And if that’s not discouraging enough, I found the exact style of interior and closet doors I want, but I can’t find the interior door sold in mass market home improvement stores, so they are unfortunately way out of my price range as a “custom” door and the closet doors, while sold in mass market home improvements stores, are the wrong size for the dimensions we need. I can’t win!

I fell in love with some tile at Lowe’s. I don’t know why I bother looking at tile because it’s out of my price range. It’s going to cost at least $300 for the tile alone, not including mortar, grout, tools and rental equipment. Yeah. I think I’d rather eat for the month. But it’s soooo pretty… and expensive… and more difficult to install than other flooring types. Ok, fine. No tile.

Bathroom ceiling painted white.

To get myself out of a rut and make myself feel like I accomplished something for the day, I dragged my butt into the bathroom and puttied up the sections of the wall that were mucked up from where the previous vanity was installed and painted the ceiling white. I debated painting a second coat on the ceiling, but was feeling lazy and decided one coat was good enough. I can always go back later.

Snapping the vinyl flooring in half.

Tonight I finished pulling up the rest of the vinyl flooring and trim. I have to wait until Josh helps me pull up the toilet to get the rest of the vinyl flooring out. I never knew vinyl could snap. Bend, yes. Snap, no. It was like snapping twigs on a cold winter’s day. It made for easy clean-up, that’s for sure. At first I thought there was some water damage to the subflooring, but upon further inspection, it looks like discoloration and/or leftovers from the glue. Fingers crossed.

Vinyl flooring and trim removed.

I want to install laminate flooring throughout the entire house, including the stairs. Josh keeps telling me we can do it ourselves, but I know that we really should hire a professional to do it. However, as stated before, it’s going to be hella expensive. I need to take the time to determine the direction of the floor joists so I know which direction the laminate flooring will go. I already made up my mind which direction I want the laminate flooring to go, so I hope hope hope that the floor joists cooperate.

Mysterious wall plug.

I started looking at vanities on the Internets. I found some really neat wall hanging vanities that don’t touch the ground. I was getting really excited about what I was finding until I realized there is no way this style of vanity will work in the bathroom. I have no idea what it is, but there is something sticking out of the wall underneath the drain pipe. I refer to this unknown object as the “wall plug.” It looks like someone started to insert a pipe but screwed up and inserted a plug in the hole instead of patching up the wall. I found one under the kitchen sink, so there must be a reason it’s there. Unless I find a wall hanging vanity that is really tall to cover up the wall plug, I have no idea how to make it work. Plus, looking for a taller wall hanging vanity so it sits closer to the floor kind of defeats the whole purpose of the design. I considered painting it the same color I paint the walls and leave it exposed, but I don’t think even paint can make it look attractive. I’m just a tad bit bummed!

So it’s now Day 4 and I’m still not used to not having a bathroom upstairs. Like a bad habit, I keep coming back. Sometimes more than once a day. Even though the toilet is still functional, there is no door. Even though there is no door, there is a window right outside the doorway. It’s a win-lose-lose situation. I originally had plans to replace the toilet with a one-piece style, but tonight I decided it’s in pretty good condition. I don’t necessarily like that you have to hold the handle down a good 5-10 seconds to flush, but I’m trying to cut costs where I can. As long as I scrape off the paint spills from previous paint jobs and replace the bolt caps (both are currently missing) and the handle, I think it will be just fine.

…and I still can’t decide what color to paint the walls.

Removing vinyl flooring and trim.

Today I need to finish removing the vinyl flooring and trim in the half bath so Josh can help me remove the toilet, but I am really tired due to lack of sleep and body wear and tear.  I also was supposed to finish painting the door trim white, but the later it gets the more I know that isn’t going to happen either. I’m hoping the 14 day allowance on the painters tape is true because all I want to do right now is go back to bed and hibernate for the winter. Perhaps after a cat nap and some food I’ll be more inclined to dive into things. I’m worried if I don’t get my butt in there and do something that I’ll start dropping “I’ll do it tomorrow” excuses left and right.

Speaking of tomorrow…

Tomorrow should be interesting to say the least. I’ve been using the half bath since we moved in to get ready in the mornings. The lighting is exactly what I need for applying my makeup and I don’t have to look at or smell the cat litter boxes that currently reside in the master bathroom. Among other reasons, the half bath actually is in better condition than the master bathroom. That’s really sad, frankly. It will be hard to give up my sanctuary.  Once the remodeling is done, my plan is to use it for what it was meant for… guests.

I just keep telling myself I can do this… I can do this.

Ugh. I’m not sure I can do this.

Newly painted window trim and ledge.

Got up bright and early for Day 2. I taped off the window and door frame so I could paint the wood trim white. I should have gone back to bed because I started the paint job out by spilling the paint all over the floor and my entire left hand. Anyone seen Michael Jackson’s glove lately? I didn’t think so because I have it. Ha!

I debated painting the actual door frame, but I’m going to hold off until I’m done to see what it looks like. Due to my shoddy sanding job from the previous day, it took me three coats to conceal the fugly orange wood underneath. Got half way through the first coat on the door trim before realizing the door hinges were in the way, so the door is currently hanging out in the main hallway.

