The 515 Day Bathroom Remodel-Preparing Toilet Room and Stenciling

As I look through the photo library, I see that I’ve gotten a bit out of order in my timeline— how quickly one forgets.

We were painting the cabinets in September of 2021, on my birthday.  To those who know me well, know that it was just what I wanted to do.  The tiling took place after we painted the cabinets, which was in  October.  The demolition of the old shower took place in November, and oh what a mess that was; glad I was traveling.

The demolition of the shower took much longer than you might expect from watching HGTV, as the engineer uses a bit more finesse.  A pry bar instead of a sledgehammer, so not to create cracks in the walls outside of the bathroom.  Then there was the plumbing to remove and cap off.

It was December before all the walls were closed up with new drywall and we called our finish craftsman to tape and mud the walls.  Time was closing in on us, as the holidays were rapidly approaching and we had family coming from back east to stay.  In order for the mud to dry between sanding and a new layer of mud being applied, it was two weeks.

Finally, I could paint the toilet room and the walls of the main part of the bathroom.  We looked less “unfinished” by Christmas, but the toilet was still in the main part of the bathroom and the floors were still not tiled, but more of the old tile was in place and in other places it was taken up and the backboard for the tile was partly in place.  This left a very uneven floor, some old tile, some with backboard and some down to the original subfloor from 1938.  The floors would have to wait until January when we could get the plumber to come and move the toilet and cut the very old cast iron pipe under the house.

By January, and we needed to get the toilet room finished before the toilet could be moved.  This meant the slate floor in the toilet room had to be laid, and baseboards installed.  Stenciling at this point was the only thing left to do before the toilet moved.

Stenciling took longer than expected, mostly because of our aging eyesight and the subtle difference in color between the wall color and stencil color.  Lovely from a design aspect, but miserable on our eyesight.  Not to mention two of us, oldsters in a relatively small space.  Good thing we’ve had 50+ years to perfect our working style, such as it is.

The room was finally finished, from baseboards to crown moldings, paint and stenciling.  Now we wait for the plumber.  It was near the end of January and I was so ready for that toilet to be out of the middle of the bathroom.

At this point I was certain the moving of the toilet would be my favorite thing, after all, this was the reason for the remodel in the first place.  But, come to find out, it was being able to get the left set of drawers in place that was the most exciting.  I had purchased dividers for all the stuff that would fill six, full extension drawers.  I did have to scout all over the house for where I had put a lot of the stuff for the drawers, the stuff you don’t need on a daily basis.  But finally, I could organize the drawers, it was a dream come true.  Having the toilet out of the main part of the bathroom was great.

Next:  Slate Flooring

Little Table

Several years ago, my daughter and I found this little table at an estate sale. She bought it and used it as an outdoor plant stand for several years and then passed it on to me. It was pretty weathered when we first acquired it and by the time it came to me, it was quite rickety and barely able to stand.

Handy Hubby to the rescue. Once it was made secure with a few screws and plenty of glue, I let it sit for sometime, before deciding to paint it.

Spraying it all black after priming the table gave me time to think about what to finally do with it. Bright colors and patterns seemed to be the answer. Starting with the legs, they each got the same treatment of color and patterns to lessen the chaos of the project.

I decided to paint the top a black and white checkerboard. The top was the most damaged, so the pattern is far from perfect, but it is still recognizable.

The bottom shelf was the last design idea. Since the legs were so quirky and the top was a checkerboard, I figured it was heading to Alice’s Garden in the end, therefore a rose and the four suits of cards would be perfect.

In the story of Alice in Wonderland, the Queen shouts, “Off with their head’s” when she sees the cards painting the roses red; they were supposed to have planted red roses, but planted white instead. The cards discovered their mistake and were hastily trying to rectify the situation before the Queen found out. That is the “hidden message” with the partially painted red rose on the bottom shelf.

Antique Sewing Machine Revival

Table compete, just waiting for chairs

A friend had an antique sewing machine in a lovely oak cabinet she was looking to dispose of, unless I had any ideas for another use for it.  My friend had been using it as a side table, mostly as an interesting conversation piece.

I named a half dozen things she could do with it within a couple of minutes and she was intrigued with the idea that it could be made into a dining room table, since she was considering leaving her current dining table and chairs when she sold the house. 

I explained that the ornate iron frame can be separated from the decorative oak box and sewing machine.  She was hoping to have a round glass table top cut to fit the iron base.  Knowing that the standard height for a dining table was 30” and the frame was only about 28”; an extension would need to be built or casters could be added to the legs for the additional height.  Who could do this, she wondered, well, “the engineer” of course.

We collected the heavy— very heavy and awkward sewing cabinet and brought it to the “workshop”.  The engineer was delighted with the new puzzle.  Thinking we had found all the screws, we’d be surprised to have to search yet again for the reason the box would not separate from the frame.  

