domicile

(Day) Four on the Floor

  New floor half laid 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

Thursday - Day Four:

Lest you become misguided by the high points and start to believe that home renovation is a fun new hobby that will bring couples closer together, let me share with you last night's renovation funtimes.

As we began work at 7pm last night, the remaining tasks on our renovation list  included:

- Prep and paint all the walls
- Lay the new floor
- Build all the cabinets/cupboards
- Install all the cabinets/cupboards
- Build a new kitchen table and built in bench
- Dance with delight

Even the most amateur of renovators will see the folly in a list like this one. A list that entirely fails to mention things like: pry off weird old gate attachment inexplicably painted onto wood door frame, then repair resulting holes; or unhook ancient gas line from one tonne ancient stove and move stove to "more convenient place" for the purpose of laying floor underneath. A list like that is also dangerous in that it assumes an order in which one would do things, and sometimes even the loveliest of couples disagree on that order. Shocking but true.

Last night was a night filled with disagreement and small tasks that stood in the way of big tasks cropping up all over the damn place. You see, in our house we have some roles we each play: I cook, Martin does dishes; I deal with paperwork and finances, Martin mows the lawn; Martin drywalls and lays floors, I paint. And on it goes. As the primary house painter it is obvious to me that painting the walls before you redo the floor is optimal. If you're going to redo the floor anyway, who cares if it's covered in paint splatters right? Right. As the person who lays the floor and is conscious of the fact that until the floor is laid there will be no rehooking of the stove (required for morning coffee among other things) or installation of the cupboards or reinstallation of the sink for that matter, it seems quite obvious to Martin that rooms get painted all the time with their final floors installed. And, he's right. But so am I. And honestly, the night would probably have progressed a lot better if we could have both admitted that. But we didn't. And he won. And I started putting primer on the hot pink wall so that we can paint it can become light blue, and then Martin went to undo the gas line on the stove to move it out of my way, which was rather nice of him.

Undoing gas lines is not an easy thing on the nerves. Especially if you're a nervous person who envisions all worst case scenarios immediately. And I am. But, the shut-off valve worked as it should and the stove no longer lit. Good. And Martin grabbed a wrench and started to undo the bolts on the pipe connecting the stove to the main gas line. Bolts that have almost certainly not been undone since the stove was installed 65 years ago (something we can almost certainly verify as it seems every single element of this kitchen is as it was first installed in 1940). And guess what? They didn't come off easily. And trying to literally wrench apart the various tubes and things that attach your gas line, keeping all that gassy goodness inside the line and not inside your lungs: not so easy on the nerves. Many conversations about hiring a pipe fitter to do it for us were had (inside my head) and eventually after many different wrenches were tried he succeeded. We were however left with a very mangled connecting pipe. And it was now 8:15 and we had accomplished the following:

1 argument about what order to continue the renovation in
1 gas hookup removed
1 coat of primer around 1 light switch on 1 wall

Awesome!

I left Martin to finally start installing the floor, which he had clearly been aching to do since he first stepped in the door and set off for the hardware store to get a new connector pipe. As we know from previous trips to the hardware store, often replacing parts from a 1940s house are not particularly straightforward. Nevertheless, I marched into the pipes and plumbing isle (where gas stove connectors live) holding my manky, sticky, dirty old pipe out proudly in front of me. I stopped the first guy I could find near the isle and asked him to help me find a new one. Now here's where an already long story could go on forever, so I'll cut it short. The bolts on my stove connector are no longer the standard size. The new standard size is 5/8" ours are 1". After much rummaging and measuring and eyeballing of parts a specialist was called back from his break and after what felt like forever we cobbled together the bits I needed. I was then given a very charming lesson in the use of teflon tape and low-fi ways to check for a gas leak (put soapy water on the joints and see if it bubbles) I ran down to the electrical aisle and bought a natural gas meter just for good measure.

