Bathroom adventures

Our house is located in Clendenin, West Virginia and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as "Koontz Avenue Historic District, Blonde Brick 4 Square." It has both Arts and Crafts and Victorian elements which reflect the changing styles of the time. Other information is that it sits on the site of the first brick mill in the area that made all the bricks for the homes on the street as well as the brick streets of Clendenin. This was the site of a 1770's era log cabin as well. The home was built by a prominent man named Koontz who once ran the bank, the natural gas plant and served as Mayor of Clendenin, WV. He built this house in 1905 for his mother in law, who was an Osbourne, then built his own home in the lot next to it immediately after. The most interesting bit of history about this house is that the front room, which we now use as a dining room, was used as a "Laying Out" room for the dead. As there was no funeral home in the area at the time, the owner invited anyone who lost a loved one to lay them out in the front room for the wake or memorial service. I hope to cover a little Clendenin history in future posts.


We have done so much since moving into this house in July, but we left the bathrooms for later. Well... later has come! Before I get started on that, let me first do a quick rundown of past projects:
1) Strip wallpaper from 1 upstairs bedroom, paint three bedrooms upstairs.
2) Installed a new ceiling fan in master bedroom, upstairs bath, downstairs multipurpose/playroom.
3) Installed high efficiency washer and dryer by LG in laundry room. In January we rerouted dryer vent out the window. Long story.
4) Changed all the window coverings, avoiding the wood trim whenever possible.
5)kitchen- installed new Jenn air appliances- gas range, counter depth fridge and dishwasher. Put in a white island for more storage ( got it at Lowe's for $40!!!), new Corian counters in Sahara, changed the cabinet knobs, added a plate rack to the walls and a pot rack over the one window. We painted the kitchen a cheery celadon green and white trim. The kitchen is the only room that the trim has been painted so we went with that. We changed the ceiling fan, which was awful, for a small chandelier.
6)new mailbox and post... several times :o)
7)4 foot high picket fence around the backyard for the dogs
8)new storm door on back with built in dog door
9)Repainted living, dining, kitchen and bedrooms with ICI Dulux paints. I will publish the colors later.
We got a ton of supplies from Lowe's. We have donestuff through Home Depot and our local hardware store here in Clendenin, Karr's, has been a wonderful and convenient place as well.
10) new white wicker porch furniture and black wrought iron table and chairs for the patio, all from Lowe's.
there is more but I need to move on!

Our project this week is working on our downstairs bathroom. Wow, this is a challenge already. The back porch was converted years ago into an entry/mudroom and small bathroom. After we bought the house I realized that the wallpaper in that small bath would not come off easily. We found out from the local plumber that there has been numerous burst pipes in the shower. I could tell that the wall behind the shower was in bad shape. We removed the shower walls and discoverd that the moisture resistant drywall had indeed become severely damaged as had the studs that support the plumbing. UGH UGH UGH We have removed all the wallpaper and the offending wall and now have a nice view of the brick backside of the house, the uninsulated pipes and the damage. We need to put in new cement board and will probably just tile the enclosure instead of doing a fiberglass wall. We have decided to put in a small bath (we only have about 52 inches length) that we have to special order and hopefully we can get things up and running in a week or two. More on this subject tomorrow!