2 People, 4 Cats and a Dream: It's so easy being green

Randy: Once upon a time, we started this blog to describe the process of cleaning our house. Hmmm... how do I explain what we're doing? This is yet another distraction from cleaning... but this story by far less amusing than rock concerts or trips to Disney.

Jodi woke me up one morning and said the very Phineas and Ferb-esque, "hey, I know what we're gonna do today. We're gonna redesign Mom and Dad's powder room." Jodi went on Craig's list and found a beautiful pedestal sink with faucet. That would be the centerpiece of the new bathroom.

Here's the plan... we're painting the walls a nice bright color. We're gonna put in some wainscoting. We're gonna install this new sink (instead of their horrible fixture). Simple enough?

Let's start with the demolition. It was fun. I got to rip out this horrible fixture and toss it to the side. I did get to empty the contents. There were golf balls in it. There were soaps stolen from hotel rooms from Disney (probably in the 1980s). It was crazy. Jodi had the pleasure of ripping the tiling off the walls (that were used instead of molding (don't ask). We were off to a good start.

Then we went for the supplies. All those commercials that show happy people leaving Home Improvement stores have big SUVs or trucks. My Honda was not able to hold the wainscoting. So I tried to rent a truck. Cool deal! $19 for the first hour. Awesome, I'd need it for 20 minutes.

"Ma'am, I'd like to rent your truck for an hour."

"The truck has been seized by police for the investigation of a DUI."

"Then why is the sign still out there?!"

"Advertising."

"Advertising what? You don't have a truck."

Whatever.

So Jodi bought some twine and we tied the stuff to the roof of the car. And like clockwork... it rained on the way home. Not too badly, but enough to get this off to a wrong start.

Let's begin with the painting. I'm not even gonna lie... Jodi took care of most of the painting. I suck at painting. I don't know why.

3 freakin' coats! You can see that I measured the 5' mark where it would be safe to stop because the wainscoting will go. But it took 3 nights to paint. And let me tell you... we work. We have jobs. So this started on a weekend, but now, we're coming to the house during the week. Ugh. Do you know much it sucks to work 8-10 hours per day... then commute 1+ hours... then start working again? And we're running out of time because we have about 2 weeks before her parents come home.

3 freakin' coats! We were almost out of the green paint. I can't lie though... it does look nice and bright. You'll see.

This bathroom defies the laws of geometry, mathematics, and physics. I took my 2' level to the threshold of the door. Vertical. I took my level to the adjacent corner. Vertical. No gaps between the surfaces and the level. This implies the walls are parallel.

Law of geometry: Two parallel lines never intersect nor diverge. They remain equidistant.
Keep this in mind.

At the 5' mark... 36.25 inches apart.
At the 3' mark... 36.75 inches apart
At the 1' mark... 37.5 inches apart.

I ate a lot of corn chips struggling with this. I must have measured and remeasured this about 1000 times. I still cannot explain it. I am a damn engineer, for cryin' out loud. WTF?!

I cut the first piece. Jodi and I used a hammer and nails to install it. Do you remember the board and batten fiasco of 2012? Our nail gun died. We're not returning to that. So we went to Sears to buy a nail gun with an air compressor. What's another $100+ among friends, right? The nail gun made life a lot easier.

I think the picture below is pretty charming. You can see my precious level and nail gun on the toilet. There are not many occasion in my life that I can use that sentence.

Jodi loves using wood filler and caulk and putty. She's such a goof. Oh, it dries white. She's not color blind.

Jodi: Having used caulk and spackle last summer on the board and batten, I thought the spackle would create I nice, seamless transition between the two boards behind the toilet. Yep, I was wrong. But it's ok, I went back over it with caulk.

Randy: It appears that this bathroom will make Jimmy Buffet proud. If you are a Parrothead that needs to poop... do we have a room for you!

Below is my weekend. It didn't take long for this project to stop being fun. If you'd ask what I'd been up to... I'd say, "Jewish carpentry." I think it is funny. If you need to understand why it is funny... you must be a priest.

This project required a whole lot less swearing than most projects. Maybe we're making some progress!

Jodi: While Randy was cutting and measuring the beadboard, I worked on other mini projects. Then when he was done, I'd run back over and we'd glue the back of each board and nail it in place.

This is the old magazine rack/toilet paper holder. Mom and Dad have had it for as long as I can remember, and I thought Dad might cry if I didn't put it back in. It was stained a dark walnut color, but I didn't think it would look good that way. So I sanded it, primed it with spray primer, and painted it the same nice, glossy white as the beadboard, so it would blend into the wall.

I looked around for some tropical hand towels for the bathroom, and I had my heart set on the hot pink I found when we were looking at paint colors:

I looked at Ikea, Target and Home Goods. I could find tropical prints, and pink towels, but not tropical pink hand towels. I did, however, find this awesome beach towel. So I cut it into fourths and sewed the edges.

And we had four new hand towels for $12.

Then I walked around and took pictures of some of the flowers in bloom around the back yard. I thought maybe we could frame some of them for the bathroom later? They fit into our color scheme.

Then we started working on the trim across the top of the beadboard. We got some with a lip at the top so it fit over the top of the beadboard.

We cut all four pieces and put them up in the bathroom. Then we nailed each corner, as opposed to installing it one piece at a time. It was easier to prevent moving and "cheat" the trim a little if it was a half a millimeter too short. Which it was on one corner.