The Kitchen Renovation. It was supposed to be our next major project. My kitchen is an original 1961 kitchen to which nothing, and I really mean nothing, had been changed except that now there is peeling wallpaper, holes in the drywall and crumbling cabinets. And yes, they really are crumbling.
The bathroom is also in sorry shape, but I told Kirby that I don’t spend much time in there and it’s a bathroom. As long as it’s clean who really cares what it looks like. I have far other crazier stuff I obsess about than whether my bathroom looks nice. I mean really with seven wet towels, seven toothbrushes, four razor sets, and several kinds of soap and shampoo – who notices the broken tiles and the peeling floor. The ugliness is nicely camflouged by the messiness.
But then a few weeks ago I noticed that the bathtub spout, where it attaches to the wall, had formed a gap and the caulk was peeling away.
“Kirby, the tap needs recaulked.” This has become a fairly frequent mating call in our home only this time, the problem was apparently more extensive.
The spout had actually been bent. We gathered the children and explained once again how the shower diverter needed to be used. “Squeeze the button, don’t push.” We have gone over this many, many, many times.
A few days later I climbed into the shower and thought the gap was even larger. I pulled up on the spout and it flexed a little in my hand, but seemed fine. I proceeded to crank the hot water and start a nice long shower. It would have been a lovely little retreat if the spout hadn’t shot off the wall, slammed into the back of my knees and left hot water pouring out of a hole in the wall.
I turned everything off and hoped that Kirby could fix it.
He couldn’t. The copper pipe was crimped and there wasn’t really anything left to tighten the spout to. He finally got it attached at a slighlty skewed angled, but it’s death knell had rung and there was no reprieve.
The tile would have to come out so the copper pipe could be replaced.
If we took some of the tile out, we should probably take it all out.
If we take all the tile out, we will need new drywall underneath.
If we are going to dry wall we should replace the tub (because it would be nice to get rid of the 1960 fleshy brown one we have).
If we’re redoing the tub, the sub floor needs replaced and…
Well, at this point we realized that to fix the spout, we would need to strip the bathroom back to bare studs and renovate the entire thing.
Bye, bye, new kitchen. I’ll wait for you. I promise I will. Especially if my marriage survives this bathroom reno!
You can follow everything about our adventurous Bathroom Renovation over at Kirby’s blog, Lego and Sawdust.
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