Finished!

Finally! After months and months, my bathroom is finished! And it's way . . . cute! (Normally I would have said it's "stinkin' cute," but there is nothing stinky about this bathroom any more. :-) )

So way back in April, you may recall, I dropped a utensil down the flushing toilet and had to remove said toilet from its home. And this started a whole remodeling process in that bathroom.

What you're seeing here is the toilet pipe with a plastic bag stuffed into it. You can see my toes at the bottom of the picture—I am standing where the bathtub used to be.We knew about a hole in the floor that needed repair. What we didn't know was that the whole floor from the door to the toilet was rotten—we could push a screwdriver through that blackness (without the help of a hammer). Gross!

Well, the trouble was that I only had a weekend husband, so it took a long time to get the floor ripped out and replaced again. Probably five weeks or so. :-/

Once the floor was fixed, we needed the bathtub put back in and backer-board installed so we could lay tile. Our friend, Ryan Goodwin, came over and installed the bathtub and started on the backer-board for us. A few days later my brother Gregory came over and finished that task. Then Greg started on the wall tiles; he showed me how to cut and lay tile, and I was able to finish about 50% of the tiled walls myself. Yay!

It's a lot like frosting a cake. And about as much fun.

When the shower walls were done, Bruce and I did the floor tiles. It was a neat trick, figuring out a pattern to use so that we wouldn't have to go buy any more tiles. And after the tiles were all in place, we did the grout.

See? He's even using something that works just like a frosting bag! 
A really big, heavy-duty frosting bag.

the finished shower walls (yay!)
and the finished floor (yay!)

Now, most of the work was done only on weekends—at least until Bruce's summer break which started May 23. (Yaaaayyy!) We finished the tiling and grouting during Bruce's first weeks home, but once people knew he was home he was suddenly being called on all kinds of errands. We were starting to get excited to actually have a new bathroom soon, but there was still the problem of the toilet that was outside with some kind of kitchen utensil stuck in it. :-/

So three weeks ago I decided I would just have to take a look at that awful old toilet in the backyard again. I discovered that if I turned that hunk of porcelain upside-down, and tilted my head just the exact right way, and shone a flashlight into it, I could just barely see the tip of that nasty, stupid old spoon. How to get it out was the big, big question. Gregory had told me, way back when, that I could just reach into the toilet drain with my hand and pull it out. (This makes me wonder how small he thinks my hand really is—I couldn't even get one finger and a thumb in together.) As I looked around for something narrow and fairly flexible to push into the drain, Lo and Behold! I found the long-absent toilet snake! So I stood the toilet right-side-up and started snaking it. But I couldn't tell if anything was happening or not, so over it goes, upside-down, again. When I moved it this time I heard a happy sound: the sound of something metal clinking on porcelain. So, over she goes again. More snaking, a little pounding and shaking, and Clunk! Out comes the spoon! Yay!

This is what your toilet will look like when you leave it outside for two months, during the rainy season. Gross!

And the big, tough, brave girl tosses the spoon straight into the trashcan.

Clearing that drain may have been the most exciting thing I'd done all summer (to that point). I scrubbed all the garden crud out of the commode, and Bruce reinstalled the throne, in its special place. Yaaaaayyyy!!

Bruce also reconnected the bathtub drains, faucet and shower head, and the bathroom was finished!
Except . . .

I really wanted to hang up all the super-cute pictures I'd been gathering. But we're planning to move—soon. Was it just ridiculous to hang a bunch of stuff on the freshly patched and painted walls? Probably. But Bruce said, "It's still your house." And I really wanted to see it done. And I still have some wall-compound and paint. So I did it. :-)

Here's what the bathroom looked like just before I started tearing it apart:

And here's how it looks now:

The pictures are all super-cute, but if you want to really see them, you'll just have to come over. (In fact, I'd really like that.) That is the very last pair of pointe shoes I ever danced in, hanging in the corner by the mirror (they've been stashed in a drawer for thirty years).Yes, I designed a ballerina bathroom! The horrible pink counter-top that we've lived with for the last fifteen years finally works. And I love my new bathroom!