No, not that kind of excitement. Get your mind out of the gutter!
Let me first say that the pictures in this post are absolutely awful. Hopefully one of these days it will stop raining (I feel like it has rained every single day for a month…and I don’t think that’s much of an exaggeration.) When it does, I will take the good camera over and get a whole bunch of good ones! For now, please forgive the very poor lighting and picture quality.
Ok, back to the story. Yesterday was a fun day–I had to work (ok, that part wasn’t all that fun), but I got off a little early and came home to meet my brother and his girlfriend. They haven’t seen the house yet, so I was super excited to show them and spend some time giving a “tour.” When we got to the house, I got even more excited when I saw that all three bathrooms had major changes.
1. Downstairs bathroom- This is the bathroom with the green tub and sink, and the window covered by the tile shower. Well, at least the last one isn’t true anymore. Here’s the before and after.
We will finish it off with some privacy glass and subway tile. It’s a huge difference! But I definitely had to let the green tub know that his days are still numbered.
2. Upstairs hall bathroom- Remember this “after thought” bathroom? The one with the 2′ x 2′ shower that pretty much blocked all access to the attic? Yeah…it’s gone! We decided to leave the toilet and sink so that we have an extra half bath for our guests (until we do our master bathroom…then it’s got to go!). But I hated that shower even more than the green tub, so it is outta there.
3. Upstairs back bathroom- this was the biggie! This is the bathroom that will eventually be a guest bathroom, but will serve as our master bathroom until we convert the old kitchenette into our master bathroom. This one was even more cramped than the hall bathroom! And it had an exterior door. Why you need an exterior door in the bathroom I will never understand. Here it is before:
And here it is now:
Who knew that that room could be so much bigger?! We can work with this. Here’s the view of that door from the outside now:
And if having major changes in all three bathrooms wasn’t enough for the day, they also opened up our two covered fireplaces! Here they are before (in the office and master bedroom, respectively):
And here they are now:
Certainly not pretty, but with some paint and simple tile, they’ll spiff right up! So all in all, yesterday was a day of good news (with the exception of the weather forecast). And today is FRIDAY!! Have a good weekend! :)
Hi…visiting from Better After.
The reason you have(had) an exterior door in that bathroom is because that bathroom originally wasn’t a bathroom :-) In a house of that age (1902) it’s very likely originally the room was either a servant entrance of sorts, or more possibly a mudroom type of entrance. Judging by the fixtures (sink especially) my educated guess is that this bathroom was installed somewhere around the 1930’s or 40’s. They didn’t need an exterior door but it was easier to leave it rather than remove or board it up.
Old houses often have very interesting “why did they do that?” in them :-) I was in a 1901 house with a two-way swinging door into the main floor bathroom. The realtor was befuddled until I told her originally that room had been a butler’s panty into the dining room. (With a swinging door the butler could easily come in and out with full hands.) But again rather than remove the door, it was easier just to put a lock on the newly ‘constructed’ bathroom side for privacy.
Enjoy the quirks of your home! Would love to see it in person when it’s completed :-)
Thanks for stopping by and contributing, Connie! It’s nice to have a pro’s input! Your thoughts about the bathroom door make a lot of sense, but we actually have the original plans to the house that show that this exact layout was there. I believe the corner sink did come later though. We were pretty shocked to learn that the house originally had 2 bathrooms–unheard of in 1902! But because the first owner was also the builder, he wanted an extra bathroom upstairs.
We are definitely finding lots of treasures in the house, and I’m sure we’ll learn of lots more! :)
Oh how exciting to have the original plans! Wow, that’s a bonus. And I stand corrected about the bathroom ;-) The builder clearly wanted the best for his family even back in 1902. Well ya just never know what fun things will turn up in older homes.
I’ve wanted an historic homes for decades. We looked for over a year before we finally gave up our search. Everything in our area had major things redone (i.e. plumbing, electrical, etc.) thus pricing it out of our comfort level or nothing was done thus making our DIY skills and budget too limited. In the end we moved from our 1955 well-built but small home to a bigger 1961 home that isn’t quite as well-built but does have it’s nice features. Like anything else in life, it was sort of a trade off. But we’re happy and making it ours each year we live here (just a little over 2 years so far).
Once again, very excited for you and your home adventures :-)
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