Help Me Remodel (Two) Bathrooms

Our bathroom saga continues.

If you need to get up to speed, there are two previous posts:

Part 1: A tale of how I’m so effective at denial, I can convince myself that a giant wet spot in the closet, accompanied by a mysterious musty odor is not a problem (probably just the cats, or the house settling…) And how my husband can break into a locked bathroom with just a slap bracelette. You can read all about it here.

Part 2: How a month after we finally accepted that the giant puddle in our closet was due to a shower pan leak, we still hadn’t even found a contractor to repair it. It’s all here.

Part 3: How home repairs snowball quickly.

Here’s a breakdown of what has happened since Part 2:

Despite what I (and one scrappy contractor) might think, you apparently can’t just fix a shower pan by replacing the bottom row of tiles in the shower and call it a day.
A shower pan leak is expensive enough to justify filing an insurance claim, even when your deductible cost is the same as your recent trip to Disneyland
When you go through insurance, they don’t like to risk things not matching, so they insist on tearing out any continuous tile. In our case, that’s the whole bathroom.
When I hear things like “complete bathroom tearout” my brain says: “This would probably be a good time to replace the bathroom cabinets!”
Then my husband’s brain says: “While we’re picking bathroom supplies, wouldn’t it be nice if we could build out another bathroom in the attic space upstairs?”
My brain says: “Wow, you’re a genius. Then we’ll have two other showers to use when our master showerpan leaks next time!”

So, a little leak in a shower pan is now resulting in at least one full bathroom remodel and potentially the build out of another.

Most people would say “Fun, how exciting, let’s browse Houzz all day!”

I, on the other hand, develop an eye twitch.

Although I’m excellent at looking at completed projects and pointing out exactly what I like and I don’t like, I do not have a brain that can imagine and visualize what a bunch of random variables will look like before they are put together.

When I want to buy a new piece of furniture, I have to build prototypes so I know what size I need.

When I have to pick a paint color, our house looks like this…..for months:

We already lived through a complete remodel of our 1911 Craftsman in Seattle and said we would never do it again.

Breathe…..breathe…..

The contractor came this afternoon to give me my marching orders for next week. I need to:

Decide if we want to completely reconfigure the counter space.

If so, decide on new counter tops

No matter what, we need to decide on if we’re going with travertine again or getting new tile.

Pick out new carpet for the closet

Hey, if you’re getting new counter tops, do you want to replace the sinks & fixtures?

Last but not least, pick a paint color (you’ve seen how great I am with that.)

I’ve decided to just put my fingers in my ears and do a little “LaLaLaLaLaLa” for a while, so here’s the bathroom (complete with my dress, a dying plant and last night’s wine glass). Let me know if you have any ideas.

In the meantime, I have to go make dinner for my starving children.

Come to think of it, our kitchen could use a little makeover………

Come see the story of the bathroom remodel at “This 90s Mass Produced House – Episode 1”

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