Living in a Construction Zone

I’ve described before how when we sold our country house last October and moved into town, we bought a little house that was built in 1923. We bought it, calling it a ‘flip’, because, of course, we watch HGTV and thought it would be fun to flip a house. We love to remodel, so this would be perfect. And it is. Except. On HGTV they never live in the house they are flipping. Yikes.

In August, we began the remodel of the bathroom by replumbing the sink.  That included a little work upstairs in the bathroom, but not anything major.  Now we are into it for real.  Last weekend we ripped out the bathroom. Notice I said THE bathroom. No others around. We saved the potty – so I don’t have to use a chamber pot or a tree in the back yard, but everything else is gone. no sink, no shower, no tub. Before doing this, though, we brought in our camp trailer and set it up in the back yard, voila! We have a bathroom. My husband actually isn’t using the trailer – he has access to a shower with virtually unlimited hot water at work. Me, I’m using the trailer. It’s a good arrangement, mostly, but my showers are quick because the hot water heater in the trailer only holds five gallons. It’s a little odd to put on my robe at 5:45 in the morning and traipse outside to brush my teeth and shower, but beyond that, it’s all good.

Since we’ve already refinished the hard wood floors in the living and dining room, I don’t want to take a chance of scratching them. I have rugs and blankets strewn about, covering the floor where we walk, which makes the entire main floor of the house a catastrophe. The dining room table is covered with new fixtures and piles of tiles, tools and odds and ends. On weekends and after we get home in the evening, our house rings with the sounds of pounding and sawing, sanding and painting. I’m not much of a carpenter, and I’m a mediocre painter, so mostly my job is fetching and carrying and cleaning and hauling stuff in and out. I don’t mind, I’m good at it after being married to Karl for 32 years! Living in a construction zone isn’t my favorite thing, but actually this is kinda fun. And this new bathroom is going to be really great!