Sunday, November 25, 2012

Demolition

I don't know exactly how old my house is. I am uncertain how many previous owners have lived here. But what I do know is that they had incredibly bad taste and did a sloppy job in any renovation work that they did.

 

Case in point: the main floor 1/2 bath (otherwise known as the guest bathroom)

 

I have never liked this room. In years' past some evil decorator had their way with this house and practically bathed this house in mauve. I hate mauve. You can take your mauve and ship it back to the southwest that existed two decades ago. This bathroom is painted in a light shade of mauve. It is a shade that just makes the walls look dirty to me. And they also used a super high gloss. It looks like it was applied with a spatula it is laid on so thick. In addition to the icky paint job, there is the U G L Y laminate floor and cabinets with white plastic knobs that scream 80's as well. But that doesn't make sense because I am *fairly* sure that the house was built in the early 90's. It's just a guess though, since the thoughtless owners of previousdom never bothered to pass down the house plans and so forth to the next owner.

 

Irritating.

 

So here is the bathroom. Don't get me wrong - I do love this house. I love the views from the windows, Iove the circular layout and the open rooms. I feel very fortunate that we have this house to call a home. But every time I visit this particular room, I get depressed.


 
 

Somebody did a lousy job leveling the floor and toilet because every time you sit down you felt like you are leaning sharply to the right. The stupid plastic thingamajig that is on the faucet handle that gets icky bathroom grossness under it and I can't clean it. The light bar that belongs above a backstage theatre makeup table..not in a bathroom. And the smell.. Don't get me started... Ever since Owen potty trained this past December, the bathroom has reeked of urine. I clean it. I scrub it. I bathe the base of the toilet in bleach water. Nothing seems to do the trick.

 

So, in a fit of depressed who-gives-a-shit-what-the-bank-balance-says, we have made three trips to Home Depot in the past three days to get new flooring, paint, cabinet/sink/mirror combo, spackle, lighting, faucet, and a various assortment of new tools. Yesterday was demolition day.

They used an unbelievable amount of glue for the tiles. Lots of drywall repair needed here... (You can't see the worst in this picture, but just imagine a large gouged-out section of drywall right by the doorway)
 
Aha! The source of the stink is revealed! See that U-shaped ring of crusty urine? The stupid silicone seal that is supposed to be around the base of the toilet was missing. We had to SCRAPE it off before we could rip up the flooring. Also - see the dark MAUVE paint on the wall where the toilet tank was?? OMG.

 

Dean will be making another trip to Home Depot this morning to get more spackle because we forgot about this... It sorta sucks to run out at 1 am... We just slapped some plastic wrap on it to keep it from drying out. You can't even find insert-into-the-wall type toilet paper holders anymore.

 

So today will be dedicated to getting the flooring in and at least cutting in with the paint. I have to wait for all the spackle and texture to dry, so I won't even be able to paint until tomorrow night. I am so excited to finally have a project to work on - it's been too long!