Phase One - Bathroom Remodel (Fantastic Mr. Fox meets the Brady Bunch)

We have been living in the Panhandle for almost three months, and half of that time has been spent making Haefen our home.  The living room, dining room, and master bedroom are painted (they just need some trim work done), and the wallpaper in the kitchen is slowly being scraped, torn, and chiseled off.  But, the biggest project yet is underway....

I am sure that you have guessed it, yep, the bathroom.  Hmmm maybe the title gave it away?

This a shot from the door into the bathroom.  I tore out the carpet the second week that we moved in.  There were two layers of carpet on the floor.  I guess one was the padding?

Here is the bath/shower and a glimpse of the vanity

This bathroom makes me think of the Wes Anderson film, Fantastic Mr. Fox.  It has a muted kind of 1970's look to it: creamy wallpaper with gold flowers, gold and cream faux marble wall board in the shower, wood trim in all the corners, and of coarse wood paneling!

These are super deep, built in shelves right above the toilet. They are completely off-centered.

Remember this is our one and only bathroom.  It is shaped like a square, a small square!  We had plans to make another half bath behind this bathroom, on the other side of the wall, behind the toilet.  That is where are utility room is and there actually is room for a toilet and a vanity.  We could probably fit a shower stall in there too, but that seemed too expensive for our budget.  After having two plumbers out and some root cellar investigations by Corey we decided against creating another conventional bathroom.  It seemed too risky to drill a hole through our rock and mortar foundation to connect a second toilet to the sewer line.

As I mentioned before, this is our only bathroom so we want to make it the cleanest, most functional and beautiful bathroom that we can afford.  We found a tiler (?), who was available to help us renovate our humble lavatory and he was scheduled to embark on this momentous project this week, but we have encountered some unexpected surprises and therefore delays.

We decided to keep the old bathtub and tile the walls and ceiling around it along with the floor.  We also wanted to put up dry wall and have at least one room in the house with no wood paneling.  Isaac and Lillia helped start the demo work by pulling down wallpaper, removing trim, hooks and other odds and ends.  Thankfully Corey prayed and asked the LORD for guidance before he started his part of the demolition.  I also prayed quietly in the living room.  He decided to start by changing the hardware on the bathtub.  It was bent and tarnished and I could smell a musty, earthy smell coming from the auxiliary drain hole which made my anxiety level rise higher than normal.

Corey discovered that the drain pipe was rusted and a small hole emitted some water underneath the bathtub.  Since there was no way to get to the pipe without pulling out the tub, that is what we decided to do.  When Corey pulled the wall board away from the wall he discovered this abnormality:

A wall of weeds

This vine of weeds was found behind the shower wall board, and it is what I was smelling!  It grew from underneath the tub all the way up the wall.

Our gutted shower stall

I don't have a picture to prove it (because I was shopping for a new bathtub), but there were  four wheel barrow loads of wood chips and sand underneath the bathtub.  Corey removed all of that and found a cement slab underneath.  When he removed the wall board that was installed above the bathtub he found another weird surprise.  Can you guess what?  You will never guess this one - two dead kittens surrounded by mouse bones (I also do not have a picture of that!).  Not sure how the cats ended up there but I am glad that the mice, the cats, and the weeds are gone!

After gutting the shower stall, Corey started taking down the wood paneling and found layers of wall paper.

This looks like the original wall paper.  It is a lacy pattern

shiplap!

Of all the wallpaper this is my favorite

 Don't you just love the butterflies and orange scalloped border?  They make me think of the Brady Bunch.  They are so cheerful and uplifting, especially after finding weeds and dead animals in my walls.

As of right now the toilet is still installed and working and so is the bathroom sink.  You may have already put two and two together and wondered how we are bathing.  We did foresee this possible problem and we were ready with a plan....

An outdoor shower, of coarse!

 We clothes-pinned old sheets and a table cloth (used for our painting drop cloths) along with a real shower curtain to our clothes line.  We are using a garden nozzle for the shower head that is hooked up to a hose which is attached to the utility sink in the utility room.  Our shower floor is made up of bricks that we found laying around.  Voila, an outdoor shower.

Three out of four showerers were satisfied with their showering experience.  The one dissatisfied bather complained of not enough hot water.  He did take his shower after his little brother and after the dishes had been washed.  Three of us have not experienced this new natural bathing experience, but will soon need to, preferably when the sun is shining.

Things That Make Me Smile

It is easy for me to feel bogged down with all the endless projects that I see before me.  I look around the house and feel overwhelmed and sometimes even a little angry that someone actually chose wood  paneling to adorn her walls with mismatched trim and did not let the cat out to urinate when she should have!  But, as my wise husband reminded me, all of this is just stuff and we actually have very little suffering in our lives.  He is right and the avoidance of suffering does not make any of us stronger.  When I think of the people who built this house and imagine what their lives might have been like it helps me to put things in perspective.

I also realize that I have so much to be thankful for.  Gratitude is the key to contentment.  God is so good and He gives us such good gifts.  Sometimes we just need eyes to see them.

I planted these red geraniums in pots to adorn the deck window shelf.  I was thinking that red geraniums were what this outdoor space needed, and when I was at Ace Hardware all their plants were 75% off so I splurged and bought these $1 beauties.  They make me happy and I love to see the two Aunt Telly Squirrels peacefully sharing the shelf with their new companion, North Idaho Squirrel.  Now they are all Haefen squirrels.

