So Long, Grungy, Rusty Bathroom!

Before we bought the house that love built, I figured I'd be a great handywoman. I watched Trading Spaces religiously, enjoyed This Old House and even followed the Captain around Rona on weekends. Flooring, paint, decorative moldings! It all looked so easy, and so do-able.

Then one day, on a whim, I ripped down the living room walls.

It was a bit of a disaster. The kitchen was, at this point, already demolished and half-put-back-together. The Captain was, as usual, away. The guy we hired to do the kitchen job was in and out on his off-hours working to get things back together. The whole nightmare pushed me to the edge of reason.

Eventually, everything got returned to (relative) normal, but only after I had spent three months with no kitchen to work in, and no living room to relax in after the kids were in bed, and had caught stomach flu three times, probably from having to do the dishes in the bathtub. It's incredible what a bit of chaos at home will do to a person. If you'd told me beforehand that things could be that bad, I wouldn't have believed you.

So, I'm questioning my own sanity right now as I reflect on the fact that tonight, we have that same contractor coming in to completely gut our only working bathroom. Now that the kitchen and living room look so nice, we're scared that when the time comes, we're not going to be able to sell this place with that grotty old bathroom.

The job should only take a few days, but this house, which was built by a farmer in 1967, has thus produced some pretty funny quirks when examined more closely.

When Thelma and I pulled down those living room walls, we were confused, then horrified, then amused to find an electrical box with a too-long screw sticking out of it and pointing at some dangerously-close wires. The Farmer's solution was nothing as simple as finding a screw that fit. Come on, that would be too easy! No, he grabbed a few of his wife's wear-'em-with-a-pink-belt maxi pads, stuffed them between the screw and the wires and slapped up the drywall. Brilliant!

So, between the reality that I will probably go four days without a shower and the fear that I may find something behind the walls that slows down the job or, at best, frightens the bejeezes out of me, I can't say I'm looking particularly forward to this renovation.

What I am looking forward to is knowing that one day, I'll be able to get this crazy place off my hands and buy a house in a nice urban centre that doesn't need so much as a lick of paint. I wonder if I could get the Captain to go for that...

Comments

Janine said…
Hi there Wendy!! Hope you are well. I am home from work. My husband and I own two businesses and I was trying to get Quickbooks to balance today for one of them. My brain is about to burst so I came home and read your blog!!
Can hardly wait to see the new bathroom!!!
Have a good weekend and check out mine on Sunday morning!!
Nancy said…
OMgosh...you are hilarious! Janine posted a link on her blog, so I came over here to stalk {grin}, and read back to your Valentine's Day post. Thanks for the laughs. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were me when I was younger, though I was in college in the 80's.
I'll definitely be back for more laughs! Thanks again! :)

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