Arriving back home, Martin was well on his way to installing the floor and after hooking up our new and lovely gas monitor I got to the task of priming the hot pink wall. When we were done, it was after 10pm. After 10pm and we no longer had a stove to heat food, leaving us with the options of cereal, toast (if we made it in the livingroom) or Martin's suggestion of going out to find nachos. It seems that renovations leave you in a mood for pub food. We found some nachos, ate them in record time and came home where I went straight to bed. And, as I type that last sentence I'm pretty sure I know now why I had weird dreams last night.

Tonight: I'm sanding the walls where drywall repairs have been done and then headed to a friends house for what will be a most deeply appreciated home cooked meal. Martin is going to attempt to finish the other half of the floor. Nothing like a Friday night!

It should be a fun weekend.

Kitchen Reno: Day #2, Setback #1

The Scenario: Last night 7:30pm following a trip to the hardware store and a frantic post work dinner preparation geared at using as few dishes/pots/utensils as possible so as to reduce the number of dishes that would require washing. I race around to get the last of the items still contained in the kitchen base cabinets into their new homes tucked into random shelves and under tables around the livingroom and office. At one point, during dinner preparation, it took me 10 minutes to find the nutritional yeast before I remembered that I had decided to store it in the fridge during the reno. Of course.

The Action: Martin, crowbar and hammer in hand pries the cupboard doors off the cabinets. I take them down stairs, through the basement and out to the backyard to join their siblings the former wall cabinet pieces. We are making good time. I return upstairs to find Martin, flashlight between his teeth (ok actually a bike light, their more compact and those LEDs are darn glowy) under the sink, wrench in hand. My personal moment of "no return" is upon us, we are about to lose plumbing in our kitchen. When we did our bathroom reno, it was the plumbing that complicated the process. When you live in a 1940s house that had nary a renovation or upgrade aside from the installation of wall to wall brown carpet sometime in what appears to have been the early 70s, you should expect the plumbing part of any reno to complicate the process. Or so I'm learning. You know where this is going.

Martin handily disconnected the sink from its drain pipes and those were put in a bag to be used for the new sink. At some point someone did upgrade those pieces as they're black PVC pipes. Now, to tackle the water pipes. He turns off the valves and crawls back under, bike light in his mouth. I'm in the livingroom trying to keep the cat out of the cutlery drawer which now lives on the bookshelf. Through the mumbles of a man with a bike light in his mouth I hear: "We need a plumber." My heart sinks. Even though I was expecting this. I immediately look for the silver lining and ask "What's that?". I hear the bike light come out of his mouth and a clearer "We are going to need a plumber" rings out from under the kitchen sink. I surprise myself by actually feeling hopeful, afterall it was a stated fact and not the urgent voice of someone who was about to be knee deep in the water of a plumbing disaster. I bravely enter the kitchen and crouch down to his level to peer under the sink to assess the situation.

The Diagnosis: Aside from the one trap joint that was replaced with PVC at some point the entire plumbing system has been soldered together. There are no joints to wrench. No nuts to tighten. Only pipes to be cut and refitted. This goes well beyond the scope of my sassy home how-to book with Rosie the Riveter on the cover. It also goes well beyond our set of tools or Martin's knowledge of basic plumbing.

And so, this evening, Martin's pal the plumber is coming to see what he can do. Hopefully what needs doing is minor. Maybe it can even be done today, then we can carry on with our demolition and get to the business of rebuilding. Until then, I'm trying to remain grateful that so far, things are staying dry.

And So It Has Begun

  Before 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

With both excitement and dread, we have finally begun our much discussed kitchen reno. I'm not sure if it's because I'm in the middle of project managing a bit project at work, or if it is simply in my nature, by I can't help but think of this entire project as one big puzzle to be managed. I may go so far as to set things up in a project management tool, though I'm not sure how well Martin will adhere to my system of milestones and task lists. Regardless. We are on our way.

