The Before and After

So the great remodel of 2011 happened a few weeks ago.  Up until the end of December, we had our house up on the market for about 7 months.  We had a great response from people.  They all loved the space.  They all loved the location.  They all loved the layout.  They all loved the price.  They didn't love this.  The huge bathroom with no shower.  If you can't tell from this picture, this is the wall separating a pink, yes pink tub from the also pink toilet.  (Sidenote:  Why they did colored tubs in the 60's and 70's I don't know). 

Seriously, I mean why not put a shower in the MAIN bathroom in the house??!!  The other bathroom we have is a small one with a stand up shower off the laundry room.  A farmer built the house in the 60's and thought, "I'll put the shower room in a place where I can dump my clothes in the laundry room and go shower without messing up the house."  Great concept, dumb thought not to go ahead and install a shower in the main bathroom.  Anyway...getting off my soapbox, this was the main reason that people wouldn't buy our home.  Totally understandable since the kitchen and bathroom are home sellers. 

So, we pulled it off the market at the end of the year and Darin took on the project of installing a shower.  He did it...despite problem after problem popping up, he did it.

See his original plan (hope) was to take the top layer of tile and take it off without damaging the rest of the tile...because as you can see, tiles that are quite unique and could probably never be matched (they have small gold specks inside) surround the bathroom and that's certainly a project he didn't want to take on.  Ideally, there would have been a 2x4 board underneath that top layer of tile. From that, he could have easily had a support to build a wall on top of, and could have easily extended the pipe up through that board into the new wall.  Not the case, however.  Nope...instead of a board being under there, there was concrete.  Two inches of it. So scratch that plan...the tile still sits where it was and a new wall is fitting snuggly on top of it fastened to the walls and ceiling.  That was just one of the many problems that arose during this little project. 

But it's done now.  The wall is up.  The shower is installed.  The shower board put up.  The room repainted.  And all for about $400.

We even got the kids "involved".  This is about the extent of what they did.  They each just "painted" a little section, but they were so proud.  Look at this face!  So proud of himself!

 And this is the final result.  A SHOWER!!!!!  Wahoo!

The chocolate brown was about the only color that would have blended well with the pink.  I wanted something different than the green that was there...though that looked good with the pink, I wanted something more modern looking. 

So there ya have it.  The great remodel of 2011, thanks to Darin and some borrowed tools and moral support of a few of his buddies.  The plan now is to put the house back up on the market in March and hope that it sells quickly.  I think it will since that was just about the only complaint we ever had.  Cross your fingers!