Goodbye, Harvest Gold (With Before Pictures!)

Toilet room, looking west to east.

I've been meaning to write this post for a few weeks, but non-blogging inertia is a strong force to overcome. When I reached a head count of five persons asking me how the bathroom remodel is going, though, I knew the day had come for some Before pictures.

Husband and I are of an age when we have begun to think "Hmmm, I believe we have no more children living in this house."

Yes, you are correct that this entire blog is founded on the notion that no more children are living in this house, but it takes a few years before that sentiment sinks in. The actual moment it began to sink in for me was when Husband said "Do you think we should be looking at downsizing and getting a smaller place?"

That was the signal for me to completely lose my composure. I loooooove the House on the Corner (with a few exceptions for extremely annoying quirks) and every board and nail is freighted with memories and sentiment. I love the1927-era ironing board that's built into the corner of the kitchen. I love the stairway that has a grand-ish entrance from the living room and merges with the humbler entrance from the kitchen halfway up. I even love the stains on its hardwood floors that could not be removed when, on my hands and knees, I stripped those floors 15 years ago.

So as I blubbered to Husband about how I wanted to move straight from this house into the retirement home, it prompted a conversation: Then how do we want to change this house toward that goal? Easiest answer ever: Do something about the bathroom.

The bathroom in the House on the Corner is built like a series of railroad cars. Enter off the upstairs hallway and you'll see a narrow room with a vanity and toilet. Through a door on the other end of that room is another narrow room, this one holding a bathtub. Continue through the door on the end of the tub room and you'll find yourself in a laundry room.

And actually, for a large family, this set-up is not so bad. One Boy could shower while another Boy was brushing teeth or I was doing my hair. Husband could start a load of laundry (entering from a second door through a bedroom) while the toilet room was occupied.

So we were okay with the unusual physical layout. What I was not okay with was the decor.

We moved into this house in 1987, and at that point it was easy to carbon-date the most recent bathroom update. Know how?

Tub room, looking west to east from the laundry room.

Yup. Harvest gold tub, harvest gold sink, harvest gold toilet. Also harvest gold-flecks in the vanity Formica.

And in spite of the nice white tile I put up, and the wallpaper I quite liked when I hung it 20 years ago in a lipstick-on-a-pig effort, harvest gold appliances don't lie.

Did we want to live with this vintage look for the next couple of decades? We did not. So we called in a very nice decorator, and Bathroom Remodel 2017 began.

Except that it didn't begin. Very Nice Decorator pointed out that that the door between the toilet and tub rooms needed to be wide enough to accommodate a walker. (Ouch.) Do you know how hard it is to find a carpenter who wants to take on the piddly little job of widening the door between the toilet and tub rooms? When we started this project last summer we hoped to be done by October. Instead, the carpenter we wanted was able to do the first demolition on Jan. 3, and we're hoping to be into our new digs by...Easter? Maybe?

That's okay with us. We're not inconvenienced all that much, with only two of us sharing the downstairs bathroom. I do have to point out that if a footprint of our house were superimposed on a map of the United States our upstairs bedroom would be located in Seattle and that downstairs bathroom would be in Miami, so I have become much more adept at deciding whether I REALLY need that cup of tea after supper or whether I will follow my new no-liquids-after-after-super rule.

Today the tile guy braved icy roads and is upstairs as I write this, mixing up grout and working his artistry on the new walk-in shower.

For all who have asked, progress is being made.


*****
I'm putting these here as reference for future progress pictures

Here's the toilet room looking east to west:

I walk across the room to stand in the door that's visible in the vanity mirror, and here's the tub room looking east to west:

Beyond that narrow door is the laundry room. You may not see that.