Decisions Decisions.....

I am now faced with a myriad of decisions. From colors to styles to tile and fixtures, just to name a few. I have spent a good 12 or more hours now and my head hurts.

Did you know they make a SQUARE toilet!? I might have to have it.

I know one thing for sure. We will install hardwood floors, stained black, like the rest of the house. Whew. I feel better already. One down..... I shudder to think how many more I have to make.

I'm thinking that keeping the floors uniform throughout the house is ideal due to it's size. The dark floors, we discovered after we stained them, give the illusion of depth. They sort of "disappear" and make the house feel larger. I am hoping for the same effect in the bathroom! Not to mention, I think they look cool and really show off everything from wall colors to furnishings and rugs.

ok....fast forward, I started that post a while back and now it's August 1st.

Floors are now IN - and look amazing.

Square Toilet....check

Baptismal sink complete with shroud (like Turin, get it)......check

(could have had this same sink with a pedestal instead, but come on, ANYONE can have a pedestal....how many people can say they have a SHROUD!?)

I think when we're finished, using our bathroom will be like having a religious experience!

It better be anyway....

The toilet/sink/tub decision process was rough.

Our original plan was move all the fixtures around & get the clawfoot tub, if you remember. Clawfoot tub we had access to was stolen out of friend's garage. on to plan B - or maybe C....I am already losing track.

Next idea was an all monochromatic grey bathroom, including fixtures. For several reasons, that didn't pan out. For one, our tub is a good quality expensive cast iron tub which would be very difficult and expensive to replace. Once all the gunk is cleaned off it, it's in excellent condition also. The replacement tub would essentially be the same, only grey. It seemed very wasteful. That left me stuck with white fixtures. Boring, but about $1000 cheaper in the end, not to mention a great deal of blood, sweat and tears saved by not having to pull that thing out only to replace it with something nearly identical.

But it would have looked WAY cool.

Ok....so then it was between the Reve line and the Memoirs line.



I had been planning to use the Memoirs sink and toilet since forever ago!!! I loved that sink! the style echoes crown molding (if you've seen our living room & dining room, you'd know how much I am in love with that stuff). It was more traditional, square (I love squares and rectangles for some reason) and a little bit Art Deco. Best part, for us, it had a rim around the edge which would allow a person to set something down while getting ready. If you've ever gotten ready in a bathroom with a pedestal sink and no countertop, you realize JUST how convenient this little ledge can be!

One up side to having a pedestal sink & no countertop is that it has forced me to put everything away in the cabinet & this little act eliminates clutter. (I had a hard time training Stefan because he loves to set EVERYTHING and on the back of the toilet, never putting anything he uses away. He then loves to accuse me of having clutter!?) Our current toilet does not have a flat surface on the tank, and it was the only place to set anything, because our sink rim was too small & uneven. However, so was the toilet tank cover, so things we set there also tended to fall off. It was maddening. Sooooo, the Memoirs toilet had a flat area on the toilet tank also.....so an actual surface, to use for decorative purposes as well as convenience.


ok, so now you see the surfaces dilemma I was dealing with.

So then I see the square toilet (I mentioned my love of squares?......I know I know..."your face is so angular LOL". But it had me. Then, the icing on the cake.....my friend Maria told me she saw them in Italy while there in June. MY FAVORITE COUNTRY! I had to have it, that was it. But it didn't go with my favorite Memoirs sink!!??!! So I looked at the sink to go with it....the line is called Reve. Both lines are by Kohler. Well naturally the larger size Reve sink is much more stylish than the smaller, but won't fit in our tiny bathroom. Ok, I can live with that....it was also an issue with the Memoirs sink. They made two sizes and the larger (of course) looks much better. I just had to suffer that one no matter which sink I chose. But, I would be losing quite a bit of surface area by going with Reve.

Just so you know, the prices would be roughly the same for either toilet/sink. Once you get to shopping around on the web....Reve was maybe a little more, but not significantly. Am thankful for that!

Soooooo....ultra mod and square fabulous Italian toilet with "eh" sink. Or traditional style sink I have admired and dreamed of having for 7 years with surfaces, but with "eh" Memoirs toilet (which I was not in love with, but it matched).

After changing my mind at least 67 times (I seriously lost sleep over this)...... Reve finally won. Here was my final thought process: I decided the streamlined look was good for our small bathroom, even without convenient surfaces. In fact, surfaces invite clutter. Also, without the clawfoot tub to add drama and excitement, the memoirs sink seemed hopelessly dull. Each time I decided to go with Reve I longed for the classic beauty of the Memoirs sink....but each time I had made up my mind to do "Memoirs" ....I would very soon I get the sense of "b-0-r-i-n-g". Also, when you are talking sinks then you have to talk faucet hardware. I liked the Memoirs sink faucet, but I really did not like the Memoirs shower faucet.

