Quick Washroom Reno Update

I was going to call this post "a quick washroom update", but that title sounded a little... impolite.  For those of you who don't follow the blog regularly, I feel the need to specify that this is an update on our renovation progress and not on anything else that may happen in our washroom.

As you know, this washroom reno has been postponed and prolonged due to busy work schedules and just life in general.  However, I reminded Corey that on April 25th, it will have been a year since we enjoyed the comfort of a proper shower and so we are feeling motivated to finish and resume some normalcy in our day-to-day lives.

The next task is pulling up the old floor...

Corey's been doing a little work each night and he recently discovered that the floor under where our tub will go was reinforced with poured concrete.  Because we want to start from scratch and ensure that the floor is strong enough to hold our extremely heavy tub, that means pulling up about two inches of concrete.  Yikes!  I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that even the demolition won't be easy!

As you can see, the concrete has been almost completely removed and all that remains is the rubber membrane.  It looks like it's time for another trip to the dump...

I hope to have even more progress to show you next week!

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This New / Old House is Full of Surprises!

As you know, our bathroom renovation is underway.  We have been lamenting the fact that we don't have a window, since the room is small and feels a little claustrophobic.  To remedy this, we've debated various options:

• Initially, we considered applying for a permit to create a window and hiring a contractor to perform the work.  This would be very expensive.
• We thought of extending the space into either the second bedroom (on the left) or the third bedroom (on the right) in order to have a more open space.  Unfortunately, neither of us were willing to sacrifice the bedroom space for a larger bathroom.
• Finally, I thought of replacing the wood door with a (heavily) frosted glass door.  This would solve some of our lighting problems, but we weren't sure if it would feel... uncomfortable.  Privacy is pretty important in a bathroom, after all.

We were still undecided when we began the renovation and were annoyed to see that the wall appeared to be framed for a non-existent window.  Grrrrr!

We quickly realized we had bigger fish to fry when we saw all the mouldy insulation, so Corey decided it would be replaced (along with the vapour barrier) asap.

Here's a bag of insulation in the third bedroom disaster room.

I was working in my office while Corey worked on the insulation, when he called out to me, "Can you come in here... I think you'd better bring the camera."  It is a testament to the trials of renovating, that my fist thought was, Oh no!  What went wrong?

Barkley and I immediately went to see what had happened.

Imagine my shock when I was greeted by an old window!

Of course, it will need to be replaced, but it certainly solves our problem! 

I know you're wondering how we missed this.  I mean, it's obviously visible from outside.  To be honest, we both feel a little silly.  Here's a view of the side of our house.

While not overly obvious, there is certainly a second window there.  I suppose the short answer is that we lost count.  We have three bedrooms and a bathroom that fall along that wall.  I think we sort of assumed that the window belonged to our third bedroom... Not thinking that the window in the third bedroom actually overlooks the back yard.

Oh well.  We'll chalk this up to a happy surprise.  The Dowager Countess says it best:

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