January 11, 2011

Bathroom Progress (Hint, There Hasn't Been Any!)

No, really, not anything. Will and I went and stood in the bathroom for about ten minutes on Saturday and then, after watching the dog walk in circles a few times trying to figure out how to get out, we shut the door and went on to other things. Some time I'll tell you how many times I said "oh shit!" when I was putting in the tile floor. It was a lot. A LOT. And probably part of the reason it's been left undone for all these weeks. But now I'm past that and ready to get going again. Except we can't.
Here's the problem. And I'll admit straight away that it's all me. I want this sink. It's not even a specific sink, it's a specific kind of sink. I want an old fashioned, cast iron, slightly school bathroom looking hang-on-the-wall sink. Why? I don't know, I just do! I want something that I can paint the underside the same color as the wall so that the white of the beadboard and the sink and toilet and mirror frame and the tile are a little broken up. And now that the idea is in my head, well, I can't seem to let it go.

It's not that we can't find the sink either. We did find one. For $20 at the Habitat Store, which is a total deal considering the alternative is a pedestal which will run us closer to $100. The problem is that the sink is so freaking heavy. And Will is freaked out a little about trying to hang it up. Well, he's more freaked out about it falling down if we don't do it right. And I get that. But they wouldn't make wall mounted sinks if it weren't possible to install them, right?

So I've been doing a little research and it seems that we can put bracing between the studs where the sink will hang and then attach a bracket onto the bracing and all will be good. Yes? No. Because we have already hung the beadboard over the place where the bracing will need to be. So in order to have my sink we have to pull off that piece of beadboard, which Will is convinced will break necessitating a replacement sheet of beadboard. Now to my mind, this isn't so bad. For one thing, we can re-drill the holes for the pipes and do it a little neater this time since we were a tad off before. Plus it will give Will the chance to use both his NEW air compressor stapler thing AND his favorite tool, the Sawzall (did I ever tell you that I went for years thinking it was called a Za-Za? That Texas accent man, it's not there often but when it pops up I can hardly understand the guy! It wasn't until I saw the actual tool that I got it) So this should be a good thing. But anything that requires a return trip to Lowes bums us both out. And so we do nothing.

Our choices are to
a) suck it up and do what we really want to do (ok, what I really want to do) or
b) go with a pedestal sink which can be found down the road at the Habitat Store. Easy Peasy. Normally I like pedestal sinks the best, but for some reason I just don't want one in this case. Sigh.

In the meantime we can't caulk the seams or paint the beadboard or put the toilet back in because the piece of beadboard in question is kind of central to the bathroom. It's a stalemate folks. I'm on the verge of just going with the pedestal, which I'm sure will look nice and which we won't have to worry about when the kids are in there messing around in the water and hanging on the sink like monkeys. The only thing that keeps me convinced that we should go for the wall sink is that, during the kitchen renovation we waited for what we wanted (except for the faucet which we just bought and which I hate. SEE!) and we ended up with a kitchen we love. Now, I wont go so far to say that we will love a bathroom. I mean, it's a bathroom. Not even a bathroom, it's a powder room. It's so small the dog gets stuck in there. But I would like to have a bathroom that I don't walk into and think "humm, when we renovate this again...." because that would suck.

So, what do you think? Hold out or give in?