Ruminations on Bathroom Design

The bathroom has, for a couple of months now, lingered as a project that I was worried about going further on. A lot of that has to do with the rabbit hole that is the overall design of it. I suffered similar concerns when I was repainting the dinging room a brick red - I don't know what it is going to look like and the thought of developing a color scheme for the room was both daunting and terrifying. Perhaps this is just showing how far away from art I have gone in my career - there was a time where I don't think something as simple as picking a color would have stopped me dead in my tracks. Maybe it has to do with the semi-permanence of a decision like that of redesigning an entire room. But, as the "winter" continues on, I find myself becoming more and more motivated to actually finish the job.

This afternoon, I spent some quality time with Home Depot, looking at possible toilets and vanities (with a salesman attempting to derail me towards a kitchen renovation). In general, I know what work remains in the room, I just need to get the ducks in a row and make some decisions on what I want the space to look like.

One of the biggest tasks for the bathroom is the window. All the windows in this house need to be replaced eventually and this bathroom is probably going to be the first. Because of that, I need education on windows. Unfortunately, because the windows (and casings/frames) are so old, I will need to do a full replacement as I don't see a world where I will be able to just drop new double hung windows into the existing casings. I was hoping to find someone knowledgeable in regards to windows at Home Depot but I had arrived during the window of time where the window expert was out to lunch. So... with that stalled, I gathered up what literature was there and went off to ponder the remaining fixtures.

Next up on the list, and probably the easiest for me to decide on, was the toilet. My parents have nothing but good recommendations for Kohler's toilets so I spent my time looking at those. I marveled at how one specific color of toilet somehow managed to be $30.00 more than what looked to be the same specifics but in white/cream. Either way, I've decided on a chair height, elongated bowl Kohler. Sometime around the next paycheck, I will probably be dinging my bank account for one and storing it in the basement or "demo room" until I am ready to install it.

I did spend some time looking at various vanities. The vanity/counter-top/sink combos were appealing but most were just a little shy of what I was looking for exactly (either I didn't like the color, or the design or the dimensions). I looked through some of the custom order catalog available to see what was there. After a while, I decided that I really needed to sit down and think about color scheme before making a decision on the vanity. A lot of them offered white or pink-granite-wanna-be counter tops but I didn't want to really go forward on those unless I knew what color I wanted to paint the walls.

After the trip to Home Depot, armed with some ideas and fresh memories of what was available, I sat down with my dear friend Photoshop to do some photo-tweaking to see what I could come up with that would work well.

As a baseline, the tub/shower unit was white to begin with. With that in mind, I made the decision to make the remaining fixtures (vanity counter-top, toilet) and trim follow suit. Next up was finding a color that works with white fixtures. Searching Google specifically for "GOOD COLORS FOR BATHROOMS" yielded a number of garish options that I don't think I will ever be brave enough to paint a wall with... ever. But a few suggestions pointed towards subtle blues, greys and greens.

One of the constantly repeated mottos of bathroom design that a number of articles and blogs recited was "light, bright and airy" (though there were a few more bold suggestions in the mix as well). With the "light, bright and airy" theme in mind, I worked up a few different color ideas that I might like to try. Of course, there was always the fall-back of "creme/eggshell" but, while safe, I feel like I should be at least trying something that is a bit more interesting, if not more bold.

Personally, because each of these colors are more muted, my comfort level with them is much higher than the color I chose for the living room.

On the left, the blue-grey is probably the darkest of the three ideas I played with. I am a fan of blue but I am not sure how I would feel about the entire room being like this. A number of the vanities I looked at had a nice rich wood-brown color to them that I like and with the walls being darker and the vanity being dark, I don't know how well they would work together.

In the middle is a neutral slate color. It is dark enough to make it and the trim stand out against each other. It should work well enough with a wood-colored vanity but, like blue, it feels dark.

The last one is a sea-foam/sage green. It is the brightest of the ideas I played with and I think it will make both white trim/fixtures and dark wood-work (like the vanity and perhaps mirror frame) stand out well against each other. While bright, it is low contrast (like blue and grey), which gives me a bit more piece of mind.

There is one more piece of the puzzle that I haven't really thought too much about - and that is the floor and ceiling. Giving the floor a bright, stark linoleum or tile might make the walls pop more. The ceiling is probably going to remain white regardless. For the floor, I have been considering a nice patterned tile look - something more towards the standard beige/creme color that was my ultimate safe zone.

So - for the few of you that check this, what are you thoughts? Blue? Grey? Green? Does going with something more "traditional" for floor color make sense?

A few weeks ago, I bought a refurbished snowblower from one of Jay's co-workers. The rig itself is not entirely elegant looking and, considering how little (aka - NO) snow we had gotten for the season to date, it has been sitting in the shed by itself - untested.

This past week, New England has finally decided to allow it to be winter. It wasn't the grand dumping of snow that we got last year, but it was enough to make me have to consider snow removal. The first snow storm was handled for my by some phantom plow guy who rolled through at 5:30 in the morning (which, nice of it was of him to do that, I had barely gotten much sleep and a 5:30 rumble from the driveway wasn't entirely welcome).

Today saw more snow and like the last storm, it was light, fluffy and dry snow yielding about 4 or 5 inches. Again, not much and it would definitely get out of the way of a car but better to deal with it now than before it melts a bit and turns to an ice surface. Once the bulk of the snow appeared to have stopped, I went out to try to make sense of the snow blower and clean up the driveway.

Originally, because the snow was light, I was planning on just shoveling it all. But that idea went right out the window by the time I had finished clearing around the garage door. After a few false starts and an unnecessary use of the electric starter, the snowblower was happily growling along - flinging snow off the driveway. The driveway itself is not in the greatest of shapes, so there were a few parts where the blower bucked a bit and made a pain of itself but otherwise the effort was a success.

I do not need find a better storage solution for the snow blower. At present, I am keeping it in the shed but there isn't enough room for it and all the renovation waste - which makes closing the door to the shed unviable. Come spring, I think I'll store it under the pool shed and see if I can get the old shed torn down and something new built in its place.

While I originally had all these plans for how productive I was going to be during my 2-week break, sadly, I did not meet anywhere close to what I had originally hoped to accomplish - due in no small part to my laziness and desire to catch up on video games I had neglected instead of work on the house.

That isn't to say, however, that things were not accomplished around the house. With New Year's Eve weekend bearing down on me, I have considerable doubts that I will get anything else done. With that in mind, I did amount to a bit of productivity over the last week.

• Sheet rock in the bathroom closet is not hung, with open spaces to support access to bath shut-off valves
• Sheet rock in the hallway linen closet about 2/3 complete. I ran out of substantially sized pieces of sheetrock and will need to get more in order to complete that portion of the closet
• Firewood with carpenter ants chilling out in it have been exposed to the elements and hosed down with a ton of ant killer. I will likely give those pieces of wood another glazing before I am willing to add them to the stack

Beyond those three things, I do have one thing that I need to undo. I did not do the greatest job in applying the sealant around the edge of the tub. Additionally, in my wisdom, I primed after adding the sealant, which makes the sealant look like even more garbage. Next week, I will be taking a knife to the sealant to get it removed, properly painted and then reapply.

I have also been thinking about the next steps for finishing off the bathroom. One of the nice things about this house is the abundance of bathrooms, so having portions of any one bath out of commission is not a deal breaker. I think I will, over the course of the next month or so, do the following (in order):

• Remove old toilet, vanity and mirror. Wasn't planning on reusing any of those and they are just making having multiple people in that room difficult.
• Proceed with the demolition of the bathroom walls. Get the remainder of the exterior-facing wall re-insulated/vapor barriered. Hang new drywall where needed - leaving the sink-wall untouched so that wires can be run for new outlets.
• With old fixtures removed, tear up the tile/concrete mess that is the floor and replace it with plywood and some finished flooring treatment (large tiles, perhaps). 
• Once the flooring is done, I can install the new toilet - this way the bathroom is at least a bit more functional.
• Install electrical outlets and get a vent fan set up in the ceiling. The bathroom currently has two lights that run off one switch (ceiling and vanity) - may break the ceiling off on to its own switch and keep the vanity fixture where it is (but replace it with new hardware - not a huge fan of the tulip lights...)
• Once electrical is done, finish hanging sheetrock, paint and install sink/vanity.

Ever since moving in, I have been pretty slow to complete the various projects I have going around the house. I keep three excuses for my procrastination handy - either I have other things to do outside of work/house, other more important house-related issues pop up or I am just too tired/lazy after getting home from work.

As I usually do around Christmas time, I've taken an extended vacation to get my PTO balance down. The goal of these two weeks is to get little projects handled and prepare the house for the winter that has not yet happened.

Thanks to the distraction of Christmas shopping, I haven't really gotten around to many of the little projects yet. I have, however, accomplished a couple of small feats around the house and hope to wrap up a couple more before I go north for a few days for Christmas.

• The new bathroom closet and enlarged linen closet have been framed. Between my own inexperience doing such things and a couple of the 2x4's being warped, I can't claim it to be the best job of framing ever but it doesn't look completely horrible. Also, as a side effect of framing the closets, the hole in the wall in the soon-to-be office is also framed.
• The corner beading by the tub and sheetrock about the bathroom closet have been hit with two coats of joint compound. They are now ready to be sanded, cleaned and primed/painted.
• The wall in the soon-to-be office is now filled with a panel of sheetrock. The aforementioned warped 2x4s mean that things don't like up exactly in the middle (but top and bottom is good). I am going to need to tear out the base boards in order to be able to really finish the sheetrock. I was not pleased to discover that the floors appear to have been installed after the base boards and which resulted in me accidentally destroying a good portion of one wall's worth. Guess I'll just have to redo the base boards when it comes time to renovate that room.
• And lastly, I finally got around to finishing off the wood pile. Everything that I could split with an axe is now cut and stacked (since it was a nice 60 degrees outside, I opted to do this over handing more sheet rock or painting). I have two small piles of wood that remain - one that is split but had carpenter ants in it (which I will be bug bombing and leaving to exposure tomorrow) and one that I may have to rent a splitter for (they are all either awkward shapes or have massive knots in them that my axe won't split through). When all the wood is handled, I will have about a cord's worth that will sit and dry for next fall.

So, yeah. Not the busiest I could be on the house but I've been getting small projects out of the way. My primary goal for tomorrow is to get the sheetrock in the bathroom sanded, cleaned up and hit with a coat of primer at least. If I get going early enough, I may be able to do a second coat of primer. At that point, the bathroom will be a top coat away and seal pass away from being usable as a shower (that is, until the rest of the bathroom goes under the scalpel).

I've been slacking the past couple of weeks, ever since Thanksgiving weekend - so here are a few updates!

Inside the house, I am slowly working on the bathroom. It only took me a couple of weeks but I have finally gotten around to getting the beading in place and finishing up putting the joint compound around the shower. It's not the greatest job joint compound job ever but it is at a point now where I can sand it up and start priming right around the shower/tub. I also need to get things in the closet spaces framed in - depending on how far along I get with the fire wood (and how tired I am after the fire wood) I will try to get at least the measurements done today.

Outside of the house has also seen little progress. The weather here after Thanksgiving and up until this past weekend has been oddly unseasonal. This meant that it was plenty warm enough out to get all the leaves taken care of. After piling up a dozen bags at the curb, I decided I would rather just rake them all onto a tarp and drag them out to the back of the property and begin a mulch pile. This made dealing with the leaves much easier.

The wood pile is still there and slowly getting split and stacked. In fact, after I finish writing this, I will be spending my afternoon outside working on that pile. Once the pile is done, I can then finish taking care of the rest of the leaves beside the driveway and in the lower half of the backyard.

It only took about a month, but I was finally able to get a pair of estimates from two different contractors for the repairs needed on the chimney that was hit by the tree. I was also able to get the ball rolling with the insurance company (which was a pain in the ass...). As it stands now, I am waiting for the Adjuster to have his chimney contractor contact me to schedule a time to come and evaluate the chimney (because of how much both places estimated). My worry is that by the time insurance is able to confirm and pay out, the winter weather will have set in and I won't be able to get it fixed until spring. With their estimates being as high as they were, I can't float the fix on my own and really would like the insurance company to pick up the pace.

I did end up having one of the contractors I contacted for estimates come out and fix up the other chimney. Their work was good but more expensive that I think it should have been. They were also considerably pushy about getting started on the other chimney. As this is the first time I've ever had to deal with the contractors or the insurance company, I didn't need them laying on the pressure - so I will not be using those contractors again for the repairs on the other chimney.

