Doubling the bill

I have been in my house since late September of 2000. In that time I have put a lot of work into restoring it. In fact I have probably put more work in than most people would be willing to do. A fact a good friend of mine just reminded me of. He routinely buys houses with his brother as projects to make money on. When they flip, or re-hab a house they do it on the cheap. Not that they do poor work or use low quality materials, no they just don’t spend a lot of time and energy making it look really nice. They make it decent and sellable. I on the other hand spend 200 hours stripping and reconditioning the woodwork in a single room where I could have sanded and painted it in about 30. I patch the plaster in most cases, I try to build things that fit with my houses overall character, and I have to do it all while I continue to live there.

But it is also something I take some pride in and it is my home so I want it to be to my standard. I would rather wait and do it right than just do something to make it acceptable. That said for the longest time I have pretty much made all of the decisions and really been the only person involved. People have helped me with projects here and there but really I always decided how to do it. Well that is all changing now as I am now married. For the most part RG is hard to get involved in house projects. She has no real interest in working on the house, hates going to places like the home depot, and generally (and surprisingly for her) hasn’t had strong opinions in the area. I am trying to get her more involved though, because this is our house and she should be happy with and feel like she helped create it.

So the next project is our one and only bathroom. So I have many constraints here. First I can’t take it out of service for very long. So it will have to be done in stages. Second it is incredibly small. And third we have a tight budget. My original plan was to create a very simple bathroom that would be similar to something from the 1920s. White tile, pedestal sink, built in cabinet, maybe even a claw foot tub. I dropped the claw foot tub a long time ago in favor of a modern tube with a tiled shower. But I still figured I could do it cheaply because the tile would be standard 4 inch tile, the toilet was purchased, and the sink would be cheap. But then I got my wife involved. While I am happy she is taking an interest in the bathroom, her tastes are more expensive than mine. After an initial trip to some stores her version of the bathroom would cost double what mine would.

She also tends to like more modern styles even though the house was built in 1905 and I have been bring back as much of the original character as I can, so this is a bit of a clash. But do to the size of the bathroom we cannot use many of the elements she wants to. For instance there is simply no premade vanity that will fit. So now we have worked back and forth and I think we have a design we can both be a happy with. Some nicer tiles than I was going to use, I am going to make a vanity that fits incorporating some of her design likes but that retains the character of the house, and the hardware will be a mix of old and new styles. Both of us agree on a modern bath/shower though. So in the long run we will get a bathroom that is far from my vision, but something that is a little of both of use, and while it is more expensive it won’t be 3 times the cost…. Just double.