Our house, in the middle of the steet

We really are in the middle of the street, so maybe that song applies to us... I'll have to actually listen to the lyrics next time...

But let's talk about my house. OK, I'll talk, you listen. Our house has done a lot of wonderful things for us - it shelters from the cold, wind, rain, or blazing sun, it keeps us warm in the winter and doesn't give us heat stroke in the summer (it doesn't keep us cool by any means, but that's an upcoming project, you can be sure). It gives our kids a place to play, and a big yard to run around in. It gives us lots of chores, but we try to make those as much like play as we can (I just need a little bit more of Mary Poppin's talent). It gives us space for our gardens, which will be replanted this fall since I missed out planting summer stuff this year. It gives us a safe place to sleep each night. What it's given Joe and I, though, that we are sort of ridiculously grateful for, is PROJECTS.

When we went house hunting, we wanted a home that needed a lot of TLC without needing a masters electrician's or plumber's license. This helped with the initital purchase price of course, but it has also helped us hone our skills and our relationship. We've had tons of fun painting, scraping and retexturing ceilings, relandscaping, knocking down walls, laying tile, and drawing up plans for future projects as we go. I would say that the planning is more fun than the actual work, but that just isn't true - especially with Joe. During projects, especially in tough spots, I keep expecting Joe to give up, lost his cool, and kick a hole in the wall, and so far? Zero holes. Cuss words, YES, but holes? No. In fact, he's actually very friendly during physical labor, which astounds me! So I know that as we approach a project it will mean not only are we getting rid of something ugly, we are replacing it with something beautiful, and in the meantime I get to spend extra time with Joe who will be in a good mood because of all of the above. It's GREAT! So with an obvious break in work this weekend due to visiting relatives, we have been having a great time re-doing our downstairs bathroom and laundry room. The bathrooms in our house didn't make much sense - we only had two, and one was directly connected to the master bedroom, and the other you have to pass through the utility room to get to. The first we remedied a while back, but this downstairs bathroom has (until now) been the ugliest, most dysfunctional room in the house since we moved in. We ripped out all the flooring and made it one cohesive floor, and fresh paint has certainly helped, and while we still have quite a bit left to do, I wanted to get these before/after photos up because we are just so dang proud of our handiwork! And pride is just what homewornership is all about!

Standing in the utility room, looking into the bathroom. The bright blue bath set doesn't help anything, but let's be honest - it didn't really hurt, either. Notice the change in flooring, from really ugly fauc-wood parquet laminate to really ugly faux marble tiles. There was a 1/2" difference in height, too, since they laid the tile on plywood subflooring (which, when we ripped up the tiles, was black with mold and mildew [or mild-eeeeewwwwwwww!]).
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Awesome wood towel bars, and a counter that made it next to impossible to access the toilet tank should you have an issue.
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Awesome paint job
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Awesome un-grouted tiles used as a backsplash... but also set on top of the existing backsplash. Does that make any sense at all? Anyone? The cabinet had also sustained a fair amount of water damage from some plumbing incident that must have happened before we moved in. Yech.
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Same white/gray faux marble tiles. Seemingly good from this side, when you went to the crawl space it was obvious they had to be ripped out completely, wall and all, because the entire peice of drywall was molded through. We didn't want anyone falling into the crawl space mid-shower, should the moldy drywall decide to give out. .
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This is the floor when we had ripped out the tiles and linoleum, and the green is a GOOD thing! It's a moisture barrier for concrete basements to avoid future issues with adhesion due to damp flooring (the reason they laid plywood down the first place, we think). Although necessary, it sure made the basement look (and smell) pretty funky! .
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Joe bought a small tile saw and just went to town, meauring and cutting and laying out, and it turned out SO WELL! I was so proud, when he decides he's going to do something, he just jumps right in and learns as he goes. I didn't get any shots of that part of the process, but here he is grouting them all in. .
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And here is Eli and I sponging excess grout off the shower tiles, which I grouted (sans Eli) .
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The new floor - all one level, all one design, all looking 1,000X better than before! .
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Our new sink base/countertop. It's not a good picture of it, but it's a nice stain on the wood and a solid surface countertop with an awesome seamless square sink. It has yet to be connected, but isn't it a ton better than the other one? Yeah, we thought so, too :) .
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Lastly, our new shower. Joe simply sawed out the walls with the other tile, we re-drywalled with hardi-backer, which DOES NOT MOLD OR GET DAMAGED WITH WATER (why didn't they use that in the first place?) and then laid these great new tiles, complete with accent border and cool embossed accent squares at the top.

Now, as well as having a fantastic new bathroom (hopefully completed this weekend, just in tome for NOBODY to use it since they've all gone home) we have lots of fond memories of working together and making our dreams happen, one ugly room at a time. Ta-da!