The Importance of a Bathroom!

Bathrooms are taken for granted.

With that being said, I'll explain. We moved into this house thinking that all we were gonna have to do is slap on some paint and install kitchen cabinets and flooring. We were fools. Upon tearing out the kitchen floor and pulling down the existing cabinets, we find that the upstairs bathroom has a great deal of "leakage". So down comes the ceiling in the kitchen. While the kitchen ceiling is down my husband (thank God he's got plumbing experience, and he's good.... real good) replaces the entire plumbing for the upstairs bathroom (tub, sink, toilet). Meanwhile, not only does the plumbing need replaced; we find that the waste line also needs replaced. THAT was absolutely disgusting.

So, after all the plumbing is done and we move upstairs to the actual bathroom we find that the upstairs toilet is cracked. Completely unusable (thank God we hadn't used it since we moved in). Since the toilet is one piece, it couldn't be repaired. Besides, every piece in the upstairs bathroom was purple. Light lilac, to be specific. While I love the color purple, it's not really a color I like to see as the main attraction in the master bath. Beside the fact of the bright colored toiletries, we find that they are so old that they aren't functioning as they should. So we went and picked out a new toilet, new bath and new lavatory. Now the thrown is a bright white, as it should be. The tub is huge and the lav is a pedestal sink (very nice).

The "quick" version of this story is that the flooring in the upstairs bath got pulled up as well a floating wall had to be reconstructed since the new tub is larger than the old tub. The toilet is higher than the old and since we are putting down ceramic tile on the floor the toilet had to be "raised", so it now sits on a platform. Upon our venture of installing the new tub (which I LOVE), we decided to do the same ceramic tile around the shower wall.

It's been a very frustrating process and, not to mention very costly.... but I now see it coming together. And for my husband, one who wasn't a "handyman"; he seems to be coming around to the excitement as well. He's learning new things, which he loves and I must say does an absolute gorgeous job on anything he tackles. He just stood in the living room last night, dust all over him from cutting tile, and smiled. He said he just realized today that he is working on "his" home. I've been so bummed about this entire process that I hadn't even stopped to think of it that way. Now that we both see it coming together, it's rewarding and exciting.

After the master bath is complete, it's on to the kitchen. I'm kind of sad that I'm unable to cook Easter dinner for my family, as that's something I've done since my Mom passed; but I must say that I'm EXTREMELY excited to see how the kitchen is going to turn out.

Here are some photos of the "process" of our master bath:

View of the ceiling from the kitchen.... that's right, it's the sewage pipe. Ewwww!


Bathroom "before"

Bathroom (same view) "during" .... coming along :)

Another view... my husband's idea of having the "throne" on a step up (i like it!!!)

And another