The Smallest Room in the House

Today was Monday. That means that our mailbox was filled with Happy Birthday cards. Grandma and Grandpa wrote that Marissa is sorely missed as they need someone to hold down the chickens while Grandpa "dispatches them". Very sweetly put, Grandma.

Now to the topic of today's post: How much does it cost to renovate a bathroom--the smallest room in the house? That is the question I asked myself before I made the final decision to tear apart our main bathroom. The original plan was to put lovely black and white tile on the walls and floor, replace the tub faucet with a telephone shower, improve some general plumbing annoyances (dripping faucets and groaning pipes) and put a fresh, happy color on the walls above the tile. According to my preliminary research, the cost to do this would be considerable, but not astronomical. I budgeted for paint, tiles (although not the decorative ones that I ultimately chose), the new telephone shower, new towel bars and got estimates for labor. But now we are stripping the medicine cabinet -- $50 for necessary materials. Based on our experience with the medicine cabinet, we have decided to replace the baseboard molding in the entryway of the bathroom rather than stripping it -- another $60-80. Then we learned that we have to replace the toilet. The tile guy took out the toilet in pieces. Apparently, it was cracked and it is not the type of thing that goes back together with glue. And when you buy a new toilet, the kicker is that lid ISN'T included, so we had to get one of those too. That means another $250. We could've gotten one for around $60, but only a top of the line can will be able to handle this family's bowels. Joel also insisted on splurging for a heavy duty seat. He had a bad experience in our old apartment when he "sat too hard" and broke a seat. Next, we have to replace a part under the sink -- $24. I have no idea what the part is called, but the tile guy says it should definitely be replaced because he doesn't know how much longer it will last. I suspect that it lasted for the last 100 years of this house's existence, but who am I to argue with the tile guy. When we are spending this kind of money, shouldn't I just go ahead and order those authentic Art Deco sconces at Rejuvenation.com? $45 apiece on clearance. (I haven't done it, but I'm thinking about it.) Can you SEE the final bill??? I have to give Joel a lot of credit for keeping his cool. Renovating the bathroom was not his idea. Rather than bursting a vessel, he just says, "It's only money."

Joel and I would like to apologize for leading everyone to believe that Aidan is congenitally racist. Apparently, on Saturday, Aidan was saying "A ka-ka is for NICKLE". Of course, Aidan speaks with what Jason once described as a pseudo-Scottish accent. Nickle came out as "nickewuh". Aidan was referring to a short time when he was given a penny for pee-pee and a nickle for ka-ka. On Saturday, Aidan discovered the fake dog poop in Joel's attic collection of childhood memoribilia. He was letting Joel know the monetary value of that pile of @$&% Joel's been hanging onto for decades. Just kidding, Joel.