Extreme Home Makeover - The Bath Continues...

Another weekend has flown by.  Wow, I really cannot believe that it is the second week of November.  I am a bit in shock that Thanksgiving is creeping up so quickly.  I've been attempting to get my dining room 'company ready' even though we will be dining at my sister's home this year.  You just never know when company may come calling and I would like the house to look half decent if they do! 

The parent's bath has been making some true progress this weekend.  The toilet is in and working.  The tub has been in place and the surround was placed this weekend.  The door is up.  Good thing!  Every bath needs a door!  And as much as mom didn't want her paneling painted, she had to admit it looked nice in a good coat (or 2) of pale honey!   The 2 hubs are working hard to get it all done.  My sis and I have spackled and painted our little hearts out!

I just cannot wait til all of the big heavy stuff is done to get in and primp the room out.
(as much as the Momma will allow, anyways).

I thought since I didn't have alot of photos of the bath, I'd show you a few photos of the back yard.   The town I grew up in is quite urban, we are very close to lots of shopping and amenities and is a pretty densly populated area.  But, our part of town remains a very quiet almost rustic setting!  The view out my parents back door is all wooded.  There is even a water fall not too far back from the house.  Growing up, that wooded area was almost magical... we would try to take little hikes when we could.

See that tree trunk there?  Believe it or not, we planted that tree as children with my Dad.  He had found a tiny sapling growing (about as tall as a quarter) while cutting the grass, dug it up and we cared for it til it was big enough to be replanted. 

It grew to be immense!  I tried to capture a photo of it to give you an idea, which was kind of hard to shoot straight up kinking my neck and all!

Extreme Home Makeover - Parent's Bath #2

Wow!
That about sums up the progress (and stress) of my parents bathroom addition.
Work started with a bang and seemed to progress so quickly, we all thought this bath may actually be done in about 2-3 weeks.  Done, fin, Finito.

NAHHH!!! Think again...

It really hasn't been bad.  But between my hubby and brother in law and a friend, each has lives outside of the potty room, and progress has slowed to a snails pace.  My parents are not very happy about living in the "moment" in a home mid-construction (and they are very verbal about that).  They are also a bit ReSiStaNT to change as we are finding out.  Mostly about that dreaded brown 70's paneling. Mostly my Mom... Dad doesn't seem to care about wall color, fixtures, etc... go figure?!?

But slow progress is still progress...  The outter wall is up with the exterior dry wall in place.  The door has been framed but is not in yet.  Yes, the horrid wallpaper is still visible, but look at that floor!  The new bathtub has been placed and the copper piping is there, half way up the wall.

Enter bathroom and look to the left... you will see the peek-a-boo wall into the kitchen.  This wall next to the tub is were a small 24 inch sink is going to live...

Enter and look to the right... and there is the pretty little potty!  Notice the beautiful brown panelled wall with a stripe of the paint color we picked out.  We chose "Pale Honey" from Behr at the good old DePot since Mom had told us she would like yellow.  Such a pretty color.  Long story short, my dear little Momma whom I love so much is so in love with her walls she told me I could not paint them.  So OOOPPSie Daisy... the paint brush kinda attacked.  (Don't worry, she didn't hit me & she wasn't all that mad considering  her wall now really needs to be painted).

The color is actually more of a pale yellow than the peachy reference from online.

Seriously now, I don't quite understand (well I do - a little bit) why my parents (or anyone for the matter) are so darn resistant to updating things.  I want to preserve a rustic ambiance there for her but throw in a little chic.  I am just hoping (and praying) that she is happy with everything once it gets finished.

The men will be working again this evening.  The plumbing is all but done.  I know the toilet is hooked to the sewer line, but not flushable yet.  The tub is set to drain but not hooked to water yet.  Keep ya fingers (or knees) crossed that at least one potty project becomes flushable tonight!

Extreme Home Makeover - Parent's Bath #1

The construction at my parents house has begun!

I first told you all about our intentions to add a first story full bath to my parent' home here just in case you missed it and felt like catching up with me!

As I explained the other day, the home is in dire need of some updating as no updates have been done since the late 70's early 80's when a large family room edition was added on.  My father is very old school and very country so the home is what many would consider 'rustic'.  All throughout the home you will find some lovely good old 1970's paneling.  I am not a fan of it, especially the dark faux wood which makes the home feel dim and lifeless on a daily basis... even if the sun is shining bright.