Project # 4 - The Partial Death of Teal

While most of the rest of the country was celebrating Thanksgiving, my parents and I were knee deep in bathroom demolition. The house has two full baths in it but unfortunately, only one of them can really be used as a full bath (the master). The other bath, while having operation sink and toilet, the tub itself could not be used due to tile and subsequent water damage to the room.

As the family had celebrating Thanksgiving yesterday (due to the random and crazy schedule that some of the family members have), Mom and Dad came down to Franklin to check out the house and help with some demolition.

Day # 1

The primary goal for the weekend is to remove the tub and replace it with a new tub/surround as well as remove the closet from the bedroom next door and give the bathroom it's own little closet. As the bedroom next door is going to be an office space, I figured it lacking a closet would not hurt it. Including a small closet in the bathroom also means that access to the tub's pipes will now be more convenient through the bathroom itself instead of through the closet in the bedroom/office. As part of all this, the linen closet in the hallway is getting a little bit bigger as well, which is good because as it is currently it is barely deep enough to hold comforters and other large linens and towels.

Mom and Dad arrived in the early afternoon and after a tour, we set ourselves towards the demolition of the tub tile and drywall and closet framing.After a good 4 or 5 hours of demolition work, everything that we wanted torn was torn down. All that remains is a big pile of garbage that needs to be bagged up and moved into shed for storage until such a time that I have enough renovation garbage to call in a dumpster.

Once the demo was done, we called it a night. Tomorrow morning, I'll be bundling up the garbage to take to the shed. I have to stay at the house and wait for a Chimney Repair company to arrive to do an estimate for me. During that time, Mom and Dad will likely be out and about, braving the Black Friday Madness, trying to get to Home Depot and pick up a few supplies (and possibly the tub and surround, if Home Depot has it in stock).

(To Be Continued...)

After a week and change of radio silence, I am now back online and officially living in the new house. On the 12th, with help from friends, I moved nearly all of my stuff from Walpole to Franklin. There's a lot of unpacking left to do but I am generally situated now. Jay's got all his stuff here and his room set up as well (for family members that don't know - Jay is a buddy of mine who's taking one of the spare rooms).

The day of the move also saw a set of four pallets dropped off thanks to Marc and Pat. They've been set up and soon enough I'll be splitting and stacking firewood.

The house itself is slowly coming together. I had a sense of it before but now I am even more aware of how many items that are generally necessary or useful in the owning/maintaining of a house that I just don't have. I bought a toaster today - along with a bunch of towels.

This last weekend was spent between closing up the apartment in Walpole (still had the treadmill and a few other assorted items there) and trying to get some motion on yard work. This is the second time that I'll have raked up the yard and I expect I'll fill even more leaf bags than I did after the first. At least the leaves are dry this time around. I did get a chance to meet more neighbors over the weekend while working in the yard. The couple across the street came over to introduce themselves, welcome me to the neighborhood and express how sorry they were to see the tree had hit the roof.

As for what is coming up - Thanksgiving is early this year (Wednesday instead of Thursday due to the collective crazy schedules of my family). This means that I will, hopefully, have Thursday through Sunday to invest in house and yard work. There is a company coming out Friday to give me an estimate on chimney repairs from the storm. Mom and Dad might be coming down for the weekend as well - and if they do, I'd like to have them help me on the partial demolition of the non-master full bath and get, at the very least, a functional shower in place. Once the shower in that bathroom is in, I can renovate the rest of the space at my leisure.

Nothing really exciting or new for photos recently. If the bathroom project gets started, it will have its own blog entry and a number of photos to go along with it.

Project # 3 - Painter's Anxiety

One would think that, having roots as an artist, I would be more comfortable with the prospect of painting the rooms in the house than I am. When asked what I was going to do for colors, my response was "off white". Some of it was that I didn't really want to invest too heavily into thinking about colors for each room when I know that I want to tear down the walls and hang new insulation and drywall on them (the current drywall is ancient and should be replaced). Luckily, the decision to make the Living Room a project room means that I don't have to care about it for the time being. But... I do have to think about the other living spaces.