At this point more than half the kitchen is boxed up or living in nooks around our house. Every spare shelf in the office and livingroom now houses coffee mugs, souffle dishes and dutch ovens. My sister took away the wooden island/cart thing-a-ma-bob that used to house all our cookbooks and and spices leaving one wall bare and ready for new cupboards to be built and installed. Tonight Martin pulled the high shelves off the other wall and those now sit in a pile of nails and cracked wood in the backyard. I have cobbled together a kind of triage kitchen that currently lives on the baker's rack you see there (though that is a before photo, it now contains only essentials). And, for the next while we will be trying to eat our way through the freezer and pantry in an attempt to make use of what we've got and try to minimize prep time and dishes.

Most times that I mention that we're redoing our kitchen people respond by asking "Yourself?" with a kind of horror in their voice. That hasn't helped to assuage my renovator's dread. That said, last night I dreamt that the old cupboards just fell off like petals and that everything went as smooth as silk. Maybe it was a premonition. We'll see.

For me the point of no return will be when we take out the main cupboard with the sink in it. At that point we'll be house-camping: ferrying dishes and coffee pots to the bathtub and back. I can handle that for a while. Probably even a few weeks, but not much longer than that. And, while I may not be a pro, I've now done enough renos to know that things never take quite the time you plan. That said, perhaps my healthy dose of scepticism has prepared me well.

Overall, the plan is to get a fair bit done this week in the evenings so that we can spend more concentrated time on the weekend finishing things up. If you could see my mental timeline, it's not totally unlikely that we'll spend a good 5 days or so without water in the kitchen but that come the end of the weekend we should be back to some kind semblence of normal. Fingers crossed.

Let the Ikea Hack Begin

Even my Martin, a DIY hardcore enthusiast at heart, can fall victim to the sway of the Ikea offerings. Afterall, when you can buy a bookshelf for less than you can make one (buying new and decent lumber that is) then it can be hard to resist. Especially when you find said object of desire in the even-cheaper "As Is" section. And so it was that last Thursday night after having a lovely dinner and glass of wine with a friend, I ended up helping Martin hoist a 50kg Sultan Arno off the roof of our van. In the torrential rain. At 10pm.

The Sultan Arno is a box spring with drawers built into it.Just the kind of thing you'd expect from those efficient Swedes, and in fact exactly what Martin has been planning to build for our bedroom to maximize storage for our healthy wardrobes. Now at $350 regular price for a Queen size, we would likely have been able to build a new bedframe for roughly the same price as Ikea, but of course that would have also taken a fair bit of time to do. But for the $125 "as-is" price (it has a tear in the undercloth, which can be repaired), it was too good a deal to pass up. Even if it meant a somewhat terrifying drive in on the freeway with it strapped to the roof of the van for Martin.

The challenge now? To remove the padding from the sides, while keeping the top and bottom protected so that we can put a wooden box around it, with the drawers also faced in wood. Oh, and we need legs. This is going to require some attention to carpentry detail a bit outside of Martin's usual self-professed gorilla styling, but I have faith. We've already acquired the plywood and drawings have been made and revised. Of course the final challenge will be getting it up from the basement and into our bedroom, a challenge I hope to observe from the sidelines while perhaps uncapping a few beers for whomever is kind enough to help Martin haul that sucker upstairs.

When we're done, if it is successful, we'll be submitting it to Ikea Hacker along with our "fashion your own" Pax clothing unit we're making out of pieces collected from the As-Is department as well. Stay tuned.

Kitchen Cupboard Puzzles

We ventured out to Ikea last Friday night and are beginning to plan for our new kitchen in more concrete terms, ie/ what is it going to cost? One of our big goals with our kitchen reno is to move clutter out of the far end of the kitchen so that we can build in a table/bench area and have a nicely open eating area, right now that area is home to our 50s vintage table, four chairs and a large (6.5 ft high?) metal bakers rack that holds among other things: all our pots, two baskets full of tupperware, the Cuisinart, blender, juicer, a basket for pot lids and another basket which is used for breads. Our hope is that between more efficient cupboards where the current cupboards are and the addition of one extra 4 ft of cupboards on the facing wall we will be able to get rid of the baker's rack and the clutter. But what if we can't? And how can we tell? As I'm planning cupboards, I find myself wondering if we're ordering enough, if we should tack on an extra 6 inches? An extra foot? How does one figure these things out? If anyone out there has any tips short of packing up our entire kitchen and trying to put it away in an Ikea showroom (something I swear I only considered briefly) I'd love to know.

