I have been noticeably absent from posting and blog visiting the past few days due a little home construction project. While not quite as precarious as the work pictured above, it was harrowing in its own special way.
Our one and only working bathroom has had a leaky tub for some time now. It is an old house and needed to be replaced. My dad traveled down from Nebraska on Friday to do the repairs, with me along as ‘unskilled labor’.
I forgot to take a full ‘before’ picture, but this gives the basics.
You can see the window, the place we tore out the old tub, tile and sheet rock, and the old flooring. After 5 days of hard labor…. voila!!!!
Beautiful, isn’t it? I love the new flooring and the new tub/shower unit looks great. We covered up the window and plan on putting in one of those skylight things at some point to reintegrate natural light into the space.
My dad made this great new mirror to replace our old one and brought down these lights to replace our old lights.
I love the corner pieces on this mirror. It gives it a lot of personality. As with every job we had some setbacks…leaky plumbing that needed to be redone, a toilet seal that cracked during re-install causing my dad to leave much later than planned when a simple flush led to water spraying everywhere. Just the kind of fun one should expect from home repair! I have some touch up painting to do over the weekend and I’ll be all done. Thank you so much dad, we LOVE the new bathroom.
And speaking of my dad, a year or so ago he made us a new bedroom set for Christmas. My contribution was giving him some design ideas of what I wanted. He took them, tweaked them, and came up with the wonderful furniture you will see below. The reason I’m picturing this now, other than the fact that I love my dad’s work, is that he brought my completed bedside table down with him on this trip.
I can finally sit in bed and read. My wife has been enjoying hers for awhile and now I can join her and not have to have the closet open for my bedside light! 🙂
And there it is, my own table and lamp. Hooray for me!
And of course this amazing wardrobe completes the ensemble. These items, along with The Bookshelf, of course, have given us the comfortable bedroom that we have always wanted. Thanks again Dad. Everything is great and we are thrilled with our new stuff!!!
Can I borrow him? *smile* Hope you feed him well so he’ll be ready to return next time a job needs doing.
ooooh. That’s awfully pretty. 🙂 Congrats on the cozy new enhancements!
Just in time for spring — how lovely, Carl!
Wow, looks great!
While I haven’t seen the remodeled bathroom in person yet, I can report that the furniture is absolutely gorgeous. Carl’s dad does amazing work. And he’s a really nice guy, too!
Carl, would you be willing to post (or send me) a picture of the outside of the house where the window was?
I liked the old bathroom better.
Change it back!
Wow! Your dad does incredible work Carl. So Y’all did the whole bathroom yourselves? Impressive! Very nice that you have your own bedside table now…I couldn’t live without one! And I love the little Fleur de Lis bookends on the wardrobe…adds a nice New Orleans touch 😉
Nice!!! He’s quite talented 🙂 Love that bathroom mirror!
I’m with James, this sucks.
Actually I am soooo jealous because our main bath is desperately needing an overhaul. Maybe the little extra gift from W. this spring will help me decide if it’s a new bathroom or back waxing.
Tom: you might as well plan on the new bathroom. I don’t think Dubya is gonna give you back enough to afford the back waxing!
Janet: Thanks, he is indeed.
Chris: I like those bookends as well, a cheap Hobby Lobby addition to the decor!
James: is it the old outhouse look that you miss?
Mosker: I can. What we did was paint a board black and put it in the window with insulation behind it and then a protective plastic barrier and then the tub surround. That makes it look like just a window with the lights turned out in it from the outside.
Scifi Chick, LK, RB: Thanks! 😉
Elizabeth: I’m not sure between the three of us kids and all the projects we would like dad to do that we are willing to ‘loan’ him out. Now if the money is right…. 😉
Wow! I don’t suppose your dad would like to adopt an old female to the family huh?! sigh!
It’s all absolutely beautiful Carl!!! You got yourself a great dad!
Don’t I have the greatest Father-in-law? And husband too of course.
I love the new bathroom and the wonderful bedroom set.
It looks fantastic! What an awesome dad!
I love all the furniture, too. The opaque headboard is pretty.
Wow.
We’re too chicken to tackle the tiny bit of tiling that really ought to be done in our bathroom ourselves… maybe we should bite the bullet! (Though not taking a shower for five days isn’t very tempting. Perhaps you have more than one bathroom?)
How did opening the closet affect your being able to read in bed? I don’t get it 🙁
Oh, pretty!
So where exactly in Nebraska does he live? Our bathroom needs an overhaul, too! Looks gorgeous. Are the shower/tub walls molded plastic? I am so envious.
I so need a new bathroom and am lucky enough to be married to a really handy guy, although he doesn’t have much time to actually do it. Could your Dad come by? New Jersey’s not THAT far from Nebraska! 🙂
That looks absolutely beautiful! You are a lucky duck to have a handyman in the family. Looks like you had a good reason to be away from your blog for a while.
