project will be to remove the paint from the front porch decking and stairs and repaint -- perhaps removing the screening while I'm at it. We'll see. At any rate, at least I can finally go into the guest room and not say "ick" any longer.

Bathroom Reno Dreaming

We have not abandoned household improvement; rather we have taken a hiatus to plot and scheme. As I believe I stated previously, most of my summer teaching money went to visiting the Mouse in Florida so we will be spending sporadically on the bathroom renovation. At this point I'm just trying to figure out the plan of attack. I know we can afford to buy the new toilet this month and we already have the floor tile. So this means removing the old toilet, taking up the old vinyl and subfloor, removing the old baseboards, installing new subfloor and cement backer board, tiling, and then installing the new toilet. However, here are some issues:

1) We will not be able to afford to buy the new vanity until September at least. So taking out the old one will be necessary for tiling the floor. I guess we just put the old one back in until we can replace it?

2) We are uncertain about what to do with the existing tile on the walls and in the shower. There is ceramic tile on two walls of the bathroom, serving as a kind of wainscoting. The shower is completely tiled, including the ceiling. Thom would like to have white subway tile, as would I, but I'm honestly just not motivated to remove all of this tile. I'm toying around with the idea of having Miracle Method resurface the tiles when they do the bathtub. We could always remove one row of them and replace them with some glass tile we have been eyeing. The existing tile and its grout are in very good shape too so it seems a waste to chuck it (and a waste of my sanity trying to remove it). However, we know we have some kind of issue with the hot water to the tub/shower. We don't, of course, have an access panel so removing tile would be helpful in diagnosing and fixing the problem. I would hate to have to mess it all up later.

So, that's where we stand. Any thoughts or opinions are always welcome.