When the husband’s away, the wife will…

build things, of course! Last weekend Tony and his brother drove up to South Dakota to say goodbye to a dear friend. Thankfully, we’ve now learned that Grandma Hocket is not in fact dying, and her grim prognosis from the doctor was perhaps just an infection. Who knows! We’re all extremely glad for the news, but nonetheless, Tony was away all last weekend.

Before he left Tony taught me to use another power tool! I’d proven to be rather adept with the miter saw, so it was time to learn to wield the nail gun. Those are the two tools I’d need to use to put up the baseboard and board and batten in the new bathroom. Tony and Dad had just about finished all their work up there (installing everything and mudding/sanding) so this is what I started with when Tony left:

It took nearly an hour just to wipe all that dust off the walls! Then it was time to prime the mudded parts of the wall and repaint everything with another two coats. The vanity got an update from a biscuit white to gray. Finally, then, I could put up the board and batten that I’d so been looking forward to doing! As usual, I did a lot of research on Pinterest before embarking on this project and took a lot of advice from this blog. Initially I thought I’d use 1x2s for the battens and 1x4s for the base and cap boards, but after seeing her post, and talking to Tony, we decided to use tall baseboard and chair rail instead. Going that way was more expensive, but not anything obscene, and it would tie in better with all the beautiful curves and details that are a part of each room in the house. That also meant we needed to use lattice cut wood, as she did in the blog above, so that it would be thin enough to match up nicely with the baseboard.

The first step was to level the baseboard and “shoot” it in. That required both my hands, and an occasional foot or knee, so I wasn’t able to get any photos. Mom helped me nail up the battens by holding the wood with both hands while I maneuvered it according to the ruler and level, then nailed it in. Again, all hands, and sometimes a knee, foot, or forehead, were required for these tasks, but here’s what we ended up with!
That afternoon Dad came over to help me tile the backsplash for the sink.

I’d never tiled before, so I knew nothing about using a wet saw to cut tile. To be honest, I didn’t really want to learn! There are some things that I feel it will be advantageous NOT to be able to do! : ) Dad did a great of putting everything up though, and my job was to use a toothpick to dig out the excess mortar that squeezed up between the tiles.

Now all I had to do was attach the top rail pieces, which were all painted and ready to go, caulk all the nail holes and add a final coat of white paint. Then our new bathroom would finally be done! There was one thing holding everything up though – a door. A good bathroom definitely has a door, wouldn’t you say? And that’s where we hit the road block. You see, we had the door ready to go. It was an old one that had been stored out in our shed. We don’t know where it came from in the house, but I was excited to use something original in our new room.

After Tony got home he spent hours the next day sanding the old door.

Isn’t he cute?! As you can see, this baby was in rough shape!

By the time I got home from work Tony was nearly finished sanding, and the door was feeling smooth and looking fabulous! I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to paint it anymore. People are paying a lot of money at antique stores for doors that look just like this one did.

Tony took the door upstairs so we could see how it would look. But it didn’t fit. It didn’t fit by like 4 inches. Apparently there was a little measurement issue? Thus, the roadblock. I couldn’t finish the board and batten because we couldn’t trim out the door, because it didn’t fit! So our almost beautiful bathroom has been in this same state all week. I don’t know if you can tell, but the mirror is still in its box.

Look on the bright side, Lindy. At least it’s all useable now! No more stumbling over piping to get to the shower, then going next door to wash your hands!

And I’ve since found the solution to the door problem too. The front bedroom has this little half closet whose use we cannot determine. It’s only about 6 inches deep, so clearly hanging a wardrobe in it will not work. Anyway, that door is the perfect size! So now I’m optimistic that the boys will be able to fit out that doorway and install the door so I can finish my trim next weekend. Hopefully I’ll have some real after photos to share very soon!