The never-ending bathroom saga

Yes, I'm still alive.  

I feel like I fall off the blog-wagon every year at this time.  Holidays + 2 small kiddos + shopping for presents + building a new house + finishing a bathroom remodel pretty much makes me want to curl up in bed by 8pm every night, leaving no time to jump on the computer.  

The nights when I'm awake long enough to actually pull out my computer, I'm pretty much too brain dead to do much more than drink a half glass of wine (I never get through a full one these days) and zone out to an episode of Homeland.

So, I know I'm a bit behind, but I'm going to finally call this whole bathroom remodel shenanigan done.

It's not really done because done would be perfect, and it's not that (we still have a punch list, which includes one of the light fixtures hanging out of the ceiling).  But to be honest, at this point I could care less about perfect.

If I cared about perfection in life I would never leave the house and never let anyone come over. These days I'm all about good enough.

Good enough= Hunter wearing shorts and a Seahawks Jersey for 5 days straight while it's snowing outside.  Yes, it's freezing, but at least he's not naked.

Good enough= showering just often enough to look passable when I run into people at the grocery store who have jobs and shower every day (and aren't wearing yoga pants).

Good enough= running water and a working toilet so I can pee in the middle of the night without running down a flight of stairs (first world problems for days, I realize this).

So, obviously my bar has been dropping lower and lower as the days pass (2 kids will do that to you).

This project has had plenty of bumps in the road and problems that took it from a 4 week quickie to a very long 4 month marathon. 

In case you have forgotten just how beautiful our bathroom was to begin with- here is a refresher:

And here it is now:

I'm so glad we no longer have workers in our house everyday- hammering, drilling and yelling while Hunter is trying to take a nap right next door.

I'm trying not to dwell on all the problems, instead I'm focusing on the done-ness and our favorite things about the bathroom.

First things first- heated floors are life changing, they are my favorite.

Never again will my feet be scared to come out of the shower.   Bath mats...who needs them? 

Long nights with the stomach flu and sleeping on the bathroom floor actually sounds mildly pleasing (kind of) with these lovely warm tiles. Lets be honest...Carrera marble does have a "come lay on me" quality that is hard to resist.

I couldn't be happier with the marble, and the hexagon tile is perfect for keeping with the period of the house, and simultaneously taking the bathroom to a new level of fancy.

I'm also obsessed with the tub, but I think it counts as Hunter's favorite thing. 


If you are a parent, you know that bathing your children on the same level as their bedroom is pretty much a necessity (how my mom did it with 3 girls and 1 bathroom on the main floor is beyond me). 

Perhaps I should rephrase young children to young boys. 

If your son is anything like mine, if he has to travel more than 3 steps before I can get a diaper on his naked behind, he will find something that looks "too clean" and pee on it.

No joke.

As soon as I get him out of the bath, he will pee. Usually on the first carpeted surface he can find (because peeing on a wipe-able surface would make it to easy on mommy).  

And then he will run around laughing.

Me....not so much with the laughing. Until he starts yelling, Pee-pee on the bed, pee-pee on my leg, PEE-PEE mommy!  And then I break and start laughing with him, because there is nothing more hilarious than a naked toddler screaming PEE-PEE at you while running around his bedroom (I promise it's funny).

Once I finally catch him, pin him down and snap the diaper on him, he promises to not pee on the carpet again....every time.

So, with the bathtub so close to his room, I get him out and can get him diapered-up before any pee has left his body. 

Less laundry & carpet scrubbing in my life is a good thing.

Plus Hunter believes it is HIS bathtub, and he thinks it was made specially for him...which it kind of was.

He can't wait to get in the tub and "swim" since it's so big.

Also, Carter has started to join him in the tub, which he thinks is just the best thing ever.  

Brothers in the tub.  I die.

Chris' favorite thing is the double sinks.  His & hers/kids if you will.

As soon as the bathroom was complete and I was filling up the drawers, Chris made sure I knew which sink was his, and that I would be sharing my sink with the boys.

What game of Rock-Paper-Scissors did I lose?

I must have been drunk sleep deprived when I agreed to that.

Regardless of how the sinks got allocated, he has his very own man-space and sink that is not sharing it's pristine space with stray bobby pins, hair ties and earring backings.

His drawers are neatly put together with just his toiletries and no longer will he have to dig past my pink razors and blow dryers to get to his hair gel and after shave.

He's pretty pleased.

And so am I.  

I don't mind sharing my sink one bit.  Hell, I share everything else, and I don't mind digging through Bob-the-Builder toothpaste to find my own.

Actually I think I got the cooler sink because mine has a secret.

We built in a custom step that is hidden under the cabinets for the boys to use to wash their hands.

Hunter is very proud of his step, although he is still too short to reach the sink (darn 12th percentile for height).  The sad part is, he will probably never get to really use it since we will be out of this house in a year, and he doesn't show any signs of a huge growth spurt coming anytime soon.

Carter doesn't have a favorite thing since he doesn't really use the bathroom much- but maybe it is the shower.  I pop him in his seat in the middle of the bathroom while I'm in the shower and there is something about the running water that totally makes him happy. 

The new shower is a nice- standard, but nice.

Don't get me wrong, it's a VAST improvement over the 80's shower surround that had mold in the caulk, but it functions the same as it always did.

We may have gained a few inches in functional space, and gained a ton of style points with the subway tile and frameless glass door, but we didn't get some huge shower with 17 shower heads or anything (not that we want that), so it's pretty much the same.

Other than that, we have new paint, a new toilet (dual flush like downstairs) and recessed lighting which is nice because it give us more head room. We are waiting another month for our wood shutters to be installed, so until then, the neighborhood is getting a good show each morning (JK- I hung up the old curtains in a make-shift arrangement to shield their poor eyes).

So, once the shutters are in and the punch list is done, this bathroom will REALLY be complete.  I'm sure that will be around the time when we go to sell it...

All in all, I am glad we did it, but if Chris even so much as mentions the word remodel around me again, I will lose my mind.