so far

Posted by marne on October 19, 2007 in stitch | 7 comments

These pictures are for certain family members who have been asking:

We started out at picture number one. Actually, that is after we’d stripped most of the wallpaper. In 1983, I would have loved that ivy wallpaper, but now? Not so much. Oh sure, it looks relatively unoffensive in that first picture, because there’s only a tiny bit left, but that stuff was on the top half of every single wall, and it was really a bit much in that small room. Also, the floor was a hideous linoleum and because the floor underneath was damaged, there were gaping tears in a couple spots.

I know a lot of people are not going to understand why we’re replacing our claw foot tub. Believe me, I really love the idea of a claw foot tub, but the reality, of ours, at least  is not so great. First of all, there is the hideous faux paint treatment. It’s not just ugly, but it has a lot of texture to it, so simply re-painting was never really an option (an aside: the previous owner also left us with the matching plunger. That’s right, it wasn’t enough to paint the tub, someone took the time to lovingly faux paint the handle of a toilet plunger). We would have had to strip it and then paint. If that were the only problem, then maybe we could have invested the work in it, but the inside of the tub is really stained and never looks clean. I’ve tried everything I could think of, even some pretty toxic stuff, and the only possible solution is to have the whole thing re-porceleined. Also, it’s just a pain in general to clean around it and we are both tall people, so actually taking a bath in there was never that much fun. I think I might keep it and if we add a second bathroom then it might be worth salvaging and re-using, but for now we’re going with a nice big drop-in tub with a rain showerhead. I think the subway tiles keep the vintage look going and the glass tile strip makes it a bit modern. At least I hope so. I hope it doesn’t say, "hey, these glass tiles are expensive and these cheapskates could only afford a single stripe." It might be saying that, but whatever. I really love the look of glass tile, but at $25 a square foot, that little stripe is gonna have to do for now. 

For the floor, I just went with a 20" pretend travertine. I thought about penny tile, but I don’t think that would be fun to clean, and once everything is back in place, including the small dresser and clothes hamper we keep in there it’s not not going to show hardly at all. So that’s the bathroom so far.

My stress level hasn’t gone down too much, as evidenced by the progress on the little quilt.

I’m just about done sewing the binding. I like it, but I think something is missing. Maybe I need to do more quilting or something. I don’t know. I used some leftover wool batting from the baby quilt, and I like how puffy it is. I took a picture in the sunshine so you can really see how bubbly the bubbles are: