The bathroom before, during and after

This is the half-bath attached to my daughter’s bedroom. It is attached to the master bedroom in the old part of the house. This will be my daughter’s room. My parents (really my father) thinks we are nuts to give my daughter this bedroom with the half-bath. However we do have reasons. I do not want to have my parent’s bedroom. It’s weird enough moving back into my home-of-origin, but having my parents’ room is too Freudian for words. Also, this bedroom has a half-bath, which my daughter could really use.

The original bathroom was very, “Hello Hollywood.” * See picture #1. The sink and cabinet had gold trim. You cannot tell from the picture, but all three walls around the sink were covered with mirrors. Ugly as hell. but the lighting and mirrors were great for popping zits when I was a kid. Actually everyone in my family went to this bathroom to pop zits. I was planning on leaving this ugly bathroom alone, but my dad told me we needed to get into the plumbing in the back wall of this bathroom to fix the shower nozzle for the main bath located on the other side. My father also wanted to show me the 1920’s plumbing and share with me his knowledge about it. Getting to the plumbing necessitated removing everything from the bathroom and I could not stand to put that ugly shit back. So, we purchased a new cabinet, a new sink and a new light. The cabinet and sink came from Lowe’s and cost $179. It was difficult to find a medicine cabinet because it needed to be about 18 inches wide and about 24 inches tall because of the awkward dimensions of the back wall of the bathroom. Being unable to find a medicine cabinet is why my father put mirrors on the wall. We found a medicine cabinet at Ikea for $79.

The light gave me some trouble. I found that there was no light switch in the room. My dad had made an outlet on the floor and plugged the,”Hello Hollywood” lights directly into the outlet. The lights had toggle switches at their respective bases. They were ugly, but they worked great and in this way my father was able to solve the problem of not having a light switch in the room. Installing a new light was a pain. I had purchased a light fixture, but it needed a box on the wall to be installed over and it needed a wall switch. No wall switch. No box. I spent several weeks thinking about this problem. I could install a light switch, but this would require me to dig a horizontal trench in the plaster, from the light to the wall switch. Or I could install the wiring on top of the plaster and cover it with white plastic conduit. The first idea sounded painfully difficult; the second sounded ugly. I then thought I could get a light with a switch built-in. I was thinking along the lines of a pull cord switch. The problem here was that the cord would drape down right in front of the medicine cabinet. This would look bad and make it impossible to open and close the cabinet. Then I was at Lowe’s and ran into a remote control light switch. I don’t remember how I found it, but I like to think that the Patron Saint of Home Remodeling directed me towards this particular item. The remote control device solved all my problems! I wired the light with a standard lamp cord. This would then be plugged into a little box which was then plugged into the outlet. I could then put a remote control light switch wherever I wanted. When I hit the switch, it sent a signal to the box which then turned on the light. What a great solution! This turned out to work perfectly. It also turned out to be the only part of the bathroom remodel that went according to plan.

My dad, it turns out, had glued the mirrors to the wall. I wanted to remove the mirrors without making a mess and breaking them. I could not find a way to do it. I ended up taking a crow bar to the mirrors. This worked well, but left glass shards everywhere. When I removed the mirrors, I also removed a lot of the plaster behind them. The walls were down to lathe in many places. My father looked at the mess and said, “spackle and sand.” I said, “you have fucking got to be kidding me. That will look lumpy and wavy and generally shitty.” I thought about drywalling, but I am no good with drywall or anything else for that matter which requires that you get it right on the first try. There was also no way I could drywall one wall which had a large curve in it and followed the curve of the roof on the other side. Paying someone to fix this would be cost prohibitive. I had a vision of covering the walls with somethin, but what?

My dad and I decided to go to Lowe’s. Both my parents were in town during this project because they were moving their crap from the old Manse to their new abode in Nebraska. At Lowe’s we found some plastic stuff meant to cover shower stalls. It was ugly, but gave me ideas. We next went to PanelTown on the West Side of Columbus. The nice people there told us that they really don’t sell paneling anymore, but now sell flooring. The name was leftover from when they sold paneling. However, they did have a few samples of a product that looked like bead board, but was actually plastic. They said a place further west sold it. With the help of my iPhone we found a place called Panel City. They had this bead board for $50 a sheet. Pretty expensive, but it looked to be the solution to all my problems. Cut it, and glue it to the walls they said.

I had visions of my project being done in a few hours. I was delirious. I think It was all that plastic off-gassing in the paneling place. I took the paneling home and measured the wall. I cut the paneling. It cut nicely with a circular saw, but it did stink like plastic when being cut. Proudly I held my cut piece of plastic up to the wall. My dad then pointed out (kindly) that I had cut it the wrong way. The fake bead board lines in the plastic should run vertically when installed. I made my cut horizontally. Fuck. I then realized I now did not have enough of the bead board to cut all the pieces that I needed. Fuck Fuck. I would have to drive 30 minutes away to spend another $5o to buy another piece. Fuck Fuck Fuck.

