Sarah on Homes

After gathering some supplies this past week, I have begun my newest home improvement odyssey: the downstairs guest bathroom. Though small in size, there are few limits to its current ugly. Grey and purple tulip vinyl tiles cover the floor. The walls are painted a perfectly matched, yet extremely peculiar grey-lavender. The toilet is for munchkins and the sink springs by itself from the wall in a manner that says nothing louder than "institution." Observe:

I think it actually looks better on film than in person. Anyway, serviceable but ugly has come to an end with this year's tax return, which I'm putting toward this reno. I'm aiming for clean, classic and modern, which will hopefully add value for resale and be easy to clean. I want to spend less than $1,000 and make it look like $5k. I'm tiling the floor myself because I think I can do it and because I'm a cheap bastard. I've got a tiling book, the Internet, and a can-do attitude- what can go wrong? (don't answer that)

After some half-hearted and failed attempts to remove the quarter round and baseboards this past week, I bought a better pry tool, got out the big hammer and went to work this afternoon. I got it all out, but in a not-so-shocking turn of events, it was very difficult because the home's prior owners installed the baseboards first and then tiled over the existing tile layer, which meant the bottom of the baseboards were buried behind the tile. Also, someone sucked at hammering and some nails were bent and just painted over. Good times. For those of you who aren't aware, the home's prior owners seem to have cut corners on many things, like not taping anything when painting and not using primer. I don't blame them too much for tiling over the truly awful 1980 vinyl tile with the potential asbestos issues in old material. (btw asbestos is a powder containing evil fibers and can look like anything and you can't test for it yourself. awesome) Here's what went before, ugh:

Tulips are looking like an upgrade now, eh? So I managed to strip the whole floor tonight with the help of my trusty hairdryer (shout-out to my Tiling 1-2-3 book for suggesting it) to warm up the glue and help the floor scraper loosen it up. Then I went back to Home Depot to grab some adhesive remover for the subfloor and I bought myself a McFlurry for being a champ and doing all that hard work after doing battle in the front and rear gardens today too. I mixed and applied the stripper and have now paused to blog. I was also going to order my dream toilet online, but now the shipping is going to be an extra $100, which puts it above what I wanted to spend. Perhaps tomorrow I will go on a local toilet tour to find something I can live with that's already been shipped. I'm not loving what's at Lowe's or HD right now for this space.

More to follow from my very own episode of Holmes on Homes...without the competent crew. This is my crew of Holmes: