Ugh. The bathroom

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Ugh. The bathroom. I’ve always said the bathroom at the Bar B was like Calcutta in July. It was awful. It was even worse when I first moved in. The awful wallpaper that came off just a tiny bit at a time, the horrible fawn-colored fixtures that screamed 1979. It was traumatizing to use that bathroom.

Everything worked. That was the good part. But the beige-ness of it sapped joy from my soul.

For a hot minute I’d considered selling the house and moving to a tiny home. It seemed like a good idea – sell the house because the mortgage keeps me chained to a job I’m grateful to have but it’s left me unfulfilled. I went back and forth about living on the flat ground again, missing my trees and the smell of the dirt in the summer. I dreamed of the possibility of a job that wasn’t such a … job. By the time the bathroom was finished the plan had changed.

So I called the contractor that did my kitchen, my faultlessly beautiful kitchen and arranged to have the work begun. I signed a contract and two days later stuff started showing up at my house. Tools, equipment, cardboard for the floors, big sacks to hold the bones of my bathroom.

I love the guys who came to work. They talked while they worked: name that tune, best TV themes, best lines from movies. They worked and talked.

The ugly began to disappear and more ugly moved in. Construction is tough. They fixed all the problems, scraping up the sticky-square floor tiles, they yanked up the fawn-colored tub and pulled out the drywall.

Then the new stuff started to arrived: toilet, vanity, cabinet, tub, flooring, paint.

I let them have mostly free-reign on the choices. I don’t care what the vanity, tub or shower looked like and I hate shopping. All I asked for was dark wood, bamboo flooring (OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG), light yellow paint, brushed nickel fixtures and white tub, toilet and insert.

After 9 days, stuff came together and the bathroom is no longer Calcutta in July. I’ve put in dark green rugs and a white/orange/green shower curtain with green towels. I love having a medicine cabinet with all the stuff I need but out of sight. The vanity has drawers! Took me four days to figure out what to put in there. It’s beautiful although I still say the tub insert is gray, not white, but that’s why God created shower curtains.

I paid the roughly $7,000 and the noise finally stopped. They packed up all their tools and headed out for a neighbor’s house to redo their bathroom.

The to-do list for my house is dwindling. The baseboards are next but that’ll have to happen next year.

For now, I’m content with my throne in my new bathroom. Cold toilet seat, though. Can’t seem to find the secret to having a warm toilet seat.

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