Keepin' it Rural: Bathroom

Another week has flown by. We have already completed three weeks of school. I have 47 ungraded papers in my bag to show for it. The week has been good, bad, and ugly. I think we are both struggling with our new and shifting roles as full-time teacher and stay-at-home domestic diva. I come home exhausted and needing to veg. Rhonda has been at home all day dealing with a range of projects from painting the bathroom to mowing the acreage to baking bread and feeding the masses (on a tight budget). I want to be helpful but am, at times, lazy. Rhonda feels overwhelmed with the amount there is to do in this old, needin'-updating house.

And there are the good things. I have funny stories to share about my crazy students. I have good teaching days where I feel inspired. Rhonda finds moments of relaxation in the woods. She has made several killer loaves of bread and new dishes (beet risotto!) that bring inspiration and good eating into our day.

One success in our week is that we finally finished the bathroom. It took so much longer than we thought, in part because of the surprises: the bathroom fan that David and Rhonda installed took several days to cut through the walls, wire the ceiling, etc. The wallpaper was a pain in the arse to get off. The walls underneath were damaged. There was drywall repair and paint consultations. Lights and fixtures were ordered online. We re-fabbed the sink and installed our own, new faucet. And then there was the shower curtain: we found the ideal shower curtain more than a month ago. But every Target in the midwest was out of it. We made lots of phone calls. We tracked it down.

Today we put the final touch on our new and improved bathroom. We found this enormous, heavy mirror at TJ Maxx for a super-clearance price of 5 bucks. It weighs at least 25 pounds and required hours of retrofitting to make it secure. We used a stud finder to locate the right mounting location only to find out that the studs stop halfway up the wall (WHY? WHY, I implore you?). After all of the effort that we put into this tiny bathroom, it was the mirror that brought us to the edge of our collective sanity. However, we persevered and jerry-rigged and alas, we have a centered, secure, level mirror. And a fully-functional bathroom. This is a huge luxury after weeks of having to pee under a ladder (in the mid-painted bathroom, not outside) and showering in the basement's farmer's shower. The end product is quite lovely. It is a space that feels clean and simple. It is pretty hard to capture the room well -- it is small and bare which doesn't necessarily lend itself to photography. However, here are some before and after pics:

Wall and light fixtures: Old = stripey wallpaper and globe lamp