Slowly Making Progress

When doing a renovation there are a couple things to keep in mind: 1) it will take longer than anticipated, and 2) it will cost more than budgeted.  Our little DIY bathroom redo is slowly making progress.  And I do mean slowly.  The problem?  Time.  With Mr. Man working all week and driving to Macon every Sunday to visit his father, that leaves us one day each week to get as much done as humanly possible.

Where We’re At
The demo is done and the new subfloor down.

The clawfoot tub has been refurbished—and looks fantastic thanks to Prestige Resurfacing here in Atlanta.  You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find someone to come pick-up a tub.  I called several re-glazing companies, most of whom told me I had to bring the tub to them.  As I have no means of transporting a cast iron tub, I scratched them off my list.  One agreed to come pick the tub up for an additional $100, then informed me I’d have to have someone here to load it onto their truck.  Scratch.  And one actually told me that he thought it was overkill to have the exterior of the tub re-glazed.  What?!  Scratch, scratch, scratch. 

Finally, I called Prestige Resurfacing. Keith listened to what I wanted, picked up and delivered the finished tub, and was on the lower end of the quotes I got. When Keith picked it up we discovered stamped into the iron on the bottom of the tub the date of manufacture: 10-5-1903. We’re not sure the tub is original to the house, but it could be as the house was built in 1904.

The sink has arrived.  Okay, this is the second one.  The first seemed too small, and I didn’t feel it really worked with the table previously purchased to serve as the vanity.  If you don’t want standard, builder-grade products from Home Depot/Lowe’s you have to order everything, and I mean everything, online making it hard to tell if what you’re ordering is really going to work in the way you envision.  Anyway, I returned the first sink I had special ordered and got a new, bigger, better, bolder sink from DecoLav.


Sink #1

Sink #2

The fixtures for the clawfoot tub have arrived and are even better than anticipated.  We are trying to stay under $5000 for this renovation and the shower enclosure for the tub is a big expense, running upwards to $2000.  After a thorough web search I wound up buying the Telephone Shower Kit Conversion with tub filler, handheld shower and overhead shower, along with the shower enclosure from Signature Hardware.  We decided to go with chrome as this felt the most authentic to the house, and we are going for an update vintage look.

Next to arrive was the faucet for the sink.  Once again, the real thing did not measure up—not that the faucet isn’t gorgeous, because it is!  I still salivate when I see it and it’s even more beautiful in person—it just totally over powers the sink sitting atop our delicate French country table.  So back it’s going.  Vintage Tub & Bath was happy to exchange it and told me this is often the reason for return of this particular faucet.  I do love the bridge design though and am going with a smaller bridge faucet made by the same manufacturer of the shower kit; crossing my fingers that this one will be perfect.

First choice

Second choice

What’s Next
Plumbing is getting done this weekend.  Then we are on to drywall and tile.  Unfortunately we’re going to be out of town for a couple of weekends so we are looking at mid March before we’ll be ready to put everything in place. 

Back on the Hunt

Well the demolition is in full swing.  It’s amazing what you discover when you begin tearing down walls and pulling up floors—like exposed electrical wires.  The wall and threshold to the shower are gone, along with all the tile, which was a job as whoever redid this bathroom in the past applied the new tile right on top of the old.

Pulling up the floor tile was much easier as there was very little mastic used to adhere it to the floor.  The subfloor beneath is in pretty bad shape, particularly under the shower where the wood is rotted.  We used to think there was a leak in the shower pan as there was water under the house after the shower was used, but we discovered that the drain pipe from the shower isn’t connected to anything…it just drains under the house!

After discovering I couldn’t afford my dream sink, I started to think of other options and decided on a table with a rectangular vessel sink.  Back on the hunt, I spent two days at Scott’s Antique Market this past weekend.  On Friday, I hit the North building as I love the area outside which is more like a flea market and there is a dealer in an outbuilding with lots of old sinks, tubs, and, well, just about anything you can think of.  Nothing caught my eye so I headed indoors.  Unfortunately, everything I saw was either too long—I only have 36 inches to work with—or too expensive.