I did not just think Fuck, I said it. I curse liberally when working on these kids of projects. I think the cursing helps clear my mind. It also helps clear the room. In relatively good spirits I went and bought another piece. I then made my cuts and installed the bead board. It looked great! No one would realize what a mess the walls were behind the bead board. There were some minor problems getting the Liquid Nail to dry quickly enough. I learned that there is a quick drying liquid Nails and this is the kind that I need to buy next time. However, I solved the problem by holding the pieces in place while my dad went and cut pieces of 2×4 that we used to brace the pieces in place. We got a big laugh (helped along by Liquid Nails fumes) when my dad cut one piece of 2×4 about 10 inches too short. I think he made this mistake on purpose to make me feel better about cutting the bead board the wrong way, and it worked because his mistake did make me feel better.

The hole in the floor. When I removed the old gold cabinet and sink, I got a surprise. There was a giant hole in the floor under the cabinet. The hole had been made by my father in the 1970’s to get access to plumbing. It was a big hole that looked like it went straight to hell, which is what I felt like looking at it. How the hell was I going to put my cabinet in over this hole? The cabinet is supposed to sit on the floor. There was no floor. Fuckity Fuck.

I ignored this problem until I got the walls fixed. Then when the cabinet and sink were in place. I measured and cut 2x4s (thank God and pine trees for 2X4’s) and bolted them to the side of the cabinet. I then ran a long screw through the 2×4 and into the wall on the other side. This stabilized the cabinets. Unfortunately there was a gap between the new cabinet and the wall and you could see the 2×4’s This looked like shit. You could also clearly see that there was a hole in the floor. My daughter said, “Dad…no one will be able to see that will they?” “No,” I replied. I ended up cutting some Aspen boards and painting them white to put into this unsightly gap. Getting the boards cuts just right took several attempts and it was good that I purchased and extra large piece of Aspen.

The plumbing. My brother-in-law is a plumber. He is also a saint. He fixed the hot/cold mix in the wall that goes to the main bathroom. It looked great in the large bathroom and once we were sure there were no leaks, I could start putting the bathroom back together. I was feeling giddy with excitement. I started by putting in piece of plywood that covered the top half of the plumbing wall. I had covered this plywood with the bead board so that no one would know it was there. I bolted the plywood to the wall. I then put in the sink-stand. I then noticed a drip. A big drip. It had not been there when saintly brother-in-law plumber was there, but I was looking at it now. I began cursing prodigiously. I knew that everything had to come back out, so I could have my brother in-law replace the leaking valve. My hopes of putting the bathroom back together were ruined. I was on the last day of a week vacation taken to get this project done, and I was not going to complete it. I was crushed. I was pissed. I took everything back out of the bathroom. I cussed a lot.

After I got everything back out i asked my dad to look at the leak. My dad looked at the leak and asked me for a wrench. He then turned a big nut on the valve and the leak stopped. I had not needed to remove everything from the bathroom. It was a simple fix. I felt like an idiot. I also felt elated that I might get the bathroom put together that night. I put everything back in the bathroom. I began hooking up plumbing to the sink. My father was overseeing my work at this point. I think he thought I was losing my shit trying to rush this project. I did not mind, because my father was helpful. I put in the sink. The hot and cold lines leaked. A lot. Shit shit shit. I tightened them more. They leaked. I removed them and went to Ace/Beechwold Hardware where I had bought them. The old guy there said simply, “You over tightened them,” and he showed my on the package where it stated repeatedly not to over tighten the lines. Hot shame and humiliation. I grabbed another line. The old guy gave it to be for free as a replacement for the one I had bought earlier. I rushed home. I was rushing a lot at this point. I had to get this project mostly done before I returned to work the next day.

I ripped the line out of it’s package. I carefully hooked it up to the water line. I then went to hook it up to the sink and discovered that in my rush I had bought the wrong line. The nut was the wrong size where it was supposed to hook up to the sink. Well shit, I could not go back to Ace/ Beechwold hardware again. I would be laughed at. Fortunately they were closed. I went to Lowe’s. I bought several lines in case of overtightening or other fuck-ups. I went home and hooked them up. NO LEAKS. I was beginning to feel reasonably competent again. I then went to hook up the waste pipe and discovered I had the wrong parts. I was exhausted. My dad was tired of supervising me. I went back to my other home and went to bed feeling mildly defeated. The next day I went into work late. I had to get the damn plumbing hooked up or I was going to lose my mind. Three trips to the hardware store and one irritated old hardware guy later and I had everything hooked up. Yea!

The process of completing my daughter’s bathroom took a week. I am leaving out many details. I am exhausted.