Nom de Plume

Girouard describes the changing social history of England through its architecture. This sounds like a dull reference book–indeed, I thought it would be one–but Life in the English Country House was, instead, really quite fascinating. He covers the shifting balance of public vs. private lives and living spaces, the changing role of servants, the role of nature in architecture, and lots, lots more. And he does this all with detailed descriptions and lavish illustrations of house after house. He also talks about the nitty gritty too, like plumbing and bathrooms. For anyone interested in history or architecture, this is a reference well worth putting on your shelf.

Two weeks ago
It’s about two in the afternoon. Steve calls. “For my company Christmas party, do you want steak or salmon?”

“When is it?”

“I’m not sure. Which do you want?”

“I don’t care,” I say, running through my schedule in head. “Can you forward me the e-mail?”

“We’ll get one of each then.”

“Forward me the e-mail.”

“Okay.”

Later that night
We’re sitting in the hot tub. All of a sudden, Steve says, “For the company christmas party? I put you down for the salmon. I’ll get the steak.”

“Okay. When is it?”

“Oh, like the week before Christmas.”

“Can you find out and tell me?”

“Sure.”

“Just forward me the e-mail.”

“Okay.”

A week ago
It strikes me that I might have to go get a dress or something for his party. Which reminds me, I still have no idea when the party is. I call him and ask when it is.

“It’s the 14th. That night.”

I pull open that darn ubiquitous thing — my Outlook calendar. “That’s a Thursday,” I say.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“Okay, I’ll mark it.” We hang up. I note it on my Outlook calendar, and also on the wall calendar in the kitchen.

Three days ago
Laura is here visiting from Bellingham. I have just spent $400 dollars on vintage chairs. The lines are great, and match the couch perfectly. Alas, the blue is far brighter than I thought. I am irritated. (Granted, a normal state of being.) Steve says, “Oh, by the way, it’s formal. I have to wear a suit. It’s at some place called the Woodmark Hotel.”

Great, I think. I need to go shopping. Both last week and this week have been crazy busy with work. But it’s Thursday, so I have time. Maybe Wednesday night. I have a meeting on the east side at three. That should work. I can do the shopping over there and miss traffic. Plans unfurl in my head.

But it’s Steve, so I doublecheck anyway. “It’s next Thursday, right?”

“Yep. At 6.”

I am pleased. I have managed to pin Steve down. He has given me all the information I need. Thursday. 6. Kirkland. Formal. YAY! Or as YAY as a company Christmas party can be.

One hour ago
The phone rings. It’s Steve. “My party? I made a mistake. It’s Wednesday, not Thursday.”

I won’t be able to make it home in time, so am going to have to change over there in some bathroom on the Microsoft campus. Then, squander an hour and a half.

“I am going to kill you,” I say.

“But I’m so cute and adorable!”

Still have to seal the floors. Now who knows when we’ll get around to the tub portion? BTW, that’s the royal we, meaning Steve.

And just for reference, this is what the bathroom looked like when we moved in. As you can see, we busted out the stuff covering the window (which Steve reinstalled) and got rid of the jog in the wall to frame the tub.

The front half is almost done. We still need to rip out the old tub, lay new tile, install the new (to us) clawfoot, and put in new drywall.

It’ll be a while. But hey, I can live with that.

So the plan is to tile up to the bath tub, put up trim, reinstall the toilet and the sink, and then go on vacation. After vacation, we’re dealing with the tub side of the equation.

Steve put down subflooring and measured out the tile. I cut out the black tiles and laid out the pattern.

This is what it loooks like with all the white tiles removed.

Today, Steve was going to take out the toilet and start laying the tile. It is not going according to plan. Every half hour or so, he bellows expletives while I rush over and say, “What?! What?!” and the dog scoots under the dining room table as fast as his short little legs will carry him.

First, he discovered that someone had cut out an entire section of the beam below the toilet. There was no support at all. Apparently, the give would make the tile crack; it needed to be replaced.

