remodel my bathroom

and the plumber has been here forever… it’s supposed to be a small job. Sheesh.

After he finishes adjusting the pipes, we’ll knock out the rest of the walls and tiles around the bathtub.

The plumber will come on Nov 26 to adjust the bathtub pipes and drain for the new tub.

After that the whole bathroom will be torn apart, probably for ages. Supposedly we are going to do the rest of the work ourselves, but I’m not even sure yet whether I’ll be living in this city still by then.

So far we have:

Bathtub, faucet & showerhead, waste overflow system + extra pipe
Tiles (4×8” subway tiles)
Toilet + toilet plumbing thingys

Today we’re supposed to be getting:
Table for the bathroom vanity, stain and varnish, a sink, faucets. (It’s an Ikea hack )

We haven’t got: grout for the tiles, cement board (backing for the tile), a new door, or anything at all to redo the floor.

today I tried _{really tried!} to clean the copper door handle (bathroom door), and although it now looks more like copper and less like – well, grime, there is still too much tarnish on it. I think we need a new door handle. And considering how poorly painted the door has been, I think we need a whole new door as well!

I’ve no idea why my boyfriend thinks this door can be salvaged, unless he is planning to scrape off all the existing paint – with it’s drips and chips and paint-encompassed chunks of lint. Yuck!

And, I might add – it is a cheap hollow door made of very dark brown plywood laminate, which has been badly painted over with2 thin coats of white wall paint – and the second coat, besides being a different shade of white, doesn’t even cover the whole door! Ghastly.

I repainted the tile… it looks bad (needs another coat, but I probably won’t bother). I was curious to see if that tub & tile refinishing would work on a tile wall, and it “sort of” did, but it’s far too fussy and too much work. _{We’re supposed to be tearing out the tiles int he next couple weeks anyway…}

However, the white enamel did manage to mostly cover up the horrible yellow, so the whole bathroom looks much bigger and fresher, even though the paint is sloppy and a little drippy.

Overall, I’d say it was a worthwhile experiment!

for the enamel paint. It looks like this is going to be a lot of work. But – I have all the stuff to do it already, and not much else to do these days. PLUS if I mess it up and it looks like crap, well – we are supposedly retiling the bathroom within the next month anyway! (I’ve just got tired of waiting – I’ve been hearing “We’ll redo the bathroom next month” for about 2 years now.)

But it’s sunny today… and I have a job interview tomorrow (for a not-so-desireable job) so I can’t put my shower out of commission this weekend.

I did start scraping some of the caulking off though.

the new bathtub still sits in the closet.

My boyfriend is gone for another 2 weeks with his job. So that means (at least) 2 more weeks of me being confronted with those stupid daisies every morning. It’s been more than 2 years… argh! I can’t take it any more.

Technically, we are supposed to be getting the tiles removed in 2 weeks, but I have my doubts that it’ll really happen. Now, something reminded me that there used to be a particular product under the bathroom sink… ah there it is! Tub and tile refinishing enamel – in WHITE! Ha ha, I’ll bet this stuff came with the apartment. Obviously the last person hated the tiles too but was nearly as half-assed as I am about resolving the issue. _{Or maybe they actually had a job which kept them busy…ha!}

Well, the stuff is already paid for! Now, what will I need to do this project? Probably some kind of brush… and perhaps solvent to clean the brush. I’ll read over the instructions tomorrow.

_{Hopefully I can get it all done at once – I probably won’t be able to use the tub or shower for a day or two.}

I am so broke right now, with very limited job prospects, and my new (used) car is turning out to be a lemon.

This was supposed to be the summer of the new swanky, elegant bathroom, but I just don’t see it happening.

We already got the new bathtub, so now we have a bathtub sitting in one of our closets, taking up space. Sigh, maybe we should just forget about the pretty subway tile and get a grandma-style, cheap tub-surround. At least that way we can get rid of those stupid sunflower tiles.

Not an ideal solution, but still better than the status quo.

Changing the bathtub and surrounding tiles is the biggest part of the job, as far as money, inconvenience and time go. The other pieces can be updated fairly quickly one at a time later on.

the “before” picture

Our bathroom has 70s mustard yellow fixtures… and there’s no way you could ever go retro with them because some genius decided to tile around the bathtub with tiles that have massive yellow sunflowers all over them.

I’ll upload a picture one of these days.