By Ken Lass
We had our Trussville home built in 1989. Over the course of the last 35 years, we have remodeled, repainted or repurposed the living room, kitchen, bedroom, back porch and basement. But never the bathrooms. I’m not sure why. I guess as long as I had a place to shower, a mirror for combing my hair, and a drawer for my toothbrush, I was happy.
Ken Lass, Tribune columnist
But one day this past summer Sharon and I took a moment to take a good look at our bathrooms, and we realized they had become basically a museum for 1980’s fashion. There was wallpaper with little red tulips, popcorn ceilings, seashell sinks with silver faucets, cherry oak cabinets with gold handles, wide-beveled mirrors, and yellow tile cut in small squares. All that was missing was a Rubik’s Cube and a Cabbage Patch doll.
It was time. Time to bring our bathrooms into the current millennium. The first step was to find someone to do the project and get estimates. This is not for those with a weak heart. Like everything else these days, the sticker shock will give you indigestion. I so admire folks who are talented enough to do their own remodeling. Sadly, that is not me. I have to consult the manual to change a light bulb. We settled on a contractor that had been highly recommended by friends.
Then it was time to make decisions. Lots and lots of decisions. We had to make choices about floor tile, shower tile, grout colors, shower door, countertops, faucets, cabinet color, cabinet handles, air vents, ceiling fans, wall color, mirrors, light fixtures and much more. I had to ponder things I never gave any thought to. Like where to install the towel bar, how high to put the shower spout, do I want the niche in the shower wall to be in the middle or toward the back? Do I want the shower door to swing to the inside or to the outside? Or both?
I even had to decide whether the toilet paper holder should be to the right or to the left of the commode. I think I gave more thought to this than any other decision. After agonizing over the options, I chose the left side. Which struck me as odd. Turns out, even though I am right-handed, I’m a left-handed toilet user. (Yes, I know. Too much information.)
With all these things to contemplate, I became obsessed with modern bathroom design. I scoured the internet for pictures of remodel options. Whenever I was in somebody else’s house, I would make up an excuse to use the bathroom, and then spend several minutes in there taking notes and studying their layout. Probably why I don’t get invited anywhere anymore. I went to the big box stores and pored over faucets and shower nozzles. After a while, they all started to look alike. I also learned you can put a kid through college for the cost of nice lighting and fixtures. Wall color? Of course, the trend is NEUTRAL! God forbid you go with anything that has character or definition. If your bathroom walls are not white or beige or gray, you could face public humiliation.
Somehow, we got through all the selecting and it was time for the work to begin. First the demolition crew shows up to tear down the existing room. It’s a bit of a shock to see how nasty your bathroom has become when it is stripped down to wallboard and insulation after 35 years. Water may be necessary to sustain human life, but over time it sure is rough on bathrooms. I confess I got a little nostalgic when I saw our old bathtub and toilets piled up on the refuse trailer in the driveway. I spent a lot of time on those facilities. That’s not weird, is it? I can’t help it. I’m a sentimental type.
After about a month of listening to hammers pounding and drills whirring, and watching a steady parade of hard-working, gritty men walk in and out of the house carrying furniture and tools and giant vacuum cleaners, at last the work was done. I swallowed hard as I wrote the final check. But I must say, our new bathrooms are beautiful. In fact, they are too beautiful. They look so good and shiny and new, that I don’t want to use them. I hate to mess them up with soap scum and water spots. I find myself using the bathroom downstairs.
I suppose eventually I will become more comfortable using our spiffy new bathrooms, but it’s gonna take me a while. After all, we have to get another 35 years out of them.