So off to McClendon’s he went to get a joist and down into the basement he hauled it. There are pipes right underneath where it was supposed to go, which meant it didn’t fit. He managed to plane down two inches at the edge of each side, and hammer it into place. Abd of course, a regular hammer wasn’t big enough, so he used his antique railroad hammer.

Actually, it worked really well. Five hefty swings on each side and the board was in.

He had just started to take out the toilet when I went to the library ($31.10 in overdue fines, thank you very much). When I came back, the dog was back under the dining room table. Turns out the wood under the toilet is rotten and needs to be replaced.

To be continued …

Steve is taking a two month sabbatical from work, and is dedicating himself to projects around the house. The problem is that he’s much more excited about destroying than rebuilding.

Case in point: He’s rebuilding the deck, starting today.

Never mind that this is what the bathroom looks like.

I should say that he did install the window in the bathroom. And that he replaced the garbage disposal in the kitchen yesterday. (For the past year, the sink hasn’t drained without using a toilet plunger.) I won’t mention that the cold water tap doesn’t work in the kitchen sink now because I’m too grateful that we have more sources of running water than the bathtub.

And I should also say that I’m encouraging him in his “never finish anything” ways. After I got home from the vet (Harry now has LIP WARTS, how disgusting is THAT?), I walked out on the deck to see what he was doing. There was a big hole. “We should put in a sunken hot tub,” I said idly.

Steve said nothing for three seconds, and I thought he was going to point out that our bathroom is in shambles and the last thing we need is another project. But when he spoke he said, “You’re right … ” and his eyes began to glow with that maniacal fervor I know so well.

This time we mean it. Here we go …

Steve cut this bit out months ago to see if we could get rid of the jog in the wall.

More …

All gone!

This mold is DISGUSTING. We put on masks and gloves, and carried it out as quickly as possible.

The original window area reappears.

Steve realizes that even though we have the new window, he doesn’t have the right tools here to install it. That’s okay; he’s shirtless and his muscles are flexing.

And now it’s like bathing in a Roman ruin. Except that they didn’t have plastic sheeting. Or blue bathtubs.

We were going to start on the floors tomorrow, but Steve realized that he needs to start taking the boat up to yet another race at 5 in the morning — not 5 in the evening as he had originally thought.

When we first moved into this house, I posted pictures of what it looked like (complete with the belongings on the previous tenants). I thought it would be kind of fun to juxtapose what it looked like then and what it looks like today — though I am shamelessly NOT putting up pictures of the kitchen and bathroom.

We have a very haphazard approach to renovation. For instance, the kitchen floors are done (as of more than a year ago), but we have done nothing with the cabinets. Steve picked up spares from the last condo job he was on, and they’re sitting in the garage. But he has since decided not to use them because they’re odd sizes.

The bathroom is no different. We have a new sink — but the horrible blue tub and toilet are still there. At first, Steve said we would tile up to the tub, replacing the toilet and cabinet. Then we would replace the tub. I just said okay because first of all, what do I know about doing this stuff and second, it’s always just best to go along with it. Two weeks ago, he informed me that this was a backwards approach — we should start by replacing the tub and reinserting the window that was removed and covered with the awful plastic shower liner. One of his contractors gave him a freebie window … and my task today is to look for a tub.

Funny, because he’s off sailing.

So that’s what I’m doing.

Steve was totally depressed coming back to our house after staying at Geoff and Michael’s place while the floor was redone. Part of that is due to the fact that their bedroom is the same size as our living room and the other reason is that their bathroom is utterly gorgeous. Needless to say, they don’t have a blue tub and toilet.

So I hopped onto Craig’s List and found a clawfoot tub in good condition for a pretty good price. The problem? It’s 62 inches, and there’s a jog in the wall by the tub that renders it too short. Steve was resistant. But he still carved a hole in the drywall to see what was behind it. There’s nothing. Which I guess galvanized him to action. He just called to tell me he’s found a guy on his site who will tile for us. And we’re going out to see the tub tonight.

And of course, he will eventually say the whole thing was his idea …