This is our living room window that faces the deck.  The hummingbirds are attracted to the geraniums and I am able to get close-up views of these charming little birds when they visit my red beauties.

A little morning card game on the deck

Eleanor and Asa have been very engrossed in building little houses for their toys using bark, pine cones, stones and seeds.

Asa's Jo-Jo's and Ella's princess dolls

Eleanor was meticulously working on this stone path.

A favorite spot that I like to retreat to is "The Landing" which is what we have started calling it.  There are some stone steps below the R.V. pad that lead down to a cement rock slab.  It is a quiet place to read and relax.  Corey and Isaac even installed a hammock next to it.  There is a bordered flower bed filled with weeds next to it that beckons me to plant sun happy flowers and ornamental grasses.

The Landing

When Isaac, Lillia, and Esther were given the task of unearthing rocks from the flower beds closest to the house they found stone steps and Asa found a cute little cement duck that seems to go with the bird bath.  It looks like he has been swathed in a moss blanket and appears to be quite ducky floating in his old bird bath.

Last but not least we celebrated Esther's 15th birthday last month and Lillia made her birthday cake all by herself.  It was beautiful and delicious.

I know that these little things are of small consequence but I do think that these small gifts remind us that God is paying attention and He delights in giving us pleasant, lovely things as well as challenges that help us to trust Him more.  So keep your eyes open and don't miss out on a beautiful gift.

Phase One - Master Bedroom

You might think that I am a terribly selfish mother, but Corey's and my bedroom is also included in the phase 1 upgrade as well.  Actually I decided to paint our bedroom the same color as the downstairs living spaces and while I was waiting for primer to dry on the wood paneling I went ahead and plunged into painting our dirty pink bedroom that was formerly wood paneling.

Master Bedroom before

By the way, since we were unable to push, shove, or manoeuvre our mattress box springs up the stairs we had to get creative and hoist the queen size rectangular prism through our bedroom balcony.  Yep, isn't that cool?  Although we seven have to share one bathroom, I do have my very own balcony and yes, I do share it with Corey.  I think that he has plans to use it for his outdoor smoking space.

After two weeks of sleeping on the floor it nice to have our mattress frame and box springs added to the bedroom.  Especially since we could hear some mice moving about between the first and second story floors.  I was a little creeped out at being so close to the floor.  Thankfully, Willa slept in our room and I knew that she would take care of any intruders that dared to enter the master bedroom.  You might be asking, "What about your kids?".  Since they already had set up their beds I assumed they were fine, being so far off the floor!

Corey hung two curtain rods to make a  canopy with a curtain panel.  My Mom made the quilt on the bed with the matching pillow for me as a high school graduation present.  It is about 17 years old!

I painted the window alcove and the bed alcove a shade of cream

This is my "closet"

As you may have noticed, we only have one small closet in our bedroom. It is the size of an entry way coat closet. Corey plopped his shirts in there first so I decided to get creative and figure out a closet space for myself.  I found this little shelf/hanging bar system at Lowes.  Corey installed the shelf and mirror.  It isn't organized yet, but it is so nice to have a place to hang my clothes.  It really is a joy to have a dresser and a permanent place to hang my wardrobe.  I did feel rather disheveled having my clothes randomly hung on hooks that Olga (former owner) had conveniently placed around the house.

The kids think that the 'new' master bedroom is much cooler than our former bedroom on Elder St.  I do think that it is bigger and I love the window seat and bed alcove.  It is also pretty fun to have a bedroom balcony as well.

This is a view from my balcony.  We get a great view of the moon at night and the mountains by day.

And by the way if you are wondering about the mouse situation, my fears were confirmed one day when Willa was intensely sniffing around in the utility room.  I bravely moved the cabinet from the wall and lo and behold a dark brown mouse was huddled in the corner.  That of course was when I pushed Isaac in front of me and told him to make sure it left the premises.  Willa flushed it out and it scurried underneath the washing machine.  After that I left the scene.  Isaac reported that nothing new happened and he left as well.  When I noticed that Willa had lost interest I figured that I would have Corey investigate when he came home because I had some painting to do.

When Corey came home I nonchalantly reported the mouse incident.  He found no mouse and filled in the hole where it probably entered our utility room.  I am relieved to report that we have heard no sounds or seen any signs of the small furry rodent.  Hooray for Irish Terriers and husbands who know how to use that foamy stuff!

Phase One - Living Room

We have been living at Haefen for four weeks!  There have definitely been some ups and downs, but I think that on the whole things are looking up.  We have a game plan for a phase one remodel and painting the wood paneling is a huge part of that plan.

This is a living room shot of the front door.

This is my desk area which is right next to the front door.

This shot shows our wood stove and back patio door.

So this is our living room in all of its wood paneled glory.  It took about 2 weeks but I did get it painted.  First we primed with a Valspar bonding primer (which by the way is great to work with) and then I just painted one coat of Olympic paint.  I found both of these products at Lowes and really liked them.  Esther and Lillia helped with some of the priming and our dear friend James Nalls who just moved here a month after we did primed two walls.

Already things were looking better after we primed.

How do you like the dripping water effect?

Here is the best part, the paint!  The color is called 'Watery Blue' and Corey and I really like it.  It really freshens up the space and it is so nice to have the living room in a more settled condition.  You can't see it from the photos but the grooves from the paneling add a cottage effect.  I like the character that it adds to the walls.

I was also able to finish painting the master bedroom and We have started priming the dining room.  I will send out some photos of those rooms soon.