Finally, with the two pieces separated, we went into discussions about how to build the frame.  My very handy husband, wanted to buy new wood, but being a practical sort of person, I wanted to use what we had, in scrap, it would only be painted anyway.  Oddly enough my husband had just cut up the pallet on which, the ceiling wood (Office Remodel Phase 1) had been delivered, and put into the trash.  Ugh!  I had suspected that part of the frame of the pallet was made of a very good hard wood; a friend thought it might be maple and I think he was right.  I thought about all the different types of maple and think it is most likely,“ribbon maple”.  A beautiful wood.  There was only a very little of it having been used as the ribs of the pallet, but as luck would have it, just enough to make a beautiful frame for the iron legs and extension for the table top.

Painting complete, including a little gold leaf on the lettering at the base identifying the machine; all that was left was a round glass table top, my friend was delighted with the outcome.

A little gold leaf

The beautiful oak box was mine to do as I wished.  I decided I did want to add it to the office as a permanent place for my light table.  Now, however it has no legs!  My dear friend and fellow designer Dawn, in Virginia suggested hanging it on the wall.  I had thought of that, but there was a window where it needed to go, not a solid wall.  Again, luck was on my side, it was just wide enough to clear the window and be fastened to the wall.

Nice fit!

The engineer was able to find some iron brackets to hold the weight of the oak box and cast iron sewing machine inside.  In addition he used a piece of left over walnut to strengthen the bracket and support the box.

Two antique sewing cabinets in use.

The Antique Sewing Machine has served many masters, since it was built at the turn of the twentieth century, and now in the twenty first century, retirement is still in the future for this well built piece of history.  It is perfect for my light table and the placement is ideal.

Office Update: Part 1

Looking for the silver lining this past spring of 2020, and our stay at home orders, my office is getting a much needed ceiling repair, clean up and general update.  While we had tenants here, we had a leak in one of the skylights in what is now my office.  Fortunately nothing the tenants owned was damaged and it resulted in an unsightly paint blister that I’ve lived with for more than five years.

The paint blister was quite large, unsightly, but livable and low on the repair list…until Covid-19 quarantined those of us of a certain age.  We had managed to stay petty busy up until April, with the re-upholstery on the Model A, but when that finished, we were looking at our project list.  The complete gutting of our main bathroom was simply out of the question at this time.

  So, why not tackle the ceiling in my office?  Seemed reasonable, we had planned on using a pre-finished plank intended for ceilings and already had samples.  Like all projects, on the surface it seemed simple enough, at least to me.  The engineer, however saw the problems that needed to be addressed before the “pretty” part of the project.  Like, getting firing strips up to make the ceiling plane, or level if you will.  He found variations up to an inch and a half.  Then there was the ever present electrical issues we have had to deal with in each room as we worked room by room.

The electrical problems never ceased to amaze, with hot wires left in the ceilings improperly disconnected.  Other connections to other rooms making no sense at all.  But room by room, the engineer has made code corrections and wiring is all correct and safe; which takes t-i-m-e, about two weeks of time.  Not being able to just run up to the local hardware store, we were dependent on family or mail order to get supplies, which adds to the delays.  All in all, not too bad, since we have no where to go anyway and there is always something else to work on in during the waiting game.

Finally, all the panels were up and skylight wells were perfectly fitted and the ceiling has never looked better.  Well done.  But since, I’ve been out of my office for many weeks, I figured we might as well tackle the floor, since the room was pretty empty.  Flooring story will follow in next installment.

TV Room Renovation

The Engineer worked on a friend’s Cinema Room last year and it really got his juices flowing to dig into our meager little TV room.  We have had new speakers, fortunately still current and the same ones installed in the fancy Cinema Room, since before we moved nearly four years ago, just waiting to be installed.

Similar to what was original

Part of the delay, besides all the other projects that had priority, was wondering what was under all the dark blue paint.  We figured it was paneling, but not your 1960-70’s paneling, this stuff,  was something we had not been familiar—really wide and oddly spaced.  Well, now we know.  I am sure it was in Ozzie and Harriet’s den or Mr. Blanding’s Dream house, I will have to check on that.

Mystery solved, it is paneling, three quarters of an inch thick, and eleven and a half inches wide, and extremely hard wood.  We knew the hard part, because we had to drill pilot holes in the surface in order to hang pictures.  The reveal happened when my husband took off the crown molding at the ceiling and removed the door frame and jam.  We could see the plaster they used to “fill in” the groves of the paneling pattern.  

I laughed, that is exactly what I did when we bought a single wide trailer to live in while we built our home in the foothills.  All the walls were paneled, but with inexpensive  and thin 1970’s paneling.  To add some design and color to the two bedrooms, I used good old Plaster of Paris to level out the bevels of the paneling.  I added a chair rail and wallpapered above the chair rail and painted below, leaving the bevels for interest.

This discovery lead the engineer to rethink his previous plan of removing the paneling to simply adding quarter inch drywall over it.  Far less messy, less work, and the landfill will not burdened with the scrap wood.  A win-win, I think.

You can see from the photos that the wood expands and contracts with changing temperature, leaving vertical cracks at bevel lines.  Also, the wide depressions are from shrinkage of plaster after it dries.  These traits are what left us confused as to what was behind the paint.

You can just make out the vertical cracks in the paint between the panels.

