Home Renovations

~ Laura

Yes, I’m a hopeless home renovation addict. My latest project is fixing up the master bedroom and bath. I’m a little embarrassed to show pictures. For one, it’s a rather big bedroom. I think it’s larger than my old studio apartment in Manhattan. It’s smaller than any of the bedrooms on those house-hunting shows on HGTV, but big enough that I feel spoiled.

I also haven’t taken pictures, because the place is a disaster. Whoever did the addition back in the early 80’s cut a lot of corners. The moldings weren’t even properly nailed to the wall.  Instead of moving a window in the bathroom, he created a hallway. Who has a hallway in their bathroom? I do. He slapped on some incredibly tacky 80’s wallpaper on the drywall. Then built bookshelves on top of the wallpaper (try getting that off!) using unsanded wood (classy!). The ceiling is two different heights. Insane lighting system.

Everything is exactly the same as the day that we unpacked our boxes two years ago. No pictures on the wall. No new furniture. It’s a mess.

Sometime in the vague future, we’ll pay to have the bathroom and the bedroom make sense. In the meantime, I’m dealing with a doable project. Wallpaper removal and painting.

I’m off to IKEA to shop for a new medicine cabinet. Maybe there will be pictures and a reveal on Friday.

Published by Laura

7 thoughts on “Home Renovations”

  1. Growing up, a friend lived in a rented house with a horribly botched renovation. There was a stairway running from the master bedroom closet to the pantry. The pantry door couldn’t be opened fully because it would hit a counter. There was a huge pipe (I now think the main stack) in the middle of the downstairs bathroom. It was really a mess, but that secret stairway from the closet to the pantry was great fun when we were nine.

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  2. Please take pictures! You won’t know how far you’ve come unless you do a “before” photo.

    http://xantippesblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/upstairs-at-new-house.html

    Those colors aren’t true to life, but it gives the general idea.

    We have a contractor coming next week to start on our small bathroom project (painting walls and trim, removal of purple bidet and toilet, installation of white toilet, stripping and repainting of baseboards, installation of vinyl flooring). This was all precipitated by a flood about a month ago after which I had the floor stripped back to the plywood. I’ve been looking at bare plywood ever since.

    We’re having a little mission creep, as while we’ve been waiting for a start date from the contractor, we’ve kept noticing little things that need to be done–another toilet to be replaced, some squirrel scratch marks on the exterior (stupid squirrel!!!), a little exterior rot, etc. Trying not to go crazy, here. After this job is done, I am going to be asking the contractor for a quote on the rest of the master bath, which has 20-year-old pink plush carpet and vanity, shower, bath done in a purple-swirled dark cream faux marble and gold towel bars and faucets.

    When/if we get around to the main master bath, I think I want plain white or marble-look vanity, shower and tub, grey wood-look vinyl plank flooring and brushed nickel fixtures. A little conventional, but pretty safe, and not too expensive, I hope. I really hope we can keep the cabinets, as my research suggests that large bathroom cabinets are frightfully expensive.

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  3. I’d rather read about home renovations than home births. That was quite a wrenching detour this morning.

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  4. I pulled apart the dryer and order a $110 part. The plan is to put it back together when the part arrives. I’ve done this before, but only with much smaller parts. Also, I never put it all the way back together because I found that putting it completely back together just pissed it off.

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