And so it begins. The long-planned redo of our bathrooms has begun. Over the past two weeks we have been slowly demolishing the spare bathroom (actually, it went pretty quickly, we just kept getting interrupted by, you know, work and life and stuff like that).

The cabinet and sink went quietly. The bathtub tile put up quite the fight. It turns out that back in 1985 they built things a bit differently than they do now. Underneath the tile was a layer of concrete and wire and it was really meant to stay put. Forever. Much whacking with sledgehammers ensued and much dust and rubble was created. We actually stopped at one point for two days and ordered goggles and air filter masks as we were coughing so badly (I also gave up trying to work in my Tevas – very poor shoe choice for a construction zone). At one point as I cleaned it up, I was reminded of photos of London after the Blitz – I felt like I had a glimpse of how they felt, faced with those mountains of rubble. We generated bags and bags of trash (and don’t get me started on the so-called “contractor clean up bags.” Oh, hah! Those dainty little bags as it happens, can’t handle much more than 50 lbs. And wire cuts through them pretty easily too (I discovered, halfway down the stairs as I was dragging one to the trash).

ANYway, yesterday we finally completed the demolition and are now ready to move on to the second stage: prepping the walls for new tile and paint.

Meanwhile, the spare bedroom has turned into Chuck’s man cave annex and is full of his tools and other manly equipment necessary to all home improvement projects. We also pulled up all of the carpet to prepare for the wood floor that will go in once the bathroom is done.

All of this meant that the furniture in the spare bedroom had to go somewhere. Which means that the third bedroom is now chock full  of stuff from the spare bedroom and the bathroom.

Pics of the fun are here. If you’re coming to visit in the near future, we can recommend some very nice hotels in the area. And since I think I failed to mention Chuck is doing this himself, that may be true for a while!

Oh, and as I mentioned, we’re trying to do this on a budget. Chuck estimates that so far it’s cost us about $200. So yay us!