Now the wiring begins, so there will not be much interesting stuff to report for several weeks, I am guessing.

Panel at the ceiling

Stay posted, I will send photos out as we move along with this project.

Bathroom Remodel:

When the Open Concept is Taken Too Far

We started the hall bathroom remodel several weeks ago, a bit backwards perhaps— with a door.  Years ago, I bought an antique leaded glass door with the hopes to use it as the door for the hall bathroom, since it was so pretty and the bathroom was not.  My main objection to the hall bath was that whomever added it on, placed the toilet smack in the middle of the doorway, with the door open, it was not a pretty sight, especially since you see it from the kitchen.

My handy hubby, the engineer did another stretching job to the door, it was wide enough, but not long enough to cover the opening and hang from the sliding mechanism.  Then, there was the task of filling holes from door knobs and dead bolts.  And finally, hours of filling, sanding, priming and painting!  A substantial header needed to be put in place to hold the heavy duty sliding mechanism to allow us to hang the door.

Next up was what to do with the leaded glass that offered lots of beauty, but little privacy needed for a bathroom.  I thought an antique mirror behind the leaded glass would offer the necessary privacy, and thought it would be interesting from the kitchen/hall side.  As for the bathroom side, I am planning on a sheet of wallpaper that will compliment the bathroom, or maybe blackboard paint.

The actual tear down of the bathroom or demo to the studs was next.  The house was built in 1938, when a 2X4 was exactly that, not today’s shaved down version.  When the bath was added, this factor was not taken into consideration, hence uneven walls with odd bulges and waviness.  My engineer decided the only way to fix it was to strip it down to the studs.  Besides, the reason for the remodel was to move the toilet from, “front and center”, to under the window and move the sink to where the toilet had been for a more pleasing view.

This bathroom was “carved” out of what we expect was a “laundry area” and stolen bedroom closet space on the common wall behind where the toilet was placed.  We decided to take more out of the closet area, by removing some of the upper storage, that had been left with the previous remodel.  We wanted the new sink area to have full ceiling height, rather than the lowered ceiling that was from the previous remodel.  This would allow for a nicer lighting fixture and a more spacious feeling in this tiny three quarter hall bath.

The demolition of the surrounding walls, left the toilet standing in my husband’s office; pretty convenient for him, but lacking privacy all around!  He is wasting no time getting the remainder of the closet walls reframed, thus closing in the bathroom from the office side, at least.

Next up will be further demolition of the shower tile and floor tiles.  Floor tiles have been ordered along with a mirror/medicine cabinet. Stay tuned.

The Art of Stretching A Door

It’s been a long time since I posted anything about the guest room makeover, so long that I forgot I had started to write about it back in January of this year.

It has been a long five months in the making…but it is finally habitable— not completely finished, but livable at least.

One of the primary things that needed to be installed was a door to cover the opening for privacy between the guest room and my husband’s office.  We actually found an entry door back in November and decided it was just the ticket for our sliding door. Except the door was a standard 6’8” door and the opening was standard for a typical inset door, to cover the opening it needed to be s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d for full coverage.

My handy husband began cleaning up the door that is 80+ years old, by filling the door handle, lockset and deadbolt openings, sanding down much of the eight to ten layers of paint and adding about three inches to the bottom of the door.  I think he used poplar to extend the door; this was done by cutting and glueing pieces together to make the extension.  Once the door had been made to the exact size to hang over the opening and offer complete coverage, top and bottom and side to side, it was nearly ready for priming.  

But, before that, the speakeasy needed to be recessed so it would pass on the wall side of the guest room when it was completely open and not scar the wall.  My husband needed to chisel out the stepped configuration of the speakeasy to match and make the depth flush with the exterior of the door.

Now, it was ready for some heavy duty priming.  I used an oil based primer, since it offers the best coverage and would prevent any ghosting of previous colors.  Priming and painting took time, since both sides of the door needed to be painted, and with this winter and all the glorious rains, it was a challenge to get good drying time.  I wanted the door painted two different colors, since one side would face my husband’s office, it would be white to match the trim in that room.  On the guest room side, I decided that I would set it up like the entry door it had been in its glory days.  Painting it the same color as the sleeping alcove, a deep blue, against a cool, pale blue on the walls outside of the sleeping alcove, allowed it to stand out on its own as a showpiece.

I was fortunate to have had a small armoire, complete with hanging space, shoe rack, shelves and drawers; perfect for the space on one side of the door.  The other side of the door was large enough for some kind of furniture piece, and went back and forth about what would be the most serviceable.  I finally found a small dresser that looked more like an entry console, perfect!  It is small enough not to crowd the available space and large enough to be serviceable for storage of sheets and towels, until guests come and then it serves well for their clothing storage; one guest gets the “closet” and one gets the dresser, they share the hanging space.

With a generous platform serving as the step down, it feels more comfortable than a small awkward step, and there is an electrical outlet in the riser for plugging in an additional lamp by the chair.

Flooring, operable windows, and at the air conditioning unit will be the next big expenses.  Guests say the room is quite comfortable, except that the newest cat can open the door!  So, maybe it is not so private after all.