Trading Spaces is a total crock!

We knew when we moved into our house (built in 1927) that we would have many "projects" that we would have to do in order to modernize it. We were up for the challenge....or so we thought! Our latest venture was the downstairs half bathroom. It had tile on the floor and up the wall that met the wallpaper a little more than half way up the wall. So our "bright" idea was to just take the wallpaper off, replace the lights with something more modern and paint the wall, no big deal, pretty inexpensive. So Andy took the wall paper off a few weekends ago and we were going to use this 3 day weekend to get most, if not all, of the project done.

On Saturday, Andy was sanding down the upper part of the wall, so that we could get ready to paint, when I hear something that sounded like glass fall to the floor. Then I hear Andy say uh-oh! Pretending not to be concerned, I didn't bother to go find out what he had broken! Turns out, as he was sanding, he bumped one of the tiles and it fell off the wall and cracked into many pieces. Figuring we weren't going to be able to find a match now a days, we decided we would just take all of the tiles off and put up wainscoting in its place. We had never done this before, but I figured how hard could it be! Meanwhile, we have a fan in the bathroom, which actually vents out into the kitchen and down into the basement...wierd, I know! So after Andy sanded, we had dust all over the kitchen. We cleaned that up and prepared for Sunday.

On Sunday, Andy put in new lights. Our old lights were so old that the only electrical outlet in the bathroom was on the side of each light. So if we took out the old lights, we would have to create a new electrical outlet. He had done this before (while re-doing Julia's room) so we didn't think it would be too hard. Then we found the junction box that was currently wiring the bathroom. It was a mess. Apparently the same circuit controls the office, the bathroom, one light in the basement and an outlet on the second floor. Very strange. But Andy persevered and somehow got electric running to his new outlet.

Monday, we got the wainscoting and decided that we would forge ahead and try to get it in. The good news was that we could still see the line drawn on the wall from when the tiles were put up, so we already had a straight point of reference. The bad news was that I thought it was going to be the death of Andy! The tiles on the floor are actually laid in concrete, so we were putting the wainscoting onto the cement, which of course is not even! But we figured it out and actually did a pretty darn good job of making it fit and actually looking good! Now in the meantime, we keep knocking other tiles loose, mostly on the counter, which we are trying not to lose so that we can glue them back down. We aren't done yet, but here are some pictures of the mess so far! Which brings me back to the title of my post. I love watching Trading Spaces and all of the other home shows, but how in the world do they get all of these things done in just 2 days? I'm calling shenanigans!!

All that being said, there has been far less cussing than I thought there would be, it has cost us much more than we originally planned, we have discovered that Andy and I can make a really good team (I like to consider myself the sous handywoman (sorta like a sous chef, only without the food!)) and Julia has slept through almost the entire thing!

Enjoy the pictures!

before:After:Before:After:
~Courtney