12.31.2012

There's no such thing as a simple project



On Friday, while Charlie was at work and I was home with the kiddo, I decided it was a good day to strip some wallpaper and repair the cracks in the walls of the downstairs bathroom. Seemed productive and reasonable enough.


Several hours into the mess, most of the wallpaper was down and I came across old house oddity # 3,995: the poorly patched spot where a medicine cabinet once hung. At this point the evolving dreams solidified, and I was well into plotting a full bathroom renovation. Since everyone dreams of coming home after work to discover plans of gutting and rebuilding a bathroom, I'd also whittled those plans down into the fewest, biggest impact tasks we could do in, oh say, a weekend. I don't know how I do it, but every "small project" I dream up seems to take less than 2 days to complete...in my mind. The reality that I should know by now? Very different, especially considering the old house oddities I mentioned before..


C came home and I gave him a "Look! It'll really be simple, here's all we have to do" pep talk and he was on board with the project. Our Friday night included visits to 2 hardware stores, a couple of purchases (including paint and a pedestal sink), and a few hours later a hungry little family ready to chow down on pizza.

There are a few things I've come to know about the Mr. in our several years of marriage and one of those things is that if I want to stay involved in a massive project I've just started, I have to firmly butt my way in, otherwise he'll take it and run with it while I keep the little one happily engaged for the weekend. 


So here's where we are: the wallpaper is stripped, the new floor is down, the beadboard has one coat of paint and is installed, except for one piece that needs some holes drilled for plumbing. The baseboard and moulding need to be installed and painted, as does the other trim work and the entry door. Plumbing needs to be hooked back up and the medicine cabinet spot needs insulation,  wallboard, and patching to be installed.

Then I can finish painting those walls I started on Friday.


1 comment:

Erin Lang Norris said...

We're in the midst of a bathroom remodel and it was only supposed to take a couple weekends. Heh, yeah right. We took down the gigantic mirror the previous owners had up and discovered a wall that was so screwed up that we just drywalled right over it.

I really want to redo the floor, by myself, when Joe is out of town, but that requires dismantling the toilet, which I'm a bit nervous to do since the other toilet in the house is totally effed up.

As much as I thought I'd *love* house projects....I really seem to dislike them.

Good luck with it all, I love the colors. :)