Home Improvements

I've come to realize that renovating or improving or refurbishing any part of one's house is sort of like having a baby; the process is painful, but the results usually are good enough that you forget how awful the process really was, and blithely decide to go through it all again and then remember about half way through how much you hated it the first time.

We are "re-doing" the main bathroom in our house. It's a tiny room, only about 6x8 feet, but it's huge in terms of my sanity.

We "re-did" a bathroom in our first house, where we quickly discovered that we could only take on such a job and stay married if, and only if, each of us made no comment whatsoever on the other's performance. Any remark was likely to be taken as a fierce challenge, and was better left unsaid. (My mother always told me that you could tell a lot about someone when you hung wallpaper with them.)

When we moved in, almost 12 years ago, one of the very first things we did was take down the "duck and goose" border and repaint. The floor wasn't very nice, but at least we had been lucky enough to avoid some of the more egregious, belligerent 70's tile that our neighbours had been forced to endure. We were the unwilling possessors of some lamentably creative bathroom tiles this side of the Carter administration, however. (I have to admire the plucky soul that envisioned this arrangement and said to themselves, "yes! that will be a motif for the ages! I will be immortalized forever!") The hearts are bad enough, but the little squares are actually sparkly gold, and even if you are thinking "it's not that bad", let me assure you, it is. This tile only comes up to about chest level, and the walls above are painted to match the pink. (I know, I know, but I was three months pregnant and crazed with hormones when I made that decision.) The baseboards are more pink tile, and the toilet paper holder, soap dishes and cup holders are all pink too. Amazing we've lived this long with it, really.

So, the Mister went out and got some fairly neutral marble-like, beigey/taupey tiles for the floor (like, a year ago....you can't rush the Mister.) and decided to get on with it this weekend. Of course, when he took up the old linoleum, he naturally found that the sub-floor needed a bit of work, which means that a two-day job is now about a two-week job. (He tossed the old floor, which I didn't think was that bad, out into the trash, and I am weak with self-reproach to realize that in daylight? it was appalling.)

We are going to paint out the dreaded pink tiles, and get a new shower curtain. (Why do shower curtains cost so much money? I mean, there are hundred dollar shower curtains available. Why???They don't do anything....they have no moving parts, they don't perform any valuable service other than to act as a barrier. For a hundred dollars, my shower curtain had better be made of cashmere and clean the bathtub.)

The walls will be the same sort of beigey/taupey colour as the floor. Not because I love the colour or anything, but because it will match and I am a very lazy decorator. (Also, I am terrible at choosing paint colours. Once we painted a bathroom green, and although it was a very pretty shade of green, it tended to make everyone who entered that bathroom look as though they had just come off a three-day bender and was hours away from a painful death. Another time I chose what I thought was a nice beige with a bit of pink in it for our basement family room. When Himself and I put it on the walls, it was quickly apparent that instead of "Bourbon Cream" for it's name, it was far more suited to "Corpse of Pig". ) Whatever the colour, it has got to be an improvement over the vomitous pink we've been living with for the past 11 years.

In the meantime, I will live with the mess and the noise and the smell, and will wait for the day when it will all be worthwhile.

Sort of like having children.