What we expected, and what we did not

Justin and I completed another renovation for my parents in June. The guest bathroom of the house was a bit out of sorts. The shower did not work, the hot water in the sink had to be shut off, and we (all five of us) were using the master bathroom everyday for almost everything. It was not an ideal situation for any of us.

We put together an estimate of the work for my parents of remodeling the bathroom. We had a range of just fixing things to a total overhaul. We ended up landing somewhere in the middle. We decided collectively to keep the old sink and toilet, which could easily be changed later, in order to deal with some other necessary and cosmetic issues.

We originally wrote up a plan of action to complete the project in 4-5 days, so that we would not be out of a toilet in the middle of the night for too long. We began with demolition, which just took a day and we were on our way pretty quickly.

The next part of the plan was to turn off the water in the middle of the day, so Justin could re-plumb the shower. That got done pretty quickly and he tested the water flow, which did not seem to be a problem. Then we moved on to hanging drywall and putting up Durock. In the second day, Justin made so much progress and we were ready to put up the last piece of drywall. 

As soon as he hung it, water started flowing from below it. We knew there was a problem. We found out that the pipes running to the sink were completely rusted out right at where they met the concrete. I remembered during demo that it was very grimy down there, but did not think much of it. Justin gave his best effort at trying to do the repair himself, but not being a plumber, put him at a disadvantage. We had to keep the water off when we could and my dad and Justin rigged something up to stop the water as much as possible when we had to have water on.

We called a plumber in and he came and showed Justin how to repair the pipe. He did one and then my mom and Justin went out and got the tools to finish the rest of the 4 pipes that needed repair. Our 4-5 day job, turned into three weeks quickly, because the time we had set aside to do the work had been eaten up by the unexpected. The rest of the bathroom had to be worked on and finished between work and other tasks that had to be completed. I had more time available than Justin, so I did what I could while he worked, but I am clearly not an expert at anything.

In the meantime, I was working out a cost-effective, but stylish, storage solution for the bathroom to help accommodate an over-extended budget due to our unexpected challenges. We removed this monstrosity of a baby blue cabinet from the bathroom. It was built in, but too large and impractical for a small space. I decided to use some wood from it, along with pallets, to create something new and fun. I had the idea, and Justin helped with the construction, but I did the majority of the tedious work.

I stripped what seemed like a billion layers of paint from the old wood for the shelves, then we built the exterior of the shelf from pallets. I then sanded the entire piece until I could rub my hands over it and not get splinters, which took an entire day. I used pre-stain to prep the wood, stained it with a "Classic Grey" color, and then coated it with polyurethane. In my slightly loopy state of mind, from all of the chemicals, I came up with the idea to make a towel rack, shelves, and a toilet paper roll holder from all the same materials. I even dug a wooden crate out of the garbage, in true "Nicole Curtis" style, that my mom was throwing away. It was A LOT of work, but I love the way it turned out in the end! My family may not have had a whole lot of faith in the process, but I think everyone is pleased with the result!