Bathroom Blitz

When we moved in to our new one-bathroom abode, we thought we'd have to live with that bathroom-- filthy, hideous, and nonfunctional as it was-- for a while.  After all, we know nothing about plumbing.

And it looked like this:

Left side from hallway.

Right side, ick.

Just give yourself a moment to appreciate this.

Obvious issues: tiny sink detaching itself from wall (perhaps trying to escape), comically small medicine cabinet mounted so high that at 5'9" I could only see the top of my head in the wee little mirror, oddly placed wooden fixtures from the 70's, weird vinyl trim where baseboards should have been, ill-fitting saggy cheap blinds completely covering the window, moldy shower door, blue faux-marble monstrosity, unloved original tub in desperate need of a refinish, slightly pink Marmoleum floors, tragic light fixtures.

I mean, that is a LOT of work for a room measuring four feet by eight.

But there are some positives too.  The original tub is big and deep and has that appealingly chunky forties look.  When the bathroom door is closed, a built-in floor-to-ceiling cabinet is revealed behind the shower-- three big shelves behind doors on top, three huge deep drawers underneath.  The toilet is newish, and the big window lets in lots of light.    

And we thought we could just settle for a hella-thorough cleaning.  On our first day in the house, we changed the blinds and ripped out the foul shower door, and I used a chisel (nope, not kidding) to pry the pile of God-knows-what (see previous post) off of the emergency drain.  The shower door didn't go down without a fight, but after several hours of scraping moldy caulk off my tub I was glad I'd done it.  Then I put on vinyl gloves and the real work began: I scrubbed every surface until my arms ached.  I vacuumed out the cabinet and wiped down the shelves and drawers, scraped peeling paint off the ceiling over the tub, washed the pink floor on my hands and knees, polished the exposed chrome plumbing under the sink, cleaned the mirror, etc etc etc.  And when at long last I stood back to admire my work, there was nothing to admire, because it still looked like crap.  Sigh.

And it still looked like crap when my parents arrived two days later to help me get a jump on some projects while Ray was out of town.  And if you know my father, you know where this is going.

In case you haven't met him, you should know that my dad can literally do anything.  Not exaggerating.  "Prove it," you say.  Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, may I present Exhibits A and B:

 

Exhibit A.

Exhibit B.  Still haven't put the knobs on the vanity.  Oops!  Not sure why the hallway trim looks pink in this photo either.

Yup, told you so.  And please pardon the fuzzy iPad photos.

That is my bathroom after a few days with Dad.  Here's a breakdown of what you're looking at: new sink, new vanity, new faucet, new baseboard molding, fresh paint, new glass shelf and mirror, new blinds.  Here's what you can't see: Dad had to repair the walls to attach the baseboard, install new plumbing under the sink, and patch the drywall and replicate its orange-peel texture where the old medicine cabinet used to be.  And we also painted our built-in cabinet inside and out and gave the vanity (a $99 Home Depot find that was originally a weird orangey wood tone) a fresh coat of Behr Ultra two-in-one. Total spent for this bathroom overhaul, including plumbing supplies and tools: about $250.

Still to come in the bathroom: changing the light fixtures, subway-tiling the shower walls, and DIY-refinishing the tub.  But for now, if you're drinking, and obviously you are, raise a glass to my father!

To recap:

 Before Dad.

 After Dad!

Touch Every Piece-- A Retail-to-Reno Philosophy

In a former life before we moved to the land of organic quinoa, Vinyasa, and frozen fog, we lived in New Haven, CT.  I absolutely loved it there-- if you've never been, I suggest you visit as soon as possible.  Anyhow, for a year or so when we first moved there and I couldn't find a job, I worked nearly full-time at the J. Crew that's basically in the middle of Yale's campus.  Since I was one of the few employees who had a truly open schedule-- my inability to find a teaching job meant I had plenty of time on my hands-- I often wound up in the unenviable position of Last Girl Standing, closing the store at 10pm.  

