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.

Upstairs Floors AFTER

Who wouldn't like this kind of homecoming after a nice vacation? It was great to come home late last night from Disney World to see our beautiful new floors upstairs. I'm overjoyed! A bit of touching up of paint on the baseboards this morning has made it a whole lot spiffier. We're going to move the furniture back today.

Unfortunately, however, all of our revelry with the Mouse has left us a bit strapped and I'm sad to report that the bathroom reno may have to wait. Since we already have the tile for upstairs, we may splurge on the two toilets and at least get those in. We'll probably have to wait on all the other stuff and cobble together the renovation over a few months. I guess this will be fine but just not what I was hoping for originally. C'est la vie, right?

Upstairs Floors Before

The guys from Don Dickel Floors are here and in the midst of the insanity of trying to finish disassembling and moving our bed and sweeping up the cat's vomit that was hidden beneath it, I forgot to take "before" pictures of all of our floors upstairs. Here are a couple from when we toured the house before we bought it - harder to see but you'll get the general idea. Cannot wait to get back on Monday night and see the "after."

Wish us luck, we're off to see a man about a Mouse.

Bangor Foursquare circa 1930

In the spirit of renewing our house with our much-anticipated floor refinishing later this week, here is a photo of the Bangor Foursquare at 10 years old. We received this photo from the Bangor Historical Society, which was part of their 1930's assessors' collection. As you can tell, the house seems to have been originally something other than just white - perhaps blue or gray (I often dream about getting the house repainted so this may offer some inspiration). The hand-railing on the front stairs seems to have been added later but our near-falling-down garage in the back seems to have been there for quite some time. However, other than the trellises on the right side of the house, everything else seems to be as it is now, almost 80 years later (including the asbestos-tiled roof that we still have and is still in excellent shape -- eat your heart out).

I'll take some before pictures of the upstairs floors this week after we move all the furniture out. Don Dickel Floors (the great people who refinished our beautiful floors downstairs) is coming on Thursday morning before we leave for Disneyworld so all of it has to be moved elsewhere...fun, fun, fun.

3rd time's a charm...mostly

After calming down considerably from yesterday's Peony Tragedy 2009 (thanks for the thoughtful words, Karen Anne), I attempted to remove the last of the gunk from the bottom newel post today. There are still some lingering places that are more black than brown so I'm not sure how to deal with that but for now I need to be done as Thom has been feeling pretty sick from the fumes of the mineral spirits I've had to use to clean up the Peel Away 6. I wonder if there is a way to even out the color with a stain although I suppose this would just make the existing dark spots even darker...?

Nothing else going on this weekend except for maybe a bit more research on bathroom reno. I'm counting the days to getting the floors done!

I also think that my now successful use of Peel Away has prompted me to use it on our front porch floor and steps - there must be at least 10 layers of paint out there and you can tell it. That might be a July or August weekend project.

Are you f*cking kidding me?!?

As I reported last year, someone came and stole my peonies before I could even take a picture of them. They finally bloomed yesterday and I thought I'd go enjoy them (now that the rain stopped for 5 minutes) only to find that someone has AGAIN stolen several of them (see above stem with missing flower). Mother f&cking, son of b%tch, a$$hole losers. I seriously feel like sitting outside with a bat and just waiting for them to come by again. I should at least feel happy that I got a picture of them this year - who knows, they may all be gone by tomorrow. I will quote myself from a year ago and repeat, "Mean people suck."

Okay, I admit it: I was wrong

After being angry and frustrated last night regarding the issues with my Peel Away debacle, I spent some time on the Internet seeing that I seemed to be the only person in the universe with this problem. This led me to believe that the rest of the universe was probably right and I was most likely wrong. I reapplied the goo triple thick this time and used some plastic wrap. It all came off like a dream today when I got home. So, yes, user error. There are a few spots that I need to yet redo (including the bottom newel post that I did yesterday improperly) but I am happy with progress thus far. I was unhappy to see that I got some on the spindles but I know I'll need to repaint these anyway once the floors are done. All in all, then, Peel Away - hooray!