Dry rot is not your friend (or mine)

  rotty, rot, rot 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

Sometime around late last Spring, Martin removed the storm windows from most of the windows on our house. For those of you who don't live out here on the West Coast of Canada, storm windows aren't really the norm out here. Here they are in fact known as the "poor man's double glazing" as really we don't need storm windows given our climate any more than maybe 2 or 3 days a year, but if they're up all year round they do help insulate the house. Especially if you have old crappy windows.

We have old crappy windows.

Anyway. Our old crappy windows are almost all painted shut and have storm windows outside of them making house ventilation inside the house a bit of a problem. And so, as we began a project to unstick our windows we also started removing the storm windows. And in one case, the case of one of the livingroom windows, upon removing the storm window Martin managed to nudge/touch/break off half of one of the window sills which was pretty much disintegrating all on its own due to dry rot. A stream of explitaves issued forth and we carried on with a sinking nagging feeling. You see to fix something like a window sill, that is pretty much a hotbed of dry rot, one is really best to remove the whole window and rebuild the whole frame. Which, I'm sure it goes without saying is a pretty big project, and to make it worthwhile you'd really be wise to install a new window while you were at it. Now we had a quote for having new windows installed and discovered that replacing even half the windows in our house would cost significantly more than triple the value of our car. Which says a lot about our car perhaps, but also should give you the strong sense that we're in no rush to replace the windows.

And so, it was, that one day this summer I found myself searching online for a DIY way to fix dry rot on window sills that did NOT involve dismantling the whole window and frame. And that was how I found out about "penetrator" products. And, on a Sunday morning around 7am, while Martin slumbered on, I read web site after blog about applying wood penetrators to dry rot. Hot stuff. Wood penetrator is almost certainly a toxic chemical soup that seaps into your rotty wood structure and hardens the heck out of it. Magic. And so, on that same day, though several hours later Martin and I roamed the aisles of a mega-hardware store until someone finally helped us locate some wood penetrator (which was a frustratingly difficult venture) and I subsequently set about repairing our rotty window sills, because I figured if nothing else we'd be back where we'd started: starring down the face of dismantling our entire windows.

And so, on a day that seems very, very far off now, sometime mid summer we came home from said big hardware store and set about cutting away the rot (almost all of the sill) and then applying wood penetrator to the remaining wood, while we installed a carved out bit of wood to fit into the new hole where the sill had been. Martin did most of the refitting, I applied the wood penetrator and then a wood patching compound. And then, we left it. For months. Between Martin's father's passing this summer, little Miss P breaking her arm and then the rush to get ready to go away for the second half of September, things like this fell to the wayside. And our front corner window has sat with a piece of exposed wood, some wood patch and plenty of wood penetrator coating it all since then.

And while October has so far been strangely sunny and clear, the weather all week has been telling a tale of impending rain. Rain, which when it does come, is likely to stay until sometime in oh maybe March. So today, after work, I came home and went straight out with a pot of paint to try to provide somekind of protective coating for our very patchwork fix for our dry rot problem. Unfortunately conditions didn't allow for any kind of attempt at matching colours so that sill -- unlike the rest of the house -- is now white. Of course, we had planned to try to paint the house this summer which this dry rot repair was a part of the preparation for, but with our summer taking the personal twists and turns it did a full paint job was definitely not in the cards. And so, if you should happen by our house, don't spend too long wondering if we're colour blind or if we totally eschew aesthetic details, with our mostly green trim and one white sill, we're just in the middle of a project that is not likely to finish up for a good 9 or 10 months. Welcome to the DIY schedule of renovating. Stay tuned.

