I think my house looks pretty good. I mean, not ladies-magazine-good or anything, but in general I think I have a pleasant aesthetic and I'm relatively tidy, so what I'm saying is: it could be worse. But I see my house every day, and familiarity breeds, if not contempt, at least complaisance, so once in a while it behooves one to look at one's home through the eyes of, say, the boiler guy who needs to use one's bathroom.
Now, Johnny would never have said anything negative about my bathroom because, One: He's too nice of a guy; Two: As a boiler guy I imagine he's seen a lot worse; and Three: He's seen my bathroom enough times to be complaisant as well (which should give you an indication of the reliability of my heating system.) But after he left, I thought, hmm... Is my bathroom a relaxing, spa-like get-away? Or does it conjure images of a crime scene in a dilapidated hotel? And before you say "Oh Melanie, it's not that bad", look at it in black and white.
Gah! You can practically hear the violins shrieking. I decided it was time for a major bathroom renovation, which is not a step to be undertaken lightly. But since I had 5 free hours, which is obviously plenty of time for a complete overhaul, I decided to do this the Right Way, which meant Googling "bathroom renovation" and following the recommended steps scrupulously. This is a complete journal of my redo.
- ASSESS YOUR BUDGET. The internet suggested an average bathroom renovation costs between $9000-15,000. But I'm a freelance artist, so I'm hoping to get it done for somewhere in the 20 dollar range. Step one, complete.
- COMPILE INSPIRATION IMAGES. Okay. This makes sense. You should have a sense of what you're going for. But with my 5 hour deadline I don't really have time to scroll through countless images of bathrooms on the internet, so I just try to call to mind bathrooms I remember liking.
The only one I can think of is the bathtub my sister and I had for our Barbies. I think you can see that it is fabulous. But it's really all about the windows, and putting those in is going to be well outside of the 5 hour/$20 limitation I have set. And anyway, it's Minnesota in January. There's no way I'm going to have verdant trees and vulture-sized butterflies outside my windows. So I scratch that and decide that the sort of bathroom I want is probably very similar to the sort of bathroom I already have. Step two, done. This is going swimmingly!
- LIST ALL DESIRED CHANGES. Okay, I can do that. By trying to look at my bathroom with Johnny the Boiler Guy's eyes, here are the things I note:
- The plastic shower curtain isn't great. I have a thing about light when bathing and the clear curtain seemed like a great idea when I got it 5 years ago. But though I really do keep it clean, I have hard water, so it's hopelessly covered with spots. This shower curtain is probably the main thing making my bathroom look like a terrific spot to dispatch an enemy, so a new curtain will be first on my list.
- The paint on the moldings and chair rails and medicine cabinet and doors has been painted over a zillion times since the building was built in 1907, and it has clearly not always been sanded first, so it's kind of a mess. I could remove all the old paint and redo it and it would look stunning. Except that it's almost impossible to get sandpaper into crevices like that, and paint remover is super-toxic, and also I'm lazy and cheap, so the layered-paint thing is probably an example of Vintage Charm, and I'd be nuts to mess with it. Right? Great! Done!
- The tub doesn't actually slant towards the plumbing, so water pools up after a shower and has to be kick-splashed towards the drain. I've tried to fix it before, but a cast iron tub is just as heavy as you think it would be, so maybe I just keep kick-splashing? It's probably also great for your adductor muscles, so my bathroom is now a spa AND a fitness room! This renovation is flying!
- There are a few hairline cracks in the ceiling and the floor tiles. But what of it? Great! Done!
- Okay. The list is complete.
- SOURCE YOUR MATERIALS. At this point, it was really just the shower curtain. I had looked at store-bought options in the past, but they were always too dark or opaque. So I decided to buy some fabric and make one myself. But on the way to the fabric store I stopped at the Institution of Finer Shopping known as Har Mar Mall to exchange a Christmas gift from Dress Barn. Funny story: there isn't a Dress Barn in Har Mar Mall anymore. But I was already in the parking lot, so I decided on a whim to stop into Home Goods, and I found these curtain panels that were just sheer enough and had these jolly tufts all over them. I figured if I stitched them together they'd be the right size for the shower, and I'd save myself a ton of work, since the hems and grommets were already there. Plus, they were only $17 plus tax! Har Mar Mall for the Win!
Before I stitched them together I hung one on the rod to mark the hem, and that's when I saw it: the glaring disaster I'd missed with both my and Johnny the Boiler Guy's eyes. Do you see what I'm looking at?
The inner window frame looks AWFUL. It's never been painted, so it looks dingy and has screws sticking out, and a sticker I can't read way up high. THIS WILL NOT STAND. My renovation just got a lot more intense: It's time to paint.
Fortunately, this didn't put me over budget, as I had white paint in the basement. Now, a lot of folks might have said "But Melanie! That's ceiling paint! For a bathroom window right next to a shower you probably want high gloss or at least eggshell." And to those people, I would say "Hush. I'm a maverick." (I am also lazy and cheap.) The real problem came when I realized I couldn't reach the top pane, and the tub and radiator were conspiring to keep out a ladder. So I put a stool in the tub, which was SUPER safe, because it was pretty wobbly, and also still wet in the bottom (due to laziness on my part with the kick-splashing that morning.) But all's well that ends well. I even managed to get the weird sticker off by jabbing at it with an X-Acto knife, which is clearly the right tool to use on a wobbly slippery stool. (Turns out the sticker said "Do not paint or stain." Whatever. Maverick.)
So again, ende gut, alles gut, as lazy-cheap Germans say. I came in both under budget and under time, didn't paint the window shut, didn't fall off the stool, didn't even break the stool, didn't cut myself with the knife, and completed a full renovation for 18 bucks (although that renovation turns out to be just a homemade shower curtain and a barely-discernibly-differently colored window frame.) But I love it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go renovate my kitchen by emptying the dishwasher. Toodle-oo!
