Ahhhhh the bathroom. The most under appreciated room in the house—until you do a diy renovation.

Then suddenly it is the most important room: the one you quite literally cannot live without, the one that sucks in attention and resources, the one that threatens to end your relationship. the next few posts are going to be about the thing that nearly ended it all: the Parlor Bathroom.

We bought the house as-is, which meant that beyond a walk through and a cursory inspection by a structural engineer—is it going to fall down? I asked, as she jumped heavily on the floors to test the integrity of the joists—we had little idea of the true state of things until we got the keys and started the work. So it was no surprise that the bathroom plumbing was in need of an update.

In the Parlor Bathroom, the vanity - a 1950s dealie whose one working handle rotated back to front - was held to the wainscoting by little picture screws and a bit of glue, and presumably some prayer. The belly of the original clawfoot tub was peeling old paint, and its feet were loose and rusted. The toilet, modern enough, was interestingly ‘secured’ to the floor by gravity and more prayer, perched on a slab of yellowed marble which we discovered later had a hole cut into the middle where it ‘connected’ with the waste pipe.

Needless to say, nothing worked, everything leaked, and the whole assemblage looked one strong breeze away from collapse.

These are the only images we have of what it looked like on day one. Past self, why were you so bad at documenting things? Would it have killed you to take a few more pictures?