On Sunday I dropped Mr. Man off at the airport, and my brother and I headed back to Scott’s, this time to the South Building.  It was early afternoon but dealers were already beginning to pack up.  This is a good time to find a deal, if you can find what you’re looking for.  I didn’t see anything I loved until I found an old chest of drawers, but decided against it because so many people are doing this now days and I want something a little different.  We continued to look; then I saw this table tucked in the back of a booth.  It has really interesting legs and the size is good—it’s only 30 inches long so will afford more room on either side—and it’s well below my budget; SOLD.

With the first coat of non-toxic, environmentally friendly paint stripper

I spent today stripping the paint off, leaving just a bit of residue.  After sanding with fine steel wool and treating with wood oil, it is really beautiful.  There are a few mars, which the paint was covering, but this adds character to the piece, especially considering it’s going into a bathroom in a 107-year-old home.  We’ll see what Mr. Man thinks when he returns from London.

Mind-reading Chickens

After several months of receiving one egg a day from our seven hens, Mr. Man and I had a serious discussion about the cost of organic layer feed and a stock pot, and lo’ and behold the girls are suddenly laying.  Last week I was greeted with 3-4 eggs per day, and this morning there were five!  Even Letty, my White Leghorn who hasn’t laid in over a year is producing—I know when she is laying as she is the only chicken I have that lays white eggs.  I’m so happy they read my mind and are once again earning their keep.

We have had a tremendous pecan harvest this year.  Our one tree has produced so many pecans that we’ve had difficulty keeping up with them.  In all honesty we haven’t been all that interested in harvesting them in the past. We’ve had friends come over to harvest, and our old lawn guy always took home a couple bags, but for us they’ve always been more of a pain in our asses—some years the squirrels will pick them while they’re still green, take a couple bites and throw them down, making a huge mess of the patio.

The first few pecans to fall along with the last of the Shitake mushrooms and peppers from the garden

This year I started thinking about what a welcome source of additional protein pecans would have been during a hard winter to people before the days of supermarkets.  So, I started collecting them; first just filling up a bowl or two.  Then we had a good storm and the next morning the ground was literally covered in pecans.  I collected two big baskets, and between my brother and I, shelled them all, resulting in nine quart-sized bags.

After sharing some with family, I pulled out the food saver and threw the rest in the freezer.  The next storm had the same result, with big gusts of wind sending pecans down on our heads while we harvested.  Over Christmas, my daughter collected a big bag for her girl-friend’s father and I collected a big bag (about 5 pounds) for freezing.

It took me several days to shell them all, not that I mind; it’s a good excuse to watch a couple of episodes of “Friday Night Lights.”  Marley has taken to hunting out any that have cracked open upon hitting the patio—I usually leave these for the squirrels.  And, just when I thought there couldn’t possibly be any pecans left on the tree, this morning I walk outside to yet another small crop.

Off to shell pecans…

Let the fun begin... a bathroom makeover story

We are finally renovating the downstairs bathroom.  For fourteen years this bathroom has been an embarrassment with its hideous grape-motif wallpaper and dark, claustrophobic walk-in shower. 


Our lovely wallpaper

This is the shower that we actually used for the first 8 years we lived in the house as the people who “renovated” the nice-sized master bathroom with double sinks, walk-in closet and whirlpool tub neglected to add a shower.  Something we chose to overlook when we bought the house, and have since rectified.


There is no light in this shower.  I believe there were
actually glass shades on the vanity lights at one point...

When we renovated the guest bathroom upstairs three (or was it four?) years ago, replacing the claw-foot tub for a frameless shower, we decided to use the claw-foot tub downstairs.  So like any sensible people without a garage or basement would do, we shoved it in the downstairs bathroom and closed the door, which has remained closed ever since.


The beloved claw-foot tub

I have spent the last couple of weeks scouring bathroom books, magazines and websites; picking out tile, fantasizing about sinks—I say fantasizing because the sink I have envisioned all these years is truly and undeniably out of our price range; there is just no way we can justify $1000 for a sink—looking for a tub re-glazer, and searching for the perfect light fixtures for a 107-year-old bungalow.

This weekend the demolition begins.  Did I mention that we, along with the help of my brother, are doing most of this project ourselves?  Should be an adventure...