Clean Slate

The tub's out, the toilet's still providing extra seating in the dining room (I'm not sure whether to be pleasantly surprised or find it hilarious that the cleaning ladies dusted it), but at least everything's painted:



Silent Bob likes the new Marmorette:



Beige. Just like her personality.

Bonfire of the Vanities

It's really too bad that Portland has one of those pesky no-burn restrictions, because good lord, would I love to torch this sucker and dance with abandon around the wild, flickering flames:





That ugly-ass POS motorscooter took me hours to remove, mainly because the man who installed it, bless his heart, attached it to the studs with 3" screws. My neck still hurts from wedging myself under that damn thing with an battery-operated screwdriver, which was thankfully designed with a light to illuminate your work. (Note to Stockholm: I'd like to officially nominate whoever came up with that little improvement for a Nobel Prize of some sort.)

Probably the worst part of this little endeavor (worse than the sore shoulders) is the aftermath:



This is what's fallen through the partially open bottom of the vanity over the fifteen or so years that it's been crouching in that spot. I have NO IDEA where that toilet brush came from, and that oversize Barbie futon is certainly not my brand of maxi-pad. Ew.

Even worse, though:



The p-trap, or whatever the hell that thing is called. It's hard to tell from the photo, but it looks like someone washed their irish wolfhound and then expressed its anal glands into that thing. Smells like it too. Canine anal juice and rotten eggs blenderized with dry cleaning fluid might be a better description of the stench.

Anyway, the grossest part is probably over. Next up on the agenda: moving the light fixture receptacle. Which is going to be a whole ton of fun with old plaster and lathe walls and wiring that dates back to the Eisenhower administration. Wish me luck.

Stop Me Before I Demo Again

The new bathroom's been done, what, a month now? And I'm already ripping apart the downstairs bathroom. I've sent the leprotic tub out to Stanley Avenue to be sandblasted, refinished and painted, and you can see where I couldn't paint the walls years ago when the tub was in the way:



Yeah, I know. The colors are kinda Kuntry Kutesy. I messed up on that one, I'll admit it, so I'm repainting. The walls are going to be repainted two-tone beige (darker above the chair rail). I'm also removing the old vinyl tile:





It comes up pretty easily when the subfloor is wet from the effort of disconnecting and removing the tub (oops), but gets a bit harder as you get further away from the water spill. This is where you quickly reacquaint yourself with Mr. Heat Gun, who has more than earned his keep in the five years since I paid $20 for his valuable services.

I have a target of getting the floor up, the toilet temporarily removed, the vanity demo'ed, the light fixture moved, the woodwork sanded, and the walls painted by Thursday when the linoleum installer is coming. And did I mention Michael's out of town? Pray for me.

New Construction

New rowhouses, almost completed near Alberta in NoPo:





Pretty cool, huh? Turns out my former coworker's husband is working on it. Nice to see more modern residential design on the east side.