The Festering Craphole is Complete

Only six short months into my two week bathroom renovation project, I'm finally done. The festering craphole is no more. The cabinets are painted and installed, the Kissie Fish is hung on the wall, and we're ready for our new undersea-themed throne room to be taken over by those two aquatic creatures in the house that don't yet know how to brush their teeth without getting toothpaste on the ceiling.

Except for some assistance with floor demolition and electrical wiring from dear old dad, this project was a solo one. Though we decided not to touch the tub, I ripped out everything else and installed a new floor, wainscoting, sink, toilet, and cabinets. The three pieces of cabinetry I built myself, using ideas garnered from an article I found in Workbench Magazine.

Throughout the painting, tiling, plumbing and cabinetry process, I learned a few things that I thought I would share with my adoring public...

A two week project will likely take more than two weeks. This goes without saying I know, but i'll say it nonetheless.

Mouse hunting can easily add an additional week to the length of the project.

Avoid getting input on color schemes from your young daughters. That is, unless you like orange and green walls with purple fixtures.

Store-bought seashells can easily be passed off as ones you supposedly obtained scouring the shores of Cape Cod in hopes of making your daughters happy.

Pedestal sinks are easier to install than regular ones, but you can save yourself some grief by installing the faucet on the sink BEFORE you attach the sink to the wall.

You can buy one of every plumbing part Home Depot has to offer in one trip, and you will STILL need to go back there for one more thing before you're done.

Toilets and sinks are apparently designed to leak after the first two attempts to install, but will work fine afterwards.

When putting that little magnet catch on the back of the medicine cabinet door, make absolutely sure you don't run the screw right through the mirror.

General Finishes makes a polyacrylic clearcoat that you can put on painted furniture, making the furniture virtually indestructible. I would like to paint every surface of my house and car with this stuff. I'd drink it if I could.

If your daughters want to help, let them. Just avoid the final painting stage. Give them a screw to twist, or a clamp to squeeze. One little project to do will give them a huge amount of pride in their creation, and it will also enable them to take credit for the entire project once it's done.

Custom cut glass is not expensive and easily obtainable. The same is true for custom mirrors. This is especially useful to know when you have to replace the one you broke while installing the magnet catch on your medicine door.

The Festering Craphole, Month #7

I had high hopes. I really did. I even have a draft post entitled "The Festering Craphole is Complete". But still, here it is, the SIXTH month into my little two-month long bathroom redo which I stared at the beginning of October, and the kids are still trashing the guest bathroom instead of their own.

Sure, we all know what "they" say...that your average home project will take twice as long and cost twice as long as it should. But we're approaching the SEVENTH month into my project of redoing the kids' bath. It was supposed to be done before the spring thaw (folks standing in the freezing Fargo floodwaters, yes I realize I still have time based on your temperature gauge).

So what's taking so long? Well, life, of course. You know, the daily grind, sick kids, trying to keep my job in this down economy...the usual thing. But this weekend I had the highest of high hopes. All that's left is to paint and install a couple of cabinets I made, hang some towel racks and a ceramic fish, and it's time for the big reveal. No brainer, right?

But then LIFE happened again.

You'll notice I'm writing this on a Saturday morning before 7am. I'm currently waiting for the coffee maker to finish it's job of supplying me with fresh Columbian that I can take with me on my drive to Lowes. This weekend I have three projects that trump the bathroom. First, the garage door opener decided to go into retirement. Second, I've got a hillside that needs some repair before the weeds move in. And third, the real kicker, is the faucet in the guest bathroom is now broken. Yes, yet another plumbing job. As fast as I can build the new bathroom, that's how fast the others are falling apart. Only two weeks ago I was ripping piping out of the powder room sink to remove a ten-year-old clog that had finally gotten the best of us. Before that, I was re-seating a leaking toilet in the master bath. I won't even mention that the vinyl floor in the guest bathroom is bubbling up, a result of dried out adhesive. Or that the paint is peeling. No, those are projects for another day. Or another seven months.

Well since I still don't have a big reveal, here's a teaser. It's the shelf unit I built to go where a window used to be in the kids bathroom, completely unsanded and unpainted, but at least it's proof I've gotten SOMEWHERE.

Status update: The festering Craphole (day 73)

Believe it or not I've made significant progress on our little bathroom renovation, and today was quite the banner day. This afternoon's efforts consisted of wainscoting, painting, and only two trips to Home Depot.

As is usually the case with us, the design of this room as evolved somewhat organically. Unlike those HGTV design shows, where the hottie designer of the week presents his or her client with a to-scale 3D color drawing of the entire redo, we've been sort of winging it. We knew we wanted something in the way of an oceanic theme. I knew I was going to do wainscoting on the walls, primarily because I didn't want to have to deal with patching the numerous holes. So we decided to delve into the world of faux finishes, painting the upper half of the walls in sort of an ocean blue. After finding and installing a floor tile that looked sort of like sand, we then had to decide what color make the wainscoting. Despite our daughters' pleas to make it seaweed green, we went against the theme and painted it a simple warm beige. We told the kids to imagine a sand dune.

By the way, if anyone can offer up the steering wheel from a sailing ship, we'll gladly take it off your hands to use as a towel rack.

Then came time to figure out what to do about a sink. Before we embarked on this project, I had envisioned a pedestal sink. However, I have never installed a pedestal sink, so at the last minute I wimped out and decided to put a typical vanity cabinet in. Went to Home Depot, decided on something, brought it home, lugged it upstairs, unboxed it , slid it into place, and promptly reversed the process after realizing how ugly it looked. So, we're back to the pedestal idea. Oh well, I can read directions I guess. And on the bright side, a pedestal sink means less surface area to collect toothpaste spittle.

A note about tiling a bathroom floor. I've determined that I could make a lot of money inventing something to easily cut that round hole for the toilet drain. currently the process involves a miter saw with a carbide bit (because I was too cheap to rent a wetsaw to cut 6 tiles), which effectively cuts the tiles but creates a ton of sparks and makes the house smell like a machine shop for a week. Then, you take a pair of "nibblers", which are essentially pliers used to break little pieces of tile off until you get the right shape, hopefully without shattering the tile in the process. After three hours of nibbling and two failed attempts resulting in shattered tiles, I had a reasonably carved circle...and a hand that was no longer able to grip objects for two days.

Here's the progress so far. If you zoom in on the second picture you'll notice artwork on the lower half of the walls done by a certain 5-year-old. She specifically asked if I could install the wainscoting AROUND her artwork so it wouldn't be covered.

Status update: The festering Craphole

I'm one month into my latest project, gutting and remodeling the kids' bathroom. My parents were in this weekend, and as is usually the case when they come in I put dad to work assisting me with details such as rewiring lights, ripping out toilets and flooring, and smoothing out walls.



We're now ready to paint and put the floor in. Only problem is, we've gone about this project a little backwards. Over the summer we visited Cape Cod, where we amassed a vast collection of nautically-themed objects such as shells and ceramic fish with which to decorate the walls. We have a shower curtain. We even have little decorative soaps. What we DON'T have are paint color selections, a decision on tile, or even an idea of which toilet and sink to buy.

And then there's the leak.

I'm not quite sure when I first noticed it, but for a while now there has been a small brown splotch on the kitchen ceiling. My first thought had been that with two little girls wallowing and splashing in the tub every other day, some water was bound to find its way out of the tub, under the floor, and into the sheetrock of our kitchen ceiling. However after ripping up the bathroom floor I found no such sign of a leak. Then, yesterday morning, I happened to glance at the splotch again and noticed it had changed color. I pressed it gently with my finger and discovered it was soft. And wet. The leak must be in the guest bathroom, which my parents have been using while staying here. Swell. This would definitely be the "other" part they talk about when they say "if it isn't one thing, it's another". Upon further investigation, it appears that the big round handle that operates the shower is leaking. Swell.

Have I mentioned I hate plumbing? Yes, I believe I have.

Gutting the festering craphole

I've said it before and I will say it again. Young children are capable of many amazing things, but bathroom neatness is not one of them. I believe it has to do with not yet studying physics in school. They don't tend to understand how gravity affects the landing coordinates of toothpaste globs formed when brushing one's teeth with one's mouth open. They don't understand the effect of centrifugal (or is that centripetal, I forget) force on soapy, wet hands when doing a ballerina twirl to reach the hand towel on the wall opposite the sink. And that classic equation Force=Mass times Acceleration has no bearing on the way a child turns the faucet handle on full blast in order to fill a Dixie cup, sending the cup careening off the lip of the sink and onto the floor to rest amongst the vast array of wet bath towels, shower puddles, and soap-scum-caked bath toys already amassed on the bathroom floor.

My initial goal had been to redo the kids' bathroom only after that moment of shining epiphany when the girls realize it's better to spit toothpaste downwards into the sink instead of forward onto the mirror. But then the vanity door rusted off. And the faucet began to leak. And the sink stopper disintegrated into a pile of dust, hair, and brass shavings. No, we can't take any more of this. The time has come.

So consider this posting to be Chapter One of what may very well be a long and twisted saga of bathroom renovation. I expect to be dealing with situations like trying to explain to my four-year-old that orange and purple are not options for wall color. Or that there are no plans to add a sauna. Or that we are not replacing the shower with a hot tub like "the ones they have in Canada" (we stayed at a Canadian Hotel once and now she thinks only Canadian hotels have hot tubs).

Of course, daily life often gets in the way of projects such as these. In fact my neighbor informed me he started redoing his kids' bathroom two years ago, and there's still only a coat of primer on the walls. So, to force the issue, once day while the family was out shopping I took it upon myself to remove the sink. It shouldn't take too long before my lovely wife finds extra time in her very busy schedule to look through paint swatches and tile samples in an effort to get the kids to stop trashing the guest bathroom.

Tune in next time when our hero says, "Honey? Got the number for that plumber?"