We are 7 months away from paying for one less child in day care. And we just got our first pay check with the additional 2 percent retirement systems contribution removed. So, in this year of financial hardship, it makes perfect sense that things would start falling apart. And for some reason, I could feel it happening. It's as if I could sense that the walls would start caving in around me. Luckily, our walls aren't actually caving in. But we are about to have to knock out all of our bathroom walls, get the pipes up to snuff, then build it all back again. Lately, I have been laying in bed thinking about how we could manage completely redoing our bathrooms. And it seems that the gods of homeownership were listening and have answered - we will be FORCED into completely redoing our bathrooms. That's how.
This all started as a drain issue. We called a plumber and gave him a list of concerns - this drain is slow, this faucet is leaking, this toilet keeps running, etc...... This is what became of the first sink he approached. It turned out the drain pipe behind the tile was lead. While that was a wonderful option when the house was built (easily bent), it is now proving to be a terrible choice because it is crumbling and deteriorating. The pipe here was littered with holes. Our plumber started out thinking he would only have to remove 1 or 2 tiles. 15 tiles later, we are busy preparing a bathroom budget.
The plan is to completely rip out the walls, put up new dry wall, install new electrical options, retile the shower stall, replace the sink, and pour concrete floors. When it is done it will be spectacular. We have a dry wall guy coming to check out the situation on Tuesday. Hopefully I will have a new bathroom for Christmas.
The New Year will bring the gift of redoing the other bathroom.....because when you find crumbling lead drain pipes in one bathroom, chances are they are in both.
I'll try to document the good stuff on the blog for you. Will this little house become our money pit? Yes, I think so.....