So while I was waiting for paint to dry, I got a little antsy. Maybe antsy isn’t the right word. How about ambitious? Like I could take on a wild boar in my underwear ambitious. I still couldn’t decide on a paint color and I needed something else to do during my downtime. I can’t express how much I hate hate hate the bathroom furniture and flooring. So much so that in about 30 seconds I made the rash decision to demo the entire bathroom. Keep in mind it’s mid afternoon to early evening. Not sure what I was thinking starting demo so late in the day. Inevitably with remodeling comes problems. When you have a shitter for a home, those problems escalate by 500.

Getting ready to remove bathroom cabinet.

Removing the cabinet was no easy task. I needed Josh’s help with this one and I felt bad that it took a good four or so hours of his time to do it. The first step was to remove the doors and then the sink from the cabinet unit. Before we could remove the sink, we needed to turn the water off to the bathroom and then unclog the sink. Try not to be confused. We have a cloggy sink problem in our house. You can read about the master bathroom sink ordeal here. It was a similar scenario; although, the guest bath’s sink was worse.

Unclogging the bathroom sink.

After unscrewing the sink from the cabinet, Josh had to cut the hot and cold hoses to the faucet to get the basin out. While pulling the cabinet unit out and away from the wall, Josh noticed the hot water pipe was leaking. Insert panic button here. While I ran to get a bucket from the garage, Josh went off to find the water shut-off valve to the entire house since the hot water shut-off valve obviously failed due to old age. It really sucks when you have no freaking idea where the main water shut-off valve is located during a leak crisis!! But you can rest well at night because we eventually located it next to the hot water heater in the garage.

New water shut-off valves.

Josh made a quick trip to Lowe’s, which thankfully was still open (barely) to get replacement pipe parts. I thought I saw the worst inside a clogged sink drain, but I wasn’t prepared for the black and red crud that came shooting out of the pipes. REDRUM anyone? The new shut-off valves work GREAT and are really easy to turn (unlike the old ones). Next up is to replace the tacky black pipe with shiny new silver pipe!

I’m trying to decide whether or not to replace the drywall and subflooring near the leak site. It looks bad and looking at the stain pattern on the inside of the cabinet unit makes me think the pipe has been leaking for some time now. I think I’ll wait for the area to dry out before assessing the damage.

I started to remove the vinyl baseboard trim, but after being at the bathroom for 15 hours I decided to call it a night. One can only stand so much abuse bending over for long periods of time before the headache, stuffed sinuses, irritated eyes and body aches become too much to bear.

P.S. Don’t ask Josh about paint colors during hard labor. He’ll bite your head off!

For the last two weeks I have been looking at paint color samples. I’ve spent the last eight years staring at white walls and finally decided I needed some color in my life. Josh advised me to start small assuming that I wasn’t 100% serious about the whole remodeling thing, so painting the walls made sense. However, I’m a big picture thinker. For example, I’ve been at odds about the flooring. It seems more logical to replace all of the flooring in the house first so I don’t have to tear any new cabinets, toilets, molding, etc. out when I finally decide to replace the floors. However, replacing the flooring in the entire house is a big undertaking. One, I don’t think I have the skills to do it correctly and two, it will cost a shit ton to hire someone to do it for me. Josh’s suggestion was to refloor the bathroom only and do the other rooms as we get to them. This doesn’t work when you want seamless flooring. I need to plan ahead and planning ahead makes my head hurt.

So back to Plan B.

Original guest bath, ca. 2002.

My plan was to paint the guest bathroom first, as doing so would be relatively quick and easy and be a much needed improvement to the house. This all sounds fine on paper, but step out into the real world and you will find that I am a very indecisive person. Choosing a paint color for the walls has been no easy task, especially when the color changes every time the light changes! So in between clipping new paint swatches and asking Josh which color he likes best every 30 seconds, I started prepping the bathroom by cleaning the walls, ceiling and trims of any dirt, cobwebs, etc. I attempted to sand and putty the wood trim around the window and door frame and patched up the holes left behind from the mirror and towel bar.

People advise that it’s easier to achieve a goal if you make a bunch of smaller, incremental goals in between. I don’t like this tactic as I prefer instant gratification, but maybe it will help me this time around. So here it goes. Try to complete one room or area of the house each month. I’m laughing so hard it hurts seeing how there are only 12 months in a year and I have about 15 areas to tackle. This makes me think even my mini goals are too big.

Today’s motto: quit while you’re ahead.

Every year for the last eight years, I have talked about fixing the house up. It’s a real piece of shit. Literally. Josh and I bought the house in 2002 at the tender age of 23. We were young and naive and it’s all we could afford at the time. Just so you know before we get too far into this (I don’t want to shock you with the pictures and all) that the house was a previous rental and was built with that in mind. Nothing in this house is salvageable nor would I want to if it was. Yes. It’s that bad. However, Josh would beg to differ.

You’re probably thinking why did we buy the house if it’s so bad? Remember the part about being young and naive and it’s all we could afford? Also add to that everything that came out of the realtor’s mouth began with, “Now just imagine if…” I was imagining alright.

Some days I think it would be cheaper to sell the house to a company that buys shitter homes and take a loss because thinking about how much money will be going into remodeling the entire house seems about the same amount. But let’s not dwell on the past. Let’s focus on the future!

Fingers crossed that I can keep up this blog and make some progress on the house this year!