Room by Room: The Bathroom

The Bathroom

I don't have too many photos of the original bathroom, mostly because it was so hideous that I didn't like to look at it. But, I can tell you that was done in an underwater theme, blue walls with fish stickers and border and green ceiling.

In the photo above you can see the tacky 1970's shower, and the indent in the wall where there had once been a window, and had been boarded up.

The contractors gutted the whole thing, put new fixtures in, and installed a recessed cabinet.

And here it is! We painted it and tiled the floor (and by "we", I mean "Brandon").
My only complaint is that is is right off of the kitchen, but, oh well. That's not too large of an albatross.



I think that color is called "Sedona Dust"


Lovely diffused light coming in the new window


Corner tub - perfect for a cat. Brandon also tiled the floor in here - it's black. Hard to see, but it's there.

The Floors, Part II

We wanted a house with hardwood floors. If you've ever had pets, you understand why. And this house HAS hardwood floors. It just took some digging to get to them.
First we took off the carpet, which was cathartic, because the carpet was disgusting.

Master Bedroom

Landing at top of stairs


Apparently, former owners of the house were not up to restoring the hardwood floors, and found it easier paint over them.

Master Bedroom

Second bedroom on 2nd floor

This had been done many times, and there were many layers of paint. And sanding it didn't work. The sander just spun on it. So, we broke out the life-span-shortening chemicals and did about a week straight of scraping. The paint-stripper was probably the nastiest thing I have ever used. I usually have a theory of household products - I should be able to eat them and not die. This definitely didn't apply here. Even though we wore masks and chemical gloves, this stuff burned through the gloves. Ech.

Guest Room, 1st floor
The base layer of paint on the wood floors was some sort of really awful primer you would use on concrete. It took forever to get off. In some places it just stayed.

Landing on 2nd floor

Then we rented a giant sander from Menards, and spent three days on the floors. And by "we", I mean "Brandon".

After that, there was a lot of sweeping and mopping to get all the dust up. We opted to varnish it instead of staining it, because we liked the color the wood was naturally. So, there was a long period of time of varnish, wait 3 days, sand again, sweep, mop, let dry, varnish again, etc. X3.

But, overall, we're pretty please with the results. The floor has a lot of what we politely call "character". But we really like it. Although if I had it to do over again, I'd just hire someone. Seriously.

Outside kitchen

Landing on 2nd floor

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Second bedroom on 2nd floor.

Floors Part I: the Kitchen

We first did the painting of the walls, with the theory that it would be better to spill paint on a a floor that we were just going to refinish. I don't have a whole lot of pictures of the painting process, but I do have a lot of photos of the floors, as they were a lot more Herculean. I'll start with the kitchen floor.

It was your typical 1980's linoleum floor, with a lovely teal back splash.

Apparently, the previous decorators couldn't imagine why anyone would want to get rid of such a lovely floor, and the linoleum only came off in postage sized chunks. Enter an iron, wet towel, scrapey thing, and hours of genuflecting.

I guess there is something worse than a teal kitchen. The previous lavender color under it!

Kitchen floor, sans tile.


Laying the tile on top of the cement board (which is on top of the subfloor).

Giant bucket of morter.

Grouting

Finished product! It actually looks better now that we've gotten the haze off tile. I'll post a current photo when I get one.

Moving in!

Sorry it's been so long since the last post, dear readers. Here's a little photo history of what we have been doing for the past few months. We moved into the house in August. The contractors were (mostly) done, and the city had done the inspection and declared the house was no longer a candidate for a tear-down. But, there was still a lot of work to be done.

Living Room - drywall is up but not painted, floor still needs to be refinished

And the house was dirty after all the construction, and fairly awful to be in.

The Kitchen, already a repository for all of our construction tools,

also became where we put all of our stuff that wouldn't fit down the stairs into the basement.

Since we were still working on the house, we had our mattress thrown down on the floor in the living room. As you can see, it was exhausting.

But, it got better - stay tuned!

The New Face

Before and After.

Looks better, eh? The inside still needs work though....

Love in a Time of Hanta

Just so our parents' don't worry - yes, we are wearing masks and gloves. Hanta-be-gone! (There actually have never been any cases of Hanta in Minnesota, but we could be the first!)

Full of Surprises

The bathroom, like much of the rest of the house, is unfortunate. First of all, it's small, and it's off of the kitchen (which I swore I would avoid when house hunting, but oh well). Second of all, the former occupants decided to decorate in an underwater motif. Green ceiling, blue walls, fish border, and stupid stickers of fish and other sea creatures. I've actually torn the stickers down, because I didn't like them. You can still see their stupid little ghostly images though.



After we tore the siding off, we discovered that there actually used to be a window to this bathroom! I wonder if the former owners said to themselves ones day - you know what would make this bathroom even worse? Removing a window! Needless to say, we are putting window back in!

Better than a black cat...

The previous occupants of the house "finished" the basement by putting in a drop ceiling, and wood paneling over the cinder blocks. We decided to unfinish it - so that the electrician could correct all the do-it-yourself wiring, and because it was hideous and smelled of cats.
Scary wiring, scarier paint job.

Not sure if Pepto-Dismal pink is ever going to come back....

While pulling down the ceiling, I discovered why drop ceilings are bad. Because you create a large dark habitat for mice and rats. There were years and years worth of droppings and old poison bait cartridges that people had been shoving up there. Under the drop ceiling, plywood furring, and asbestos wrapping, we found this little gem - a single specimen of a very old deck of girly playing cards. I have blacked out her goodies in order to afford her a modicum of modesty. Just thought I'd share the bounty.

Bringing Down the House (or the siding, at least)

Before:

They tore off the yellow asbestos siding! The original wood lap is under - (it's actually very uncomfortable to sit in a wood lap). The next step is to wrap the house in a cozy fiberglass sweater and put new siding on! I know some folks think siding is hideous, but I doubt those people have to see what Minnesota winters do to wood siding. More to come!

After:

Deconstruction - It Begins!

Ahh...other people's interior decorating sense. In our house, they decided it would be best to cover up shabby plaster walls with wood paneling, paint it white, and then put a border of angels on the top. Oh, and put a drop ceiling in to make the room smaller.



First we took the tile ceiling down.


Then we pulled off the wood paneling. Yup, that plaster is pretty bad.


So off it came - which I felt bad about, because it was so old and seemed to have a lot of history in it. But there were so many holes in it that it would never look good even if we patched it.


It looked like at some point someone had taken the plaster off one of the walls, put up drywall, and wallpapered it. At some point, this was plastered over again and painted to match the room. I can't imagine why that wallpaper ever went out of style.


So, here's where we are. We're going for the post-apocalyptical meets cold war Russian Industrialism. Let me know if we are getting close. (In an unrelated matter, is an "apocalyptical" something that the Four Horsemen exercise on? You know, an Apocalyptical Trainer? Har har)
So, we are waiting the for dumpster so we can get rid of this stuff, and for the contractor to put up drywall.
You know what they say, " He who laths last, laths least"...or something like that.

No really - come visit!