In this 100+ yr old house of ours in northern NB when we bought it, was a finished attic!
Well, it was sort of finished! Aside from the shag carpet on the floors etc, the ceiling, walls and floors were somewhat finished when we bought it. It contained 2 small bedrooms at the back side of the house (now my workout room and sewing/gift-wrapping room), a very tiny outdated bathroom and a huge room at the front of the house running the entire width of the house with really old windows – but offering so much natural light.
Hmmm! What will this floor be? I’m thinking at that point, a paint studio for my business I had been contemplating unless Joe claimed it first for an office space.
It didn’t take long for us to rip up the shag carpet in the rooms, I can tell you. We had thought to hire someone to refinish the hardwood floors we found under them, but Joe and I thought we could manage that project ourselves given the budget we had to work with. And so we did.
But the bathroom was the one room that I couldn’t wait to tear into because it contained an original cast iron claw foot tub which I absolutely love! How they ever got that massive tub up this narrow stairwell, we still haven’t figured out, but for sure, everything else had to have been finished around it. And that meant there would be NO getting it back down the stairs if we chose to not keep it without demolishing the entire stairwell.
Easy decision!
The bath tub was with its original faucets – the older sink with the same, a really old icky and badly stained toilet, and no window making for a double “ick!!”
We started with taking out the garbage we were finding stored in and strewn around under the tub. Once that was out, we called someone in to install a new toilet. We could have done it ourselves but Joe was working on other projects in the house and I wanted to get things moving as it often times happens, weren’t moving fast enough with so many projects on the go. When you stop and look at the big picture in an old house like ours, it can be daunting with so many things needing improvement, so I sometimes have to take a deep breath, step back and just see it one project at a time – especially when doing the work ourselves. Otherwise, I’m completely overwhelmed.
Once the new toilet was installed, we decided that the claw foot tub had to be resurfaced, refinished or painted. Again, our budget dictated so after a thorough scrubbing of the entire room, we opted for painting the outside of the tub once looking into resurfacing. The inside of the tub we were able to get relatively clean and stain free after much elbow grease on Joe’s part. The faucets – I absolutely didn’t want to change. They were as much the charm of the tub as the tub itself, so they stayed.
Next was the wall. We opted for bead-board and chair rail molding. By this time, Joe was free to switch gears from another project in the house so he installed the bead-board and molding and I primed and painted the room.
Next came the sink. Again, we had no interest in swapping out the faucets but we were a bit concerned about the plumbing so had someone install new pipes.
The flooring in the bathroom was hardwood and it was in relatively decent condition, so I used an electric palm sander to sand off the surface stains and finish, and restained in Minwax Early American. Once dried, I applied 3 coats of the water-based clear coat, Varathane.
Once the floor was finished, I had to come up with something to hide the plumbing under the wall-mounted sink so I went digging in my stash of fabrics and found a lone natural color cotton duck curtain panel I hadn’t yet found a window for and likely wouldn’t. Perfect! I then called upon my seamstress skills (which amount pretty much to sewing straight lines if I’m to be perfectly honest), and made a sink skirt which I mounted to the inside of the sink with Velcro and glue.
A few accessories to finish off the room, along with added ventilation and exhaust fan in a later reno, and a chandelier and we have a pretty and functional bathroom honouring those days gone by.
The Hotel de Paris sign over the tub is one of my creations from My Painted Porch Vintage Signs when I was still making signs full-time. It was the perfect addition to the tub wall and was the final piece to finish off the room as I had been imagining it.
A lit candle, glass of wine and many, MANY bubbles found me relaxing in my new sanctuary!
Our room at the front of the house once we finished it, did find itself then as Meyers Design Studio, where signs were created for My Painted Porch. New windows, a big bright spacious location for 3 long worktables, my computer desk in the corner where I took orders, corresponded with customers and designed signs, made for an amazing workspace with a birds-eye view of the neighborhood.
The room has since been swapped out in favor of my music room where I write and record in my decision to pursue an interest that had been lying dead for awhile, just not yet buried. It also houses my treadmill, too large for the workout room but on the same floor. It’s all good!
And to think this old house of ours was so empty when we first moved into it that our voices echoed!
I’ve since discovered that it’s much like a woman’s purse – the larger it is, the more you find to fill it with!
Leave a Reply