bathroom demo action

I’m not sure whether it was the warmer (30s!) temperatures over the weekend, or maybe that we had two full days to spend together, but both of us were chompin at the bit to get some projects done.  And the best project completed over the weekend?  Destroying our ugly, CARPETED 1/2 bath.  I can’t even tell you how happy this makes me…  Especially so because I think that particular bathroom stunk like stale cigarettes.

Sidenote: The previous owner’s wife was apparently a huge smoker, and even though she passed away a few years ago, we can occasionally smell stale smoke in the house.  And by we, I mean me, because, as the story goes, women have much better sniffers than men, especially during certain times of the month.  True story.  I think.  I have this huge fear that now I always smell like stale smoke, only I can’t smell it on myself because I’m used to it, and this fear is always increased exponentially after my mom comes to visit because she likes to scream about how horrible it all is, and have I really wiped down every wall and piece of woodwork with TSP and it still smells that bad?  And the answer is probably yes, although some walls I just painted over and skipped the washing step.

Moving on.  (I assume we can still be friends, even if I do smell, because *thankfully* smell does not transmit via the interweb.)

The bathroom.  Here she is in all of her carpeted navy-and-ivory glory.

Please note the very unique sailboat/lighthouse toilet seat cover.

We were unimpressed by her from the start, and thought that some graffiti would improve her looks.

Sidenote: I’m a little embarrassed that we defaced our own house like this.  I mean, we’re lucky to even have a house and a bathroom, and here we just take a sharpie to her and color?  What?

Another sidenote: I also think graffiti in the bathroom was fun while it lasted.  Would it be ridiculous to paint part of the wall with chalkboard paint to continue the graffiti tradition?  Or would that just be weird?

In the above picture, I’d like you to notice the drop ceiling – the light up in there does not work.  In fact, the light switch turns on a radio that is located up in the drop ceiling, which should explain the music references in the graffiti.  Also, the cabinet is too big for that tiny bathroom.  And CARPET! on the walls! Seriously.

Let me also share that the back side of the door and ALL! of the wood trim is wallpapered (see picture below).  I can’t imagine that wallpapering trim is an easy task.

Also here we have the charming picture that the previous owners TAPED! to the back side of the WALLPAPERED! door.  In the far left side of the picture, you can see that we have not one – not two – but SIX! electrical outlets in this 5 square foot bathroom.  This alone may not seem odd to you, but taken in combination with the fact that our full bathroom upstairs had exactly ZERO! electrical outlets before we had 3 installed, it is just baffling.  They probably needed the extra outlets because the room’s only light is actually plugged in to one of the outlets, leaving only 5 outlets for your electrical bathroom necessities.

All of the above nonsense came out over the weekend.

We discovered the light-switch-activated radio, complete with TWO! additional speakers when we pulled down the drop ceiling.  Why one would need THREE! speakers to play music for a 5 square foot bathroom is beyond me, but at least they were all mounted on different parts of the wall, surround sound style.

The room is completely empty now, except for the toilet and sink.  The carpet squares left glue and some of the black rubber backing behind, so it looks like we’ll be doing some serious wall repair in here.  We’ll likely use wainscotting to cover the bottom portion of the wall, but Jason thinks that putting wainscotting on 2 full walls and 2 half walls might be overkill, so we have plans to 1) sand the walls to remove the large chunks of glue and rubber, 2) do a small plaster skim coat on the damaged parts of the wall, and 3) sand down the skim coat.

Is it me, or does this room look bigger and brighter already?

Once we’ve got the upper portion of the walls and ceiling smooth, we’ll paint those, then remove the toilet & sink and put wainscotting up in the bottom half of the bathroom.  We’re going to reuse our current toilet and mirror, but we’ll be shopping for a new sink and faucet.  We’ll eventually be installing hardwood floors throughout the house, so we’ll probably just paint the bathroom floor for now.  Then, the bathroom will get new trim and new lights, and it will look shiny and new.

Oh, and did I mention we’re having Easter guests in a month?  Looks like we’ve got 4 weeks to complete this project…