If These Walls Could Talk

Sunday, November 23, 2009

After a bright and early trip to Lowes, I was ready to start Day 2 of Demolishing the main floor bathroom. Howard Johnson (only in Minnesota!) helped me find the right tool to remove the sink from the P-trap. He also explained that all I needed to do to remove the sconces was to untwist the wire nuts and untangle the house wire from the lighting wire. It took me like 2 minutes to do it once I knew what I was doing. The biggest job for me today was to remove the ceiling and the dura-rock walls around the bath/shower. The trim was really difficult to remove but I did it! I was tired after all that tugging so I gave up on the baseboards, toilet and some of the sheetrock. I figure I should leave some for Aaron!

I really wish my bathroom would have given me a clue that there was loose insulation above the ceiling. Most of it was in sheets but there is a random area where it was probably blown in. It all came down like dirty (toxic) snow. It was such a hassle to clean up and definitely diminished my interest in construction!

Here's my day in photos:

The loose insulation is above. I wish it all would have been that pretty pink stuff. At least then it wouldn't have been such a pain to clean.


This is where the sink was. I can't believe I was able to pull everything down today.


I can't wait to have nice smooth walls and ceiling. I am hoping the white subway tiles will look good with the glass block window. The real treat will be when the bathtub is resurfaced. I will take the most well-deserved bubble bath then!

Project 3/4 Bathroom

Vanities. Faucets. Toilets. Tile.

That's right. We are creating a bathroom. We chose the basement because it the least expensive place to add livable square footage. Originally, I wanted to create a "rustic" bathroom while we gut and remodel our main floor bathroom. But, the risk of never returning to complete the temporary bathroom is high. Depending on the cost of creating the bathroom, we may also finish the laundry area. So, we'd have a 1/4 of a finished basement!


There are so many decisions to be made. Because the basement feels about 20 degrees colder than the rest of the house (Scott says the official temp reading is 61°), we plan on using in-floor heating below tile. Tile is harder to pick than I thought! I am going for a clean, bright, fun look since it is in the basement. I was thinking of a white and yellow checker look.

I ordered two 12" sample tiles - one mustard and one biscuit. I put them up against the light yellow paint and white baseboard in the main floor bedroom and now I am not sure I like the look. Of course it is hard to get a full understanding of the look because I need more tiles to create the checkered look.

Ugh. I may be back to square one. Any ideas?