Where's the Advil??!!

I just spent the weekend at mom and dad's with Robin, Dave, and the girls. In August, Dave and I decided to rip out the carpet in dad's bathroom (okay...I decided to rip it out, but he helped...!). It was stained, and gross, and extremely UNPLEASANT to walk on...especially after getting out of the shower...!

So...this weekend, after making dad live with a REALLY gross "sub par sub floor" for five months (we also ripped off the tacky wallpaper to discover a REALLY awful orange and white striped paper underneath...which went REALLY well with the orange and white tile on the lower half of the wall), Dave and I tackled the "remodel".

Before we could put in a new sub floor (and by "we", I mean Dave...I'm COMPLETELY inept at "home repairs"...I was there in more of a "home repair guy's assistant" capacity), we had to level the old boards that were there, remove the toilet (and put down a new wax seal...AFTER scraping off the old one...don't ask...it was DISGUSTING...), THEN cut the plywood for the NEW sub floor, and screw it in place.

After spending a good deal of Saturday morning on that, we (and again, I mean Dave, although I did a big chunk of THIS part), had to pull off the old paneling (with the tacky striped paper on it). We were THRILLED to discover crumbling ugly plaster beneath this, and, again, more uneven "patch jobs" (I'm not sure WHAT they were thinking when they put in the medicine cabinet...it looks like they BLEW that part of the wall off with dynamite, shoved the cabinet in, THEN filled in the remaining holes with sticks from the yard, and mud...it was amazingly AWFUL).

After leveling, chiseling, smoothing, and hammering, we finally got it to the point of being able to put up NEW paneling. Dave measured the various walls, only to discover that none of them were "square". He did a BRILLIANT job cutting the paneling to fit the various "non square" walls, and by evening, we had the panels in place. Dave had to "mud" a couple of the corners to fill in some small gaps between the panels, and we then "wood glued" the finishing nail holes and imperfections in the panels.

After that, we reglued some of the border tiles that fell off (some breaking) back in place with some of the linoleum glue, made a "pattern" for the floor (pieces of tagboard taped together), taped the woodwork in preparation for painting, and called it a day. By this point, I'd had about FOUR Advil and a couple of glasses of wine. I also sat on the "massage and heating pad" I'd just brought mom for her birthday, and, to be honest, I think that's the only way I was able to get out of bed this morning!

Today, we primed the paneling, then when that dried, added a coat of taupe/gray paint on top of that. We cut the linoleum (using yesterday's pattern), and glued it down. Linoleum glue SUCKS, and rolling out the bubbles is NOT a good time...especially when we didn't HAVE a linoleum roller, and had to use a big wine bottle filled with sand!

We (and again, I mean Dave) hooked the toilet back up, and then loaded up the car, and headed back to the cities. Now...I'm sore, and tired, and NOT ready for tomorrow to be Monday, but AT LEAST dad has the beginnings of a "new" bathroom (there's still some trim to put back up, and a couple of other things to fix before it's finished). I'm sure he's THRILLED that he will no longer have to step from towel to towel (to avoid the black glue on top of the old sub floor), or look at that HIDEOUS striped paper.

Hope YOUR weekend was productive too!!!