Dirty, dirty marmoleum

I'll admit that I have a little smidge of idealism in my renovating. While the experienced project manager in me is always cautious with over-ambitious timelines and I'm often one to try to lower, not pump up expectations with any project we take on, I do still have dreams of blissful perfection that I harbour deep in my core as we tackle any household project. Afterall, without that childlike hope what would be the fun right? Drywall dust with no utopian fantasy is afterall just really messy.

And so it was that I got rather caught up in just how our bathroom flooring choice was going to alter my world. For the better of course. And so I combed through design magazines, the isles of hardware stores and high end flooring boutiques. My first choice cork was just too cost prohibitive as well as raising some concerns for installation as we planned to do the install ourselves. The cork we were looking at came in tiles you see, and Martin wasn't convinced he could get them snug enough to form a waterproof barrier in our bathroom. Really, I think he just wasn't as cork crazy as I was, but whatever. Eventually, as dedicated historical readers will know, we settled on Marmoleum. Marmoleum promises to be the flooring choice of the green conscious consumer. Made with age-old linoleum procedures and chockfull of natural pigments, cedar resin, flax, jute and all kind of other things that you can imagine actually growing somewhere not being made in a big chemical factory, marmoleum promised to be easy to install, was a very green choice, durable and came in oh so many colours.

And, so far it has held up its end of the bargain. It was fairly easy to install apparently (I wasn't home), though we did end up with one small crack in it where Martin shifted his weight wrong while working in the room to install it, but I can embrace imperfection. It doesn't get too cold (so far anyway) and feels quite temperature neutral on your feet when you first get up in the morning (this was a virtue loudly extolled by many marmoleum lovers), and it is very easy to clean. Which is good, because it is always freakin' dirty! Or at least, it always looks that way. In the end, this has less to do with marmoleum itself and absolutely everything to do with the colour compromise we made. You see marmoleum does indeed come in a veritable rainbow of colours, and as is very normal in a renovating relationship, we had some differences of colour opinion. Martin favoured a pattern of vibrant colours all mixed up that the lovely Miss P and I referred to as "blended up smurf guts/smurf puke." I was more into the neutrals that looked something like my lusted after cork options. In the end, we agreed that neither of us was that fond of the faux-marble type finishes which just seemed like Debbie Travis painting techniques gone wrong. Besides, everyone uses those marble-y finishes when they buy marmoleum and we are different! We are bold! And young! And DIY. So we chose a very natural, warm matte solid green. Kind of, I hesitate to say, the colour of an avocado. But not the same colour as those 70s appliances. It is very nice. Warm, neutral, but definitely a colour. We both felt we could live with it.

And live with it we have for almost two months now, and while it is very, very nice to have a redone bathroom and a smooth bathroom floor surface that is easy to clean (our old one was all crumbly and rotty) it is a floor that constantly needs to be cleaned. Or looks like it. Between my long hair, Miss P's curly long hair, Martin's hair, the hair that Martin tracks home from work, the cat and well just dirt in general the one solid lovely matte colour of our flooring shows everything. And that isn't nice. And so, I sweep the floor about three times a week now, if not more, and mop it twice. This is roughly three times and double as often (respectively) as I used to. And while I am satisfied that our floor is really very clean most of the time, and tell myself that if we had one of those more common patterned flooring surfaces we just wouldn't see the dirt, but it would still be there, it is a bit of a royal pain in the butt.

And so, all of your renegade renovators out there, when considering what do with your floor, learn from us: those kind of cheesy faux-finish patterns are there for a reason. Embrace them. You may find that in the end you're happier with the blended smurf look over the constant cleaning...

Project: Come Stay At Our House!

  Guest room sans ceiling tile 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

Ah yes. So, back a few weeks ago we began an evening project to set up Martin's daughter's special bed in her room. This was a fairly straightforward undertaking except that it required finding a place to put the double bed currently being used as her bed, which then lead to some painting of the downstairs bathroom somewhat inexplicably and the total overhaul of the downstairs bedroom. How it all happened I'm not quite sure, but here's where we're currently at: drywall.

Our house is billed by real estate agents and their ilk as a four bedroom. Everytime I tell people that I actually have to mentally review what the most outrageous number of bedrooms that one might claim our house had and then kind of double check. Four. Huh. So that's our bedroom: reasonable size, tiny closet. Fine. Martin's daughter's room: barely fit a double bed, better with the twin, tiny closet. Ok. Then the back study which just fits a small computer desk, some built in wall shelves and a kind of make-shift closet. This room also once held a playpen for a night, which marks the only time we've tried to stretch its capacity as a "bedroom" and that was for a 14 month old. Then there's the basement room which we had been using as a sewingroom, which in actual fact just held a bunch of sewing stuff but was never really used. Why? Because it was really basement-y. Wood panelled walls that made you feel like you were in someone's musty old cabin, little light and nasty falling down ceiling tiles, plus the whole in the basement thing all conspired to make it not really the kind of room  you would want to ever think about sleeping in. But. But! We will change all that. Yes we will.

Ok, so we can't change the in the basement part, and while removing the very nasty homemade window sconce-y thing does help let marginally more light in, well it's still a basement room. But, I painted it white which is arguably painfully unoriginal, but it was on sale (really sale paint!) and it goes a long way to making it feel less like a creepy cabin in the woods. And now, we've moved onto the ceiling. We spent a while trying to think of cheap ways to redo the ceiling tile while not having to actually build a proper ceiling and then we remembered that drywall is actually pretty cheap. Especially if you have a handy and ambitious Martin-like fellow around who feels like drywalling. So, for $45 in drywall and $10 in mud (plus tape and screws left over from the bathroom) we've now got all the components for a bedroom ceiling. Huzzah! Fortunately this drywall business is resting firmly in Martin's realm of expertise and I'm just trying to ignore the very real possibility of drywall dust infiltration.

Crazy House Painting Lady?

There's this looming "to-do" task around our house that keeps getting referenced but has yet to see much action. And as summer whips past us, if someone doesn't get started soon the rainy season will be here and it will be too late. That task my internet friends is exterior painting. Often when we talk about this we'll comment that we ought to just call those college folks who will apparently come and take care of the less than fun way to spend your summer weekends task for you, but you see I think they want money. Which we don't have. Because we're going to Copenhagen and Amsterdam in a month (!) and those darned Scando/European folks have an even higher standard of living than we Canadians and we have every intention of soaking it up while we're there. So really, one can't feel too badly for our lack of a house painting fund, and besides, our house is small.

So, as I rode my bike to work this weekend I began thinking about how there are five weekends left before we go away. Four if you don't count the one that we're visiting family on the Island for. And so that leaves us with very few days to prep, paint and oh  yes reside the lower half of our house. So I think we need to get started. The residing the lower half (which was added on later and badly done) is the trickiest part. The rest I know how to do. I think. I can paint right? I'm good at it I think. And not so fussy that it takes me forever. And the internet is proving to be a whole heap of help with folks having already answered some of my painting questions and there are loads of websites out there full of info on the topic.

I'm planning on breaking it up into bits and tackling it one piece at a time. Maybe working on the (somewhat rotty) windowledges which will need some serious scraping and prep one side of the house at a time in the evenings, then when that's all done power washing the house and then maybe painting a side a week? Four sides = four weeks? Is that nuts? Probably. This would all seem achievably crazy to me were it not for the siding part. For this I'll have to consult Martin, and again the internet.

If you all have any ideas or advice, please chime in. Or you know, if you've got a paintbrush and some spare time...

Little Expectations = Big Satisfaction

the basement bathroom, so much better
Originally uploaded by emira.