(honestly, I apologize to any and all faux wood paneling lovers out there - I really do)

Honestly, I think the choice of wall covering was a half by choice back then and a bit by necessity. The aging of 100 year old lath and plaster walls is not a graceful process as it crumbles.

The first 2 days of construction were spent in the depths of the yucky basement working on piping.  (Growing up I thought everyone had basements with dirt floors like we did)

The paneling was removed in the corner where the shower and bathtub will go.  Check out that 40 year old wallpaper!  I can barely remember the walls like that as a young child but have seen it in photos.  One wall and the bathtub partition wall have been studded out at this time.

You can see the full glory of the rustic paneling above!  The small white hole is where the toilet will be placed in the near future.  Gotta love the Mommy, stuffing an old towel in the hole in fear her dog will fall in it.  The window will stay as well as the original radiator heat.  Progress has been a bit slow (at least my sister and I think so).

The men did not work much over this past weekend which drove the double K's cray zeee! Double K's are myself {Kimberly} and my sister {Karla}.  Saturday we got together and decided to try to tackle the floor.  Growing up with hardwood, we went through our phase of hating it.  Other people had beautiful lush wall to wall carpeting unlike us with our rustic wood floors.  Now as adults we are back to appreciating it's glory. 

I'm still blown away at the transformation of the floors in only a few hours!  Before, as seen in the above photo, the floor were very dull and worn.  We will be carpeting outside of the bath and kitchen per Mom & Dad's request but refinished the whole floor for future sake.  I am still amazed by the change.  I am so in love with the depth and texture a single coat of poly has made. 

I will be back soon with another update as the work began again last night!

Follow along and let me know what you think! 

Linking Up!

Tuesdays:

Tip toe thru Tuesday @ Crayon Freckles

Twice Owned Tuesday @ House of Grace

Tip Junkie's Tip me Tuesdays @ Tip Junkies

Tuesday Time Out @ Reasons to Skip the Housework

Extreme Home Makeover - The Parent Edition

I feel exhileratied today!

The sun is shining, the leaves are ablaze here in southern PA against the bluest sky I have ever seen!  Today is a perfect example of why I love love love Autumn!  I am actually feeling (cautiously) optomistic about life here in the Sminkey household today.  God is Good!

My sister (whom you will probably never see photographed here on the blog because she may kill me) and I have been shopping all day at a little store you all may know and love.  The Home Depot!   My Mom and Dad live in a very old 2 story twin home built, Oh, sometime in the year 1900, seriously.  It is in dire need of some major repair.   Since Mom has been home from her 3 1/2 week hospital stay in September, diagnosed with Atrial Fib, phneumonia, and a stroke, she is unable to take the steps up and down to use the only second floor bathroom.  That old house actually had no bathroom at all when it was built, just a lovely little outdoor out house.  Imagine that... ucky yucky!  So, the two of us have masterminded a plan to have a full bath built on the first floor for them and replacing the carpeting throughout that main floor!  They actually have beautiful original hardwood I hate like heck to cover up, but they insist it is too cold for them.

The two of us girls spent the day picking out everything from lumbar to bathtub, toilet to lighting, and oh one must not forget copper pipe, pre hung door, and screws.  It was an exhausting day, but we had a blast.  I know I sure did.   Our challenge was to keep the costs as low, low, low as possible!  We purchased and picked out every single thing one must need to build a bathroom from scratch.  We even purchased the paint and poly to seal the beautiful hard wood we will be utilizing for the bathroom floor.  Would you believe we were able to purchase everything for  the bath and preorder the new carpet and padding for under $2200?  Really!  Our saving grace is that both of our hubbies are pretty handy and a friend who is skilled with the plumbing and sewer work so labor costs are going to be pretty close to nill. 

I feel amazingly blessed to be able to help my parents with this.  I'm pretty excited to be able to share some of the progress with you all as well!  The men will be picking up our immense shopping order tonight and getting straight to work.  I'll be taking some photos to share with you on the progress, but I'm most excited about being able to get in there after contruction to paint and prettify the bathroom.

Austin's school is hosting a Monster Mash ball tomorrow night so we will be attending that, looking forward to some much needed fun with my kiddos.  He is going to be a demented clown!  That in itself scares me a bit, truth be told, but should be fun!