#Blame Lester – A Story in Photos

Posse – allow me to introduce … Lester.  It’s his fault I have a new bathroom.

Originally I’d planned to give Lester to my grandchildren but my son said “are you CRAZY?  They’re all under the age of 7! They wake up at 2am, wander into the bathroom…we’ll NEVER get them potty trained!”

so.  No Lester.  But I thought of him often… maybe too often…. so I bought him for myself.

But!  I couldn’t put him in the original manky bathroom.

Enter Monsieur Jacques’s beloved Auntie Mary (when she was around, I was demoted to The Help) – Mary alerted her husband (who is my fabulous Master Electrician as well as a fantabulous friend)… and, like a lot of guys, loves doing things Not At His Own House.

next thing I knew…

This ‘kid’ is the one who used to help me in the garden, when he was a regular little 10 year old boy.  Now… 16… 6’3″ and strong as an ox, he demolished the bathroom in 3 days!   Mary wanted ‘us’ to do it (and, to be fair, we did start)  but I ain’t ’bout that Life.  $150 well spent and he got to use his sawzall.  I helped tote the refuse.  W for ERRYBODY!

So.  Now What?  I have my demo (mostly) done, I have my electrician and plumber (nephew in-law) on standby…

Uh.  Oh!  Yeah.  Enter my beloved Cranky Contractor.  Originally he was slated to build my new porch but was sooo far behind… so I cut him a deal: move porch to this Spring and … ‘could you maybe just frame the bathroom walls?’

Uh. No.

“if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right.  This damb floor is like a roller coaster!!!”

Aye-aye, Cap’n Cranky, SIR!  So they gutted down to the dirt (one half of my house has a basement, the other is, literally, ON DIRT!  O, the humanity!).  Reframed the entire thing.

Plumber in-law comes, runs all new plumbing (Tim had the brilliant idea to move all the plumbing to one wall.  I do love brilliance – it never occurred to me that it was even an option!  I just wanted to take a shower in that bathroom)

 

Manky tub (with the backed-up plumbing) is out!  New shower base is in.

 

Electrical in-law comes (hey, Autie Mary was Monsieur’s WOMAN! so we’re now family)

I do the insulation and O, the humanity.  I was ready for the Medal of Honor for getting through that (I didn’t used to be such a diva.  I think I’m aging into it beautifully, though, don’t you?)

I do tile.  Sort of.  Mostly okay but a few boo-boos*

Cranky Contractor comes back, closes off the original public door (it’s now a legit ensuite), puts up drywall, strongarms me into hiring the local mudder/taper (ain’t mad at him for that), I paint (another Medal of Honor, please).  Cranky Contractor says ‘you missed a spot’.  I do not hit him with something hard.  Honestly!  At this point I should be awash in medals.

Cranky comes back AGAIN ( I suggest he might just want to fill out a Change of Address form – he just…looks at me… (apparently humor isn’t my strong suit.  Neither is tiling.)  *He fixes all my tiling boo-boos with his boo-boo stick, puts up the crown moulding.. Hates me only a leeetle bit more than he did the week before.  I see the crown moulding and the fixed boo-boos.  I cry, it’s that gorgeous.  So now he hates me a little bit less.

Electrical Happens.  Tim is a genius electrician – and his only request is ‘get out of the bathroom and go make dinner.’  I ain’t mad at that, either! That?  That I know how to do!)  He (with Mary’s help) installs the elebenty billion outlets and lights… and my beeeeYOUteeful chandelier.  I cry.

I cry a lot!

But wouldn’t you?  It’s the most gorgeous bathroom EVAH!

And I really do wash the floors with scented body wash!  Ain’t NOBODY using no icky cleaner on my ‘luxury vinyl’ floor that I’m still kind of afraid to walk on (with my cloven hooves?  Shrug emoji for sure on that one).  And peeing at 2a takes just a tad longer, since I tend to just sit there, ogle the chandelier and rub Lester’s nose-bone, saying

“thank you”