As a part of our current minorreno/update project to install Martin's daughters princess bed in her bedroom, necessitating a project to find a home for the double bed that currently lives in that room, Martin tackled the downstairs toilet room. How this works into the overall bed-switchero is somewhat vague and I actually had to think about it for a while this morning to remember just why it was that he spent two evenings painting and installing a new floor in the basement toilet, but then I remembered just what started it. To make room for the double bed in the downstairs spare room, we had to move the sewing and craft bits out to the rec room. This required clearing half of the unused rec room area which had until now been used for storing random junk. Things like: unsold garage sale items piled in sagging boxes, my grandfather's old desk which doesn't fit in any of the upstairs doors, Martin's boxes of "spare" shoes and of course a few spare feet of marmoleum trimmed off from our much larger and grander upstairs bathroom reno.

We had kept the marmoleum trimmings for two reasons. One, we both exhibit mild packrat tendencies and at the price of marmoleum it just didn't seem like the kind of thing you throw out. Two, Martin figured he could piece it together to redo the floor in the small toilet closet in the basement. Ah ha! And so, rather than store the flooring and since we were picking up some white paint to paint the spareroom, why not overhaul the bathroom? Never mind that this takes us further away from the bed-switchero purpose of the whole exercise. We'll get there later. Like tonight hopefully.

Now, here is where some before photos would have been handy, but unlike our other reno projects this one was kind of spur of the moment. And really, I'm not sure that any photos of this small room would have done it justice, both because taking photos in very small spaces isn't easy and because no photo would ever have been able to convey the scary, scary ick factor of this room in its previous state. And so, I will try to do it justice.

Martin referred to the basement toilet room as the "axe murderer bathroom." Me, I thought of it as a cross between a particularly dark outhouse and a terrifying horror movie bathroom in a cabin. A cabin located in the middle of nowhere. In the woods. With bugs. Of course this bathroom did not infact live in the middle of the woods, nor was it inhabited by much more than the odd basement spider. In real life it was right next to my two favorite appliances our stacking washer and dryer and really its aura was somewhat unfounded. But still. The feeling this little nook gave off was really one of those cases of the sum of parts being greater than the whole. Take some rotting blue shag carpet (really), applied directly to a concrete floor. Add some old wood panelling for walls, a door that doesn't really close (not that you would want to close it), a dim lightbulb, a toilet that hasn't been properly cleaned in time most accurately measured in decades, some exposed pipes and a few well placed cobwebs and well: you have the bathroom of an axe murder. Or maybe just the outhouse you remember from Brownie camp. A bathroom that Martin's daughter would come tearing upstairs doing the hippity-hoppy pee-pee dance rather than use, even when it meant more time away from the Sponge Bob Square Pants Xbox game.

I was skeptical that some "on sale" white paint, pieced together green marmoleum and a bucket of hot suddsy water would do much to improve the general sense of fear and loathing this little piece of plumbing gave off, but I was wrong. As I merrily applied layers of paint to the wood panelling in the spare room (more on this another day) Martin managed to totally transform this room in two evenings. And that includes a trip to the paint store. Not bad. And given how very low our expectations for this room were -- I mean when you're trying to improve upon serial-killer chic you have so much room to go up -- Martin's pride and pleasure in the completed project is massive. Yesterday, after having a particularly exhausting day at work I called Martin to say I was headed home. He suggested I go home and recuperate by spending sometime in "the serene new basement bathroom, just taking it all in." And later when our friend Sarah came over for pizza, beer and a trashy movie he implored her to use the basement bathroom if she needed the facilities because "the opportunity was too good to pass up."

I think Sarah summed up the final effect quite well, as she came back up to the kitchen and declared the aesthetic "a little bit country cottage and a little bit oriental chic." In the end (which is real wood slatting in fact), and the rice paper shade which allows for lots of light, with the campy asian lady poster on the back of the door is just that. And we're pretty pleased to have a usable spare toilet now. The real test will be to see if Martin's daughter will use it now, which we'll find out tomorrow.