Spackling - my new favorite hobby

I don't know what my problem is.  I had it in my head that spackling is only for the pros.  That I should hire a handyman to do these tiny little jobs.  I was wrong big time.  Spackling is so easy!   In fact, I love spacking - it's my new favorite hobby :-)  Part of the reason I thought spacking was hard is because we have several of these ugly little spots around the house (this one from the kids' bathroom).

I don't mean to knock Glenn's efforts since he definitely gave it the old college try.  Part of the reason his spackle jobs are a little homely I think, is because spackling requires patience and we're usually running around with a million things to do and not enough time in the day.  Just for fun, here's a close up of the spot in black and white - it's looks very arty?

Since we wanted to paint the kids' bathroom, I needed to take care of this blemish first.  I got some fresh spackle at Lowe's and a new sanding sponge.  

I wasn't paying much attention when I bought the spackle, so when I opened the jar up, I was surprised with pepto bismol pink colored putty.  It dries white so you know when your patch work is ready for sanding and painting - very clever!

Here's spackle trick from Glenn:  a credit card (or in my case an old unloaded gift card) works just as well as a putty knife for applying spackle (they're also easier to find around the house :-).

Apply spackle, dry, sand and you're ready to paint.

Glenn and I have a new deal now:  I take care of the spackling and he vacuums all the dust!  That's a great deal for us since I hate to clean up and Glenn is Felix from the odd couple.  Come to think of it I'm a little like Oscar.  We make a great team :-)

Purple Rain (or how I painted the kids' bathroom)

Since the weather hasn't been cooperating, we've been focusing in indoor projects.  I decided to spend our kid free Friday night painting the kids' bathroom (I'm easily entertained). 

The bathroom is pretty standard - tub, toilet, vanity, and mirror and it's sorely in need of a paint job.  After several years, the walls are scuffed and it's looking a little dingy.  Although I think the fake vampire teeth are a nice decorating touch.

I'm especially excited to try out our new paintbrush.  I don't have a picture of the new (aka clean) brush but here's the wrapper in case anyone is curious about which brush we used.  That's our furry toilet cover in the background.  It works pretty well for a photo back drop, doesn't it?

I've never in my life spent $14 on a paint brush and honestly I was a little shocked at the price at Duron.  Lowe's also sells the same brush at about the same price.  Turns out the brush is worth it though.  It made all the edging and detail work easier and the lines came out clean.  Since the most labor intensive part of painting is the edging and painting a bathroom is primarily an edging job, $14 seems worth it.

We decided on a light purple color called Rhapsody Lilac to match the shower curtain.  Seems like paint always looks darker on the wall than on the small swatch but we were very happy with the finished product.  The color complemented both the shower curtain and the print from Etsy nicely! 

My other favorite part of painting was watching Six Feet Under on DVD.  I'm happiest when multitasking and since the bathroom is small, I was able to leave the laptop on the floor as I worked my way around the bathroom.  My next project?  The powder room in Palm Breeze and Eat Pray Love with Julia Roberts (total chick flick that Glenn would never watch)!

All you need is a good plumber

We have a good plumber. A plumber who we trust, is very competent and reasonably priced. As a bonus he's a huge Giants fan too (makes DH happy). Unlike the electrician where we got three quotes and interviewed them, we committed to our trusty plumber's quote right away. We set a date and he starts the work.

Everything is moving along nicely when our trusty plumber points out that the toilet flange is a little far from the wall so either we have to special order a 14" rough in toilet or move the flange to make up for a 2" gap. We have some time to think about it which launches me into some late night searches for 14" rough in toilets. We decide that it might be a good idea to check out all the other toilets in the house and find that our other full bath upstairs also has a 2" gap from the back of the toilet to the wall. We've lived in our home for seven years and it's never bothered us so we decide to bag both ideas and go with a regular 12" rough in toilet.

Trusty plumber comes back to do the work and has another discovery (uh oh). Remember how the builder had to reconfigure the bathroom rough ins? Well, during our home inspection, we should have lifted the toilet flange cover because it turns out our builder took a short cut and installed an offset flange which isn't to code in our county. We had no idea what an offset flange was so I quickly googled it. Because the flange is offset, the toilet outflow can be impeded leading to clogs (yuck!). They're also apparently not to code in most places so it's interesting that they still make these. If the builder hadn't used an offset flange, then the toilet would be 4" from the wall which is a lot more obvious than 2".

So we're back to two options - we can either hope that the inspector doesn't notice our offset flange since the flange has a little plastic cover on it (and he didn't notice it the first time around even with the metal ring around it) or fix it for $200 more which involves breaking up the concrete again! We like to do things above board and proper to save headaches down the road and after visions of a backed up toilet zoomed through my head, we decide it's worth the $200 to fix it properly.

So the concrete floor gets broken up for a second time to move the toilet flange. One benefit of doing this is that we now correct the location once and for all so that we won't have a 2" gap. Our trusty plumber re-pours the concrete (see the wet concrete around the flange?) and the problem is solved! Yeah!







 

Details, details, details

The basement came with the bathroom roughed in. This was great and saved us a lot of money but in hindsight, we should have paid a lot more attention to the placement of the rough ins. When we did our home inspection prior to closing, our inspector pointed out that the location of the toilet flange was way off from the tub and sink so the builder moved the toilet flange on his dime which included breaking up the concrete floor.

Fast forward seven years later when we actually start doing the detailed measurements to finish the bathroom...Turns out that the bathroom is a little on the small side and while not preferable, is certainly livable since we have room for a full tub. Uncle Steve frames out the bathroom nicely.

Another nice thing about having Uncle Steve do the framing is that he lives with us during the work. So every night when we ate dinner together, we could talk about how the project was going and things we needed to be aware of. For example, because the bathroom is on the smallish size, the max vanity size would be 30" wide. We didn't want to have everything feel tight and cramped so we decide on a pedestal sink and also the matching toilet from the Kohler Memoirs collection. I will update this post with our sources shortly since I've seen a few other blogs do that too and it's a great idea!

We decided on a porcelain coated bathtub because it's more white in color than the fiberglass models and it also seems more sturdy. DH and I debate about the type of fixtures for the shower and sink. He wants brushed nickel and I want polished chrome. I realize that we should probably never build our own home from scratch because it takes us forever to agree on details like this. I eventually come around to the brushed nickel and we pick the fixtures.

With the fixtures purchased, all we need now is a good plumber!