Bye Bye Bathroom

Yesterday Nabil and I decided to spend some quality time together, ripping things apart. I was working hard to get premium carpet gripper up off the floors around the master bedroom and taping down thick brown paper to protect our original pine floors, while Nabil was busy gutting the bathroom.

Below are some pictures of the old master bathroom. The floor is dipping big time in corner to the left of the sink. We are planning on tearing out a wall on the other side of the shower, to extend the bathroom a little more into what is now a small closet. So, the bathroom won't get any wider, but it will extend another 5 feet, roughly, making room for an additional sink and a nice walk in shower.

It may be hard to see, but that is a strip of crazy floral wallpaper that was underneath layers of drywall and newer ugly wallpaper. And check out the wall underneath the drywall, they don't make 'em like that anymore. There will be more pictures of the gutted bathroom to come, as we continue ripping it apart.

Nabil and I were laughing yesterday, because people always ask how the house is coming along, and we always say that it's coming along, and it is. But it's funny because truth is that every time we leave, it's a little bit worse than it was before. But, I guess it has to keep getting worse before it can better.

Some "Before" Pictures

The Beginning

This will be a way to record the story of our house. After months of looking, then months of waiting, Vickery is now a reality. I remember the first day we drove by it. We stopped outside, windows rolled down, Nabil asked me what I thought about it. I said that "it could be a charmer." It certainly needs a lot of love to get it there though. And here we are, five months later. The journey has only begun.

So let me tell you a little bit about our charmer. The previous owner had five large dogs. Those dogs ate parts of the house and the blinds, their hair was everywhere, and the house still smells like them. When Nabil got the keys, he immediately went over to board up a window in the back, we are sure there was someone living in it, and it wasn't the owner. This charmer had been vacant for nearly six months. The weeds in the back yard were four feet tall, and hidden in them was so much trash. A torn up hula hoop was hanging on the light just outside the back door, I wish I had a picture of that, it was something out of a horror movie. Squirrels live in the attic, we found a dried up dead one on the front porch the first day we walked through with the realtor.

Nabil has been working so hard. Now that I am out of school for the summer, I intend to be there with him. He cleaned up the yard, ripped out a hideous tree that was blocking half of the front of the house. Just yesterday, I was his assistant as he finished tearing out the deck in the back yard. All of that wood has been saved so that it can eventually be turned into a chicken coop and a compost bin. (Yes, a chicken coop that will house actual chickens, that will lay actual eggs, that I will one day use to bake you an actual cake.)

I will post some pictures soon. You surely won't see what we do when we walk through it, at least not yet. But you will one of these days, one room at a time. We have big hopes for this messy little house. It has a large yard, where we can't wait to dig our fingers into the dirt and create a beautiful garden. It has lots of windows that will one day let so much light in. I'm dreaming of the day when we sit on that large front porch with a glass of wine. Dinner parties around the table in an actual dining room, cooking together in the kitchen, and mud room, can you believe it!? A mud room!

So that's it for now. Pictures to come soon, and regular reports on our journey to reveal the charm that is the Vickery House.