When you close a retail store, you do what's called "standardizing."  That means you're supposed to physically put your hands on every single piece of clothing-- if it's folded, you refold it and re-stack the pile according to size order; if it's hanging, you straighten it, size it, check its buttons, and finger-space all the hangers.  It's an exhaustive process, but it makes a huge difference in the way the store looks.  When you're tired at the end of a long day on your feet and you try and fudge it-- maybe you don't use the handy little board to refold every tee in the pile, maybe you ignore a couple of misbuttoned shirts, maybe you don't bother to make sure every sleeve is rolled to the same length-- the sum of all those little shortcuts is one big sloppy mess.  But when the closing team really does it up right, it's honestly kind of breathtaking.  

Even after I found another retail job at a fancy European housewares boutique, plus a long-term sub at an intimidatingly elite prep school AND a part-time teaching gig at Southern Connecticut State University, I kept working at J. Crew-- partly for the discount, mostly for the company of the truly awesome girls who worked there too.  And a maybe just a little bit for the satisfaction of standardizing.

I'm hoping to do more than a little standardizing on our new house.  We'll touch every piece-- every linear foot of banged-up molding, every nail-hole in the plaster, every broken tile, every stuck drawer, every weed claiming its spot on the lawn.  Every doorknob, every boob light, every dirty switchplate.  It's going to be a long road, but my retail experience has taught me that the details really matter.

We have a lot to do.  Coming soon: a room-by-room breakdown of projects, complete with photos.

In the beginning...

Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.  

-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Welcome to our house.  

It's been about two months since our offer was accepted, and while we're still eight days away from closing, we're cautiously optimistic that this is actually going to happen.  We've made a lot of sacrifices to get to this point, not the least of which was moving several thousand miles away from our loved ones  in order to take the jobs that paid the money that knocked out the debt that made it possible for us to buy our first home.

The following is a list of some of the smaller things we've* given up in order to become first-time homeowners:

all fashion magazine subscriptions [sigh-- I miss you, Vogue]

  vacations

 NARS blush, Stila eye shadow, BeneFit mascara, etc.

new clothes not from Target

shoes that do not look like they've been eaten by a pack of wild dogs

eating meat

delicious-smelling body wash from Philosophy, even when purchased at TJ Maxx for $12

dyeing my hair

 a fancy Caribbean honeymoon

anything fancy, really

sunshine**

So at this point I'm basically a pasty-white vampire with prematurely gray hair, cheap drugstore makeup, ill-fitting clothes, and very little iron in my blood.  But I have a house.

It's just a little guy-- at 1350 square feet it's the smallest house in the best neighborhood in town-- and it needs a lot*** of work.  It was previously being rented by a teenaged boy who had thoughtfully decorated it with hatchets, shotguns, snakeskins tacked up via push-pin, raccoon skins, and plenty of greasy handprints on the plaster walls, etc.  And in the only bathroom he graciously provided for his guests a wide variety of Hustler magazines and empty beer bottles.  And this:  

Thanks, man! 

Today we got to go into the house  to see it for the first time since the tenant's stuff (except the mold pile on top of the faucet, ahem) is finally out-- albeit only because we had to meet the rodent exterminator so he could get started on our potential rat problem.  Yeah.  Well, you try buying a house in a very expensive college town.  And after all this, you're probably wondering we didn't run screaming from this broken-down hell hole when we saw it on day one.

Here you go:

The place has gorgeous bones.  Two big bedrooms with large closets, coved ceilings, pretty wood flooring, brick fireplace, huge yard, walking distance to both of our offices on the university campus.  And it also has the world's ugliest bathroom.  Its kitchen is a mandatory gut, and the converted garage (advertised as a much sought-after third bedroom, though I wouldn't ask my worst enemy to sleep there right now) looks like something you'd only see in a horror movie.  Of course, we're going to change all that.

And that's what we'll be doing here-- updating about our updates. 

*I've

 ** this is because we live in the Pacific Northwest, not because sunshine was too expensive for us.

***understatement