Not to mention, I kept seeing the Memoirs sinks and toilets everywhere. The line really is a common choice. It's traditional styling and I think it's "safe" while still being good quality and stylish. ......but I can't stand always being like everybody else...... and I really don't like playing it "safe"! ( well, not all of the time anyway.) So, if I MUST be stuck with a boring white drop in tub....I MUST have some PIZAZZ.

Bathroom Renovation...... finally

My husband made the announcement .....he is willing to start the bathroom renovation and do the work himself instead of hiring a contractor!

Imagine my surprise, after 7 years!

To be fair, we have tackled some major projects over the years, including the kitchen. Since we mostly "pay as we go" and do the work mostly ourselves, we could not do it all at once (this house has been quite a project). We have saved the bathroom for almost last.

Our original plan, which we'll call "Plan A", was to reconfigure the entire room, but to hire someone for this monumental task. Lately we've been discussing the practicality of keeping things simple and doing only a cosmetic upgrade. This alone will be quite a job.

It's a really tiny and really ugly room. Honestly, at first glance, you might think it should be condemned. It's that bad. However still maybe not as bad as our kitchen was.

So, now for the "Before Pictures" which are really important, albeit very embarrassing, to get an idea just how bad it really is (or was, once we can show off the finished room):




Please, before that thought, "jeez, she could at least clean it! it would look better...?" pops into your little head, allow me to explain! I have attempted everything short of sandblasting this disaster to try and remove the mold. The problem is, the moron who redid this used plastic (fake) tile board - that stuff that just looks like tile but comes in big sheets! It was installed all the way around the room, and then the person had the bright idea to install it in the tub surround! Maybe they ought to have considered whether this stuff was rated to handle the constant wet conditions of a shower/bath? as the surface coating of plastic cracked, it revealed the fiberous backing, and trapped moisture causing it to expand and mold. The more I cleaned it, the more it removed the plastic and gradually has gotten worse. OH JOY.

Additional mold is growing underneath the very sloppy gloppy caulking job they did around the trim. Nothing short of removing the caulk & trim will get it off, hence we were "saving it" until we ripped it all out. It's so disgusting I can barely stand to bathe in there!

Aside from it's hideousness, the tub does not have a level rim or any shelves, so there is absolutely no place to set shampoo bottles or soap. If you attempt to set anything on the rim, it is not level so most things end up slipping and falling off. We use one of those dumb flimsy unattractive shower caddy things.

The next source of utter embarrassment (the entire room is awful, but these are the WORST areas) is an original metal cabinet - the only storage we have for the entire bathroom, pictured below. Obviously, someone attempted to refinish it, but just never quite got the job done. I am thankful it's BEHIND the bathroom door, but this is also a problem because the doors from the cabinet are in the way of the bathroom door constantly. When I first saw it, I did not want to even use it! I realized I had no choice so I scrubbed and bleached and lined every shelf surface with heavy contact paper. You can imagine how ready I am to rid our home of this catastrophe.

Other fun and funky things about our bathroom - one is the door handle. It's one of those cute glass door knobs, but it's stripped, so after attempting to fix it several times we gave up and left it for when we "renovate the bathroom". We know not to close the door tight, and try to warn guests. In the event of emergencies we would keep one end of the door handle in the bathroom cabinet, but after having to walk a number of trapped guests through the process of finding the door handle to release them from our bathroom prison, we decided to keep it dangling in the door, and sometimes it falls out.

Other issues:

The only ventilation is the old fashioned way....open the window.

If the bathroom door is left or pushed open (which is usually is due to the above mentioned door handle issue, people walking outside down the street can see directly in through our living room window and into the bathroom with a perfect view of anyone using the toilet! Always fun when my sister's dog visits and feels she must investigate each and every time someone uses the toilet, and pushes the door wide open! Hi neighbors!

Of course, we are now scrapping Plan A for Plan B so we will not be moving the toilet afterall, which means this will continue to be a problem (but at least the door will finally be fixed!)

Just as an FYI if you are interested - "Plan A" was going to be to reconfigure the entire room. First we planned to knock out a closet in the dining room which would give us a good extra 9 or so square feet in the bathroom. We planned to then move the toilet to this more private area (where the closet was), which would have prevented neighbors from inadvertently viewing toilet users. We also were going to move the tub to the far wall below the window, and replace it with a clawfoot tub.

See how complicated all that was? Our new plan "Plan B" really is so much easier. I am, however, really sad about scrapping the clawfoot tub idea. Maybe in our next house....or our next life....sigh. I suppose we just can't have EVERYTHING.

But it does mean we can now afford some nicer upgrades .....heh heh heh