The Dining Room

Originally, I was going to just leave it "primer white" with the green trim. But as I got further along in the priming, the more stark the space looked. And, since I would need another coat of primer to even out the white on the walls anyway, I just decided to paint them a color.

Jay had suggested something along the lines of an orange/brick color. I spent some time playing around in Photoshop and came up with a mockup that looked decent. Off to the paint store! While there, I got some suggestions from the woman running the register and went with a color called Audobon Russet.

I was very nervous about this color. Seeing it (approximated) in Photoshop is one thing, seeing it on the wall was another. By the time the first section of wall was done, I was pretty anxious about the color. The white walls of the primer, the pink of the cabinets and window dressings and the blue from the tape all make it look terrifying. But I had to press on - get to a point of no return that way I wouldn't have any choice but to finish painting.

Compared to the primer, this paint went on like butter. Nice smooth application and no question about whether or not you actually painted a spot (putting primer on yellow cream walls makes it hard to really see what you've covered and what you haven't). Because it went on so smoothly and because I had the benefit of experience from priming, painting the whole room went much faster than I thought it would.

Now all that is left is to check the walls today to see if they need another coat and see about getting rid of the pink paint in the corner units. Also - tear down the pink window dressing. And for a bonus task, see about replacing the illuminated jelly fish and updating the outlets to something modern.

The End Bedrooms

These two bedrooms got a start today as well. Primer went on the walls of one of them while the other looks like it is just primer white to begin with. Annoyingly, that primer white room also has white trim and windows, which is going to be an annoyance. It can be done but I would have preferred to just do the walls and be done with it.

For colors in these rooms, I am going with what I am comfortable with - a simple neutral cream/off-white color. Down the road, I might decide to get ambitious with their colors but for the time being, I am going simple. A gallon should handle both rooms easily.

This week is going to be all about preparing the house to be moved into. Well.. as much about that as I can spare the time for.

Since work has let me loose into the wild on some projects, I've decided to change up my schedule a bit. I am trying out an 8 to 4 schedule so that I have a little bit of daylight to work at the house before needing to break out the work lights.

Jay's trying out a cured steak recipe and since my boiler room is so dry, there is now a clothes-line worth of meat hanging between the furnace and the wall. It smells like... what I am told is coriander.

Today's task was taping up the first floor in preparation for some painting. I've got the primer in the basement and everything but the fridge nook taped (I was lazy and didn't want to drag the fridge out just to add some tape). Originally, I was planning on only doing the dining room/den and the kitchen but the entryway seemed small enough that I could do that too and be done at a reasonable time. The entryway is a rats nest of woodworking...

While I thought I had bought too much tape, I ended up running out just as I finished taping the stairs up to the second floor. I'll need to buy more for the bedrooms and hallway but shouldn't need as much as those rooms don't have as much detail in them compared to the dining room.

Tomorrow, I am hoping to start getting the primer on the walls in the dining room. If I can get that one room done by the time I call it a night, I'll be happy (the dining room is going to act as the living room for the time being while renovation happens in the living room proper).

This weekend has been tiring. Very little has been accomplished within the house but a lot has happened outside.

The logs were split with Jay's help. A quick trip to the local hardware store yielded an axe, a sledge and a wedge - which means some splitting is in the future (which should make for some good stress release). Saturday was a tiring day because of all the cutting that was happening.

Adding on to Saturday was Sunday. Not only did Day Lights Savings ending throw me off (as it does every year), the day itself was spent clearing the front yard of leaves and sticks. The front lawn took a good four hours to rake and bag. The end result is 13 bags of leaves and twigs which I'll be slowly bringing up to the road for garbage/recycling over the next few weeks.

Amusingly/Frustratingly, the woman next door came outside just as I was about to finish bagging up the last of my leaves and managed to get her front yard cleared (with a leaf blower) and bagged in no time. Granted, she has less to worry about in the front yard than I do (a single tree compared to 3 trees and the refuse of two downed trees) but still...

This week is all going to be prep work from moving in this weekend. My primary goals this week are to get the dining room and bedrooms primed (possibly the kitchen as well). I've decided the living room will be one of the first overhaul rooms - paneling removed, sheetrock and insultation installed and floor refinished. Still debating between getting the bathroom situated and the living room updated.