The Bathroom Post

Remember when, oh, a year ago, I said I was going to reno the bathroom?

Remember how I kept promising pictures of the finished product?

Remember The Saga of the Arch? You don't? OH. That's because I never blogged about it.


The Saga of the Arch
I hate medicine cabinets. I think they are incredibly ugly and just barely functional. I heard a rumor once about a functional and attractive medicine cabinet, but I don't believe it. So I ripped ours out, and decided to build a niche in its place. An ARCHED niche.

Hole left by medicine cabinet

using enormous knitting needles
to hold the arch shape

Framing out the shelves

It's so much harder than you think, unless you've done it, and also have more than the rudimentary carpentry skills that I have taught myself by trial and error (mostly error).

Also, and I don't know if you knew this, but - almost nothing in a house is ever really square.

using drywall tape

LOTS of drywall tape

to fill in the gaps

And if you're me, and are using a handsaw and a mitre box to cut your pieces, they're never, ever, ever going to fit into the not-square hole left by the medicine cabinet. So you just keep adding drywall tape and joint compound and drywall and little scraps of paint stirrers to fill in all the gaps and holes. and you just keep covering it with more drywall tape and joint compound.














And it's not square,
and it's not level,
and it's not flush with the plane of the wall. But at some point, you are tired of sanding, and plastering, and cursing, and you decide that you are DONE. DONE, I tell you!



And after you've decided that you are done, you STILL have to texture it, prime it, and paint it.




And after three or four months, you decide that it's kind of okay that the curve of the arch isn't exactly what you wish it was, and that the texture really does kind of match the texture on the rest of the walls, and that you might not notice so much that the shelves aren't perfect, and you might put some sweet little painted terra cotta birds in the tiny shelf that you realized afterwards wasn't really the right size for ANYTHING, and then really, really love the niche.



And then you realize that you have no storage in the bathroom.






So you buy two slightly damaged narrow kitchen cabinets in the clearance aisle at Lowe's, paint them black, connect them with some scraps of MDF and lots of screws and glue, and then realize that they are not going to screw into the studs on the wall. Ever.


So you go back to Lowe's, buy some 1x4, cut three pieces to span the studs, mitre the ends to make it look somewhat intentional or architecturally interesting or ANYTHING other than what it is, paint it back, screw it into the studs, and then screw the cabinets into the 1x4.





Don't look too closely, you will see EVERYTHING I did wrong, and also, everything else I did wrong.
But!

Cabinet!

With doors! 

Here's a wider shot with the light I hung. I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of installing that vanity light!!! I only almost electrocuted myself once.

(OH. You want to know about the "almost electrocuting"? Okay. FINE.)


You know how you're supposed to turn off the electricity before you do anything with lights? Well, so do I, but Jules was working from home that day and was right in the middle of something, so I had to wait. No problem. I'd ripped out the old, ugly light bar weeks earlier, and pulled off the mounting bracket. I wanted to see where I needed to hang the new mounting bracket and light and make sure it was centered and level. I figured I didn't need to disconnect the power for this step.

Unfortunately, I forgot that the outlet box STILL HAS ELECTRICITY RUNNING THROUGH IT and that there was a thick copper grounding wire hanging from the new light fixture. When I lifted the fixture to the wall, the copper wire scraped against the outlet box, shooting sparks everywhere and killing the circuit.

The smell was awful and, once I realized that I hadn't electrocuted myself, I shakily climbed down -- yeah, I forgot to mention that I was balancing precariously on the granite countertop -- and flipped the circuit back before Jules noticed that the power was out. Good thing she's wireless.


(Oh. Crap. But she also reads this blog. Sorry, babe. But look! No electrocution here, no sirree!)

So, that's the bathroom. It's not finished. I had planned to put up crown moulding and install a nice brushed nickel curtain rod with a nice shower curtain, and I was going to put a glass shelf under the arch, and I was going to paint the sink cabinet black and change the faucet, and do some kind of fancy thing to the switchplates with silver leaf and texture paint .

But I probably won't do any of that, because we're talking seriously about moving. So I figured I needed to post and brag (???!!!) while it was still slightly relevant.

A little closer to home this year

This year, cancer is hitting me a little harder. A co-worker of Jules' just died of colon cancer, and a coworker of mine was just diagnosed with breast cancer.

Jules' coworker was diagnosed at Stage 4. He had been experiencing what, in retrospect, were signs of colon cancer, but kept putting off going to the doctor because his work was so demanding and, unfortunately, he worked for a company that doesn't appear to value work/life balance. (Do I sound a little bitter? I am. Jules has since left that job, for that and many other reasons.) He lived 4 1/2 months after the diagnosis. Early detection might have spared his life. His two little girls might not have had to lose their father so early in life.

I realize that Race for the Cure is about breast cancer, not about colon cancer, but Mike's death had an impact on me nonetheless. For more information about colon cancer, see the Mayo Clinic website or Medline Plus or talk to your doctor!

My coworker was diagnosed early. She made the decision to have a double mastectomy (instead of single), because that was the only way she felt she could go on without feeling, in her words, "like a ticking time bomb".

Because of these two incidents, I doubled my fundraising goal this year. I know it's a lot to ask of anyone right now, but donate if you can. A double mastectomy being the best-case scenario is unacceptable! A 42-year-old man leaving behind a wife and two young girls is unacceptable!

If you can't donate, pledge your support by getting educated:

•See your doctor, learn your risk!


•Get mammograms and breast exams!

•Notice changes to your breasts!

•Start the fight by living right!