I had to scroll down your post quickly because the picture at the top always makes me queasy. Even though I don’t know for sure if the guys in the picture are actually hanging hundreds of feet above the ground, I inherited a very healthy fear of heights.
Carl, you and your Dad did a fantastic job. The bothroom looks great. I love the red walls against that beautiful mirror. Your bedroom set is such a clean design. What kind of wood is that? Anew bathroom and bedroom, I’m thrilled for both of you. You did good!
lovely bathroom – but I can’t get over how neat your bedroom is!!
A bed that is MADE!!!! The only time we get into a made bed is if we are staying in a hotel – LOL!!!
Sally: It isn’t made often. Looks are deceiving.
Pat: Thanks.It is pine, I believe. We stained it a redish color: Merlot if I remember correctly.
Kim: I’m pretty sure they were actually hanging hundreds of feet in the air. Makes me queasy as well.
Stephanie: NJ and Neb…they are just next door, aren’t they?
Les: Norfolk. Not that far away at all. I believe they are fiberglass, but I’m not sure. Maybe they are plastic.
Chris: 🙂
K: The tiling really wasn’t that difficult. Of course I just did the easy parts so that is easy for me to say.
The closet thing was that if I laid in bed to read I had to open the closet which is on my side of the bed so that the closet light acted as my bedside reading light.
Jules: It all turned out really well and we like it. I like the glass in the headboard as well.
Deslily: Sounds like I could have a pretty big adopted family after all is said and done.
Incredible work. Your Dad and you make a great team!
Looks great. Always nice to have a handy man to call on 🙂
Aha, all is now clear. I’ve never heard of having a light in the closet… I suppose it’s so you can see things when you’re looking for them, and not for the comfort of the monster that lives in there or anything?
(Maybe I have watched “Monsters Inc” too many times.)
I love the new bathroom, Carl. Your dad is a gem.
Just one question though – you said that was your only working bathroom in the house? So while the work was being done, you guys went over to your neighbours’?
I too have only one bathroom in the house, and it’s from the 1940s (which is not as charming as one might imagine). So, my question is about logistics. How shall I phrase this delicately? How does one tend to their personal needs when the bathroom is down for repairs?
Maybe your dad is coming to California sometime soon?
I guess I meant fiberglass. Basically, I was trying to determine if you used real tile or a prefab surround. We have tile and the grout is beginning to crack. Definitely time to do something about it before it becomes much more expensive! Thanks for the info.
wow! thats amazing. and you guys worked so quickly!
it must be great to have a dad who can do all that stuff for you. i really like the bedroom!
and what are those books on top of the wardrobe? i tried to look but i couldn’t make out any of the titles. they have have very cool spines! 🙂
JP: It didn’t seem quick at the time, but it all went very smoothly for the most part.
As for the books, they are, in order from left to right: The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist, The Jack Vance Treasury, Mary Modern by Camille DeAngelis, Seeing Red by Frank Beddor, the Wizards anthology, The Knight by Gene Wolfe, The Wizard by Gene Wolfe, The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman, the regular and the special edition copy of Baltimore, Or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire by Mike Mignola, and The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke.
Les: It is a prefab surround. It is nice because it has a tile pattern that fits in well with the remaining tile. We only had to tile a couple of rows above and to the side of it afterwards. It was a relatively inexpensive solution to the problem.
Suzanne: our basement used to have a working bathroom in it and so the pipes were still there. We hooked up our old toilet down there to cover those needs. Other than that we had the kitchen sink to wash up in and my dad stayed with my sis and the rest of us utilized our one-street-over cousin’s house to take care of showers, etc.
Dark O: guess I answered your question as well. We talked about doing it old style, but it was just too darn cold outside. 😉
K: it is just possible that the owners of the previous house had a light in the closet because of a monster that was scared of the dark!
Fence: It is..and in a year or so he’ll be living closer and actually be on call. Ha!
Jeff: I’m certainly the unskilled labor of the team but it was fun to work with him and the results are great!
oh… (sighs), carl, you do buy beautiful editions of books…!
Looks like you’ll be scrubbing your ass in style for years to come 🙂
Wow. You and your dad did a fantastic job on the bathroom, and I LOVE the bedroom set! What a wonderful father!
My mouth is hanging agape! I’m so impressed…your dad is one talented man! I can’t believe the job you all did in that bathroom…it’s absolutely gorgeous! And no wonder you get so much reading done…who’d ever want to get out of that beautiful bed.
JP: I know, I’m a bad man.
David: Yes indeed!!! 🙂
Heather: He is indeed a wonderful dad. I feel very privileged.
Debi: I thought you meant I’d get so much reading done because I’d be sitting on the toilet so much! 😉