Sinks, Tub and Floors...

Greetings!

We made a major decision today about the main floor bathroom. Originally, we were going to take what used to be the bathroom and combine it with an old storage room to create a two-room bathroom 'suite' with a double-sink vanity and dressing area in one room and the walk-in marble shower, clawfoot tub and toilet in the other. Well, the K part of this team is rather creative and suggested we use just the old storage room as the bathroom, use an awesome antique pedestal sink we found yesterday on craigslist for $25 (!!!!) instead of a double-sink vanity, and get a shower conversion kit for the clawfoot tub instead of the separate walk-in shower and tub.  Then we will open up the doorway into the kitchen from the old bathroom that had been closed up at some point and borrow some of the space from the old bathroom for our master closet. This does a few things: gives us more space in our bedroom that would have been taken up by a closet and makes it so that we don't have to remove an original window between the master bedroom and the storage room (which will be the bathroom). I know this is hard to visualize so I will scan in a floorplan soon.

Here is our 5' tub, which we will sandblast on the outside and reglaze on the inside. We will also re-chrome the feet.

It's a lovely old thing and I love it! We paid a grand total of $100 for it. Yeah, baby!

We discovered this tub when we went to look at our kitchen sink -- enamel over stamped steel, vintage dual-basin drainboard sink!  This will be refinished too.

Truth be told, I *really* (when I say 'really,' I'm extremely serious, trust me) had my heart set on a traditional white farmhouse sink, like this one or this one or this.  K had even resigned himself to staying out of my way and told me to get whatever sink I wanted. I was tortured over this decision for days, but realized there was no way I could sleep at night knowing we spent $1,000+ for a stupid sink. The next morning I did a quick search on craigslist and there was this one for only $100. We'll probably pay that again for the refinishing but that's still a steal considering I've seen some almost exactly the same on the 'vintage' and 'salvage' websites that are so trendy right now for upwards of $1K in the same condition. No kidding.

The only little tiny issue I have with it is the faucet. This is the original faucet that goes with it, in two options -- with sprayer and without.

I'm sorry, but I think those are UGLY. No offense meant, they are just not my taste -- probably because they date to the 50s and 60s and I can safely say I'm not too much of a mid-century aesthetic kind of gal. As you can see, there are some funky holes after we took off the old faucet. Complicating matters is that the backsplash of the sink is not flat.

I'm not worried. We will work with it because the double drainboards are the bomb! Perfect for washing veggies from the garden!!!!  One option may be to put a pretty steel plate over that area and attach a faucet something along the lines of these.

Speaking of the garden, we are already getting the most delicious, sweet cucumbers!!!!

As if these two cool fixtures weren't enough, I fell in love with this adorable little guy, which we will use in the new powder room that we will add upstairs:

I am absolutely thrilled with this, and it cleaned up so well that we won't have it refinished. It has a lovely patina. We paid $30 for this. Crazy good deal! It does require non-mixing taps, but I don't plan to spend over $100 for them, so it's still an amazing find. You can't find this kind of uniqueness in a modern fixture. Look at the sweet shape of the bowl! I won't show you yet how cute it is all clean and spiffy...you'll have to wait!

I mentioned the pedestal sink we will use for the main bath downstairs that we bought from an awesome couple that live in an huge, restored brick house in New Albany. Interestingly enough, they looked at our house when it was for sale. Small world.

Here it is before I scrubbed it up:

We will have this one refinished so that we stop any further rust at the overflow. Again, another incredible find we think!

I'm sure you've had your fill by now with sinks, so on to the real work of the house. Yesterday and today was all about bolstering the floor. Kevin found a helper, Roger, who was kind enough to crawl under the house through the hole we had to cut in the living room floor. There was already a patch there, and it had to be done, so that's life. It did hurt me a little to think of cutting into it, but the first time I walked across the living room floor and it didn't rattle the windows, I got over it!

After that was done, the guys got busy working out the plumbing for the bathroom:

While the floor was up, they also worked on a soft spot in the kitchen floor. The old sink had been there and when it was installed, they drilled right through a floor joist with the drain! WHAT?! Who does this? As a result, the floor joist separated from the frame and the flooring is not attached to anything. Crazy.

While we were all standing there, I suggested we go ahead an open up the doorway that had probably been covered up since the 1950s, I'm guessing, based on the old plumbing fixtures.

Yucky old pink linoleum 'tile' in the 'before' view from the bathroom side:

The 'before' view from the kitchen side:

Ta-da! Now from the kitchen, you can see through to what will be the bathroom. We will build a pantry in the little pass-through.

Oh yeah, here is the old vent from the kitchen sink. It is copper. Must have been cheap back then!

Well, that's about it for tonight. We are going to look at tile for the bathroom floor tomorrow at The Tile Shop in Louisville. Nicole Curtis from Rehab Addict on the DIY Network recommended them to me, so it's worth checking out.  We purchased the two by fours to do the framing next in the closet/pantry area tonight because Kevin wants to get started with that tomorrow. And it's time to mow again, so it looks like tomorrow will be busy!

Ann out.