The time has come

... the walrus said, to talk of many things.  Of tiles and tubs and toilet seats, of cabinets and sinks.

Okay, so I totally butchered Lewis Carroll.  But the point is, the time has come!  We may be sort of broke right now, but yesterday was the last straw.  The plumber/general construction guy (who we like and trust) came over yesterday to check out the toilet and leaky wax ring.  And found that the leaky wax ring has been leaking for about 10 years.  The underlayment in the bathroom is ruined, some of the subfloor is rotted through, and the toilet is slowly sinking into the kitchen.  Both Shayne and I are so, so tired of the slow demise of both the kitchen and bathroom (which is mostly the bathroom's fault), we're tired of ruined ceilings and flooring, and tired of fixing one thing just to have another go wrong.  The piecemeal repair is not working any longer.

We've decided to just bite the bullet and get a small home equity loan/line to remodel the bathroom.  We need new water supplies in there, since the hot water for the tub is down to a fast trickle (okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but it's nowhere near the pressure it should be), and in order to have that galvanized line taken out, we need to rip out walls.  Since we would be ripping out so much to repair what we need to, we're just going to mostly gut it and start over.  The PPOs who remodeled the bathroom to begin with did so much half-assed work elsewhere in the house that I'm scared of what is going on in there.  Only by taking apart the room will we be certain that there's nothing else lurking in the walls, waiting to leak.  We'd also like to examine the wiring, since everything we've discovered has been scary and unsafe.  He had a tendency to just duct tape around wires and leave them hanging in the walls.  And a fire is the LAST thing we need.

We'll have an estimate by Monday.  It's kind of a good thing that I've been obsessing over the bathroom since before we even moved into this house; it made the planning stage so much faster!  I know exactly what I want. 

I hate the idea of borrowing money, but I love the idea of finally getting what I want.  I love the idea of having another room in this house finished and beautiful.  I love the idea of being able to take a bath without half of me sticking out of the water.

This is going to be great.

Here's a few of my inspiration shots to tide you over: