The evidence: Ellen's room got the walls painted. The dining room has ONE wall painted (in my defense, I decided I didn't like the color. . . . . . so I stopped . . . . . . . . and forgot to restart in a better color, LOL) - heck it still has tape up on that wall even! The foyer is the closest to really done. It just needs new flooring to qualify as "complete". But at least it HAS flooring - the downstairs bathroom got a big remodeling - that's where I learned to plumb after all. Pretty new cabinetry, new light fixtures a washer & dryer and I had to re-plumb it all because I relocated everything in the room to a better layout. But it stalled out at about 90% done - with plywood for flooring and no trim at the baseboards or door. Gee, that was several years ago, and now it needs a new coat of paint on the ceiling and maybe the walls - so it's down to about 80% done. That's just sad. The quilting room got some paint on the walls, but the base of the wall (about one foot) didn't get it's coordinating color finished, and the ceiling is not finished (really sad, you can look up and see old yucky color on about a quarter of it, and fresh pretty white on the rest - sigh) The trim never got done either. I'd say that room is about 75%
SO! In an effort to change this, I set about remodeling the upstairs bathroom (yeah, don't finish one you started, start something else . . . . .that makes sense!)
Over the last week Ellen & I have installed new fixtures for the tub/shower and after nine years we have a working shower in there! She only got sprayed in the face once when a valve didn't seat properly in its' base - and even she agreed it was pretty funny! We ripped out the old carpet and the linoleum that was under it. Max helped haul off the toilet and vanity to the dump. And I took the light fixture down.
We're keeping the (ugly) wall board 'cause we can't really afford to replace it - and besides, that gives me something to remodel in 10 more years!
Max helped me put down new linoleum. We cut it all in one piece - no seams, so hopefully no opportunities for leaks and damage to the floor. And we installed the new toilet last night too. Our old one was stained blue from somebody using the wrong chemical to clean it a couple of years ago (no one ever fessed up, but it sure was a mess.) I couldn't bear the thought of a beautiful new bathroom, and a scuzzy, never-come-clean-toilet (ladies will understand) it just ruined the whole vision.
Tonight I will install the new vanity and maybe the new light fixture. I still have to paint all the trim, but I'm going to do that slowly over the next couple of weeks - being careful not to get any paint on any new stuff of course - and then put down quarter round trim around the whole floor to hide the edges of the linoleum. A new shower curtain and I can pronounce one room in the house absolutely completely remodeled!! Whoo Hoo!! I can go in, shut the door, look around and pretend my house is beautiful, LOL.
Actually, it has been a fun process too. I knew I could do plumbing, from all the re-piping that was required in the downstairs bathroom. But to find out that laying flooring was possible is pretty cool. Granted, this is a cool linoleum- it's glueless and held down by pressure. Easy peasy. We just had to be super careful of corners as we were getting it into place and I made the trim cuts - it wanted to tear easily at those corners. In the end there was only one tear - and in the worst possible place of course: right where the tub and wall meet (at the faucet end of the tub, where water always spills over to the floor, GRRR!) But I'm hopeful the quarter round will cover it, and we're going with a fiberglass quarter round, not wood, so that may help cut down on any water damage too.
Picked up a really cool tip from a customer in Menard's as I was getting the flooring too. He said to take a strip of the plastic corner trim that is used to protect corners of drywall from knicks and dings (you know, like in a doorway, where the drywall meets up at a 90 degree angle.) Cut it to fit the length of floor beside the tub. Run a bead of clear silicone along the seam where the tub meets the linoleum/floor. Then turn that trim upside down - so it nestles against the floor and tub (where they meet at a 90 degree angle) and press so the silicone and trim make a good seal. That will help keep moisture out of there and maybe make the flooring last longer. Will try to get pix as we do this, since it's hard to explain with words.
And here are the pix:
The new (smaller!) vanity that allows the door to open all the way. If I close my eyes I can still hear the sound of the door banging into the old vanity, LOL
New (smaller also) toilet. The lighting is bad for the next several pix, it was night and the lightbulbs cast an orange/yellow color. But it's really white.
New faucets in here are pretty boring, but THEY WORK which is better than the old ones!
And the light fixture. Would have preferred it to point down (collects less bugs on a summer night - no screens in windows upstairs) but the vintage medicine cabinet from the old house would have been in the way. There's a little damage on the wall board where the old vanity was caulked, but hope to sand and maybe touch it up with paint so it's not so noticable.
