January – The Bathroom Issue

Part 8

CoVid on my mind, as a friend’s mother dies and an anti-masker acquaintance has no sympathy. I feel my isolation. It’s not a burden. I’m thankful for FaceTime and Zoom and social media. I’m so grateful for the time alone. I am anxious for my daughter’s age group as this is the time when they should be free and out and exploring what the world has to offer. They’ve been held back and made to redefine that which they have never known. My heart aches for the true social interaction they are denied, at a time when they should be navigating the world independently, learning from their relationships and interactions with people beyond their familial/r circle.

I’ve been talking to my girl more. Some good FaceTiming, and deep discussions. I love that kid. I have tried in every way I could as her mother, her sole caregiver. 

Ah yes, the bathroom. This was to be the bathroom issue.

Last Sunday, whatever day that was in January, I started work on the upstairs bathroom. The one with the varnished wood bead board all around, layers of ancient wallpaper covered with a southwest-textured, paintable wallpaper painted a dingy baby blue. The floor was water damaged in areas, but still, all original hardwood. And all original fixtures. Someone created a great shower curtain rod out of copper pipe at some point in the house’s history, but they didn’t carry it far enough around the wall, which meant having to pushpin the last two holes of the shower curtain to the wall. Not exactly my style. My thought is to remove the curtain from against the wall altogether, add something that will direct water from the wall into the tub, and tile that wall. I’m not yet sure of what tile treatment I want it to have, so for now I am using a water-based rubberized paint that is 100% waterproof. It will work for the next few months while I decide on a proper finish.

First, the layers of wallpaper had to come off. With a 3” putty knife the paintable stuff was easy for the most part and the plaster walls were a quick scrape and peel, leaving little residue. The plaster had a number of old nail and screw holes, there were some cracks and the edges (ceiling, corners, window frames and door jambs) were deteriorated down to the lath in a number of spots. The wallpaper on the two beaverboard walls, was more difficult to remove. The internet is a wonderful thing when searching for answers. Did you know that a vinegar/water solution will dissolve old wallpaper paste? I made up a spray bottle and soaked it, let it sit for 15 minutes, and scrape… it was off. 

So all of this sounds like it took such a short time. A few hours at most. No. It took three solid 10-12 hour days. It was an archaeological dig, removing each layer of wallpaper, moving back through the decades. I honoured the house’s history, the people who have lived here. But who ever thought that a mottled green and yellow wallpaper would be just the thing for a bathroom with dark wood?!

The evening I finished scraping and sanding the walls, I just couldn’t wait so I went back up to give the them a first coat of mud. At 12:30am I finished and was happy that it would be ready to sand the next morning. And I could start on the floor.

Setting up for sanding took a bit of time. Gather all needed tools, protective gear, wear something meant to get dirty, hydrate and make sure you are well fed. Sanding is a commitment that once started, needs to be completed in as quick a time as you are able without many breaks. In this case, it took 4 full 8 hour days. The floors were going to be hard work. I knew they were. But the benefits of refinishing them would be worth it. The ceiling would just generally be hard, mostly on the shoulders. Not a plaster or drywall ceiling, this one is wood. Painted and cracked many times over the last 100 years. The heat gun helped through some of it, but standing on a ladder and using both hands in the air is not the safest thing. Nor is it comfortable. I scraped the ceiling for a full day, until I could scrape no more.

The next day I sanded it. By the end of that day, my shoulders and neck raging at me, my thoughts were, “Who gives a fucking shit if the paint cracks! This is good enough.” Then I would keep going. Do you remember the game where you stand in a doorway and with your arms down, you push really hard against either door jamb with your hands? You stay that way for a moment, pushing and pushing, and when you come away, and put your hands by your sides, they naturally float upward. I always thought that was so cool. Anyways, that’s not how my arms felt after two days of holding them above my head and pushing with a scraper and sandpaper. They fell dead at my sides, ached and wanted to never move again.

Near the end of the day, my palm sander died. It was nearing their 5 o’clock closing time and there was no way I was going to get to the closest hardware store, 25 minutes away, so I had them put aside a couple of sanders for me, did my research and picked one of them up early the next morning when they opened. 

In the morning, I picked up a new sander as soon as they opened, came home and started sanding the floor.

Yes, the floors were a lot of work. Such a small area, made harder by 100 year old varnish which sandpaper does practically nothing to cut. But kept with it I did for the first day. At the end of that day, I decided to see how the bead board would sand and if I would need to scrape it at all. Again, the sander did practically nothing, barely roughing the surface shine. So I tried the heat gun which just turned it into a gummy resin. Dangerously hot. 

I put the heat gun on the floor beside me and moved my other tools around me. I was hungry. It was time eat. I put my hand on the super hot metal head of the heat gun, pushing my full weight down, poised to get up from the floor. I jumped up and looked at my hand and saw it was not good. Second degree burn at best. And it hurt like a sonofabitch mother*&#@. I fumbled through the plastic door and ran downstairs to the kitchen where I ran it for a long time under icy cold water. But it still hurt so bad. And I am no pussy. I went for the honey and put a good dollop on the puckered and blistered skin. Oh God it stung! Back to the sink to wash most of it off. Upstairs to find aloe. Call my good friend who said honey, and amongst other things, aluminum foil. So more honey went on as I cursed and yelled and doubted my ability to ever finish the house, not to mention the god-damn bathroom. Why did I think I could do this I always make bad decisions I’ll die penniless I might as well die now. Yes, this is the progression of thought as I wailed and my poor cat hid. Gotta tell you, honey and aluminum foil works. My thought is that aluminum foil acts as a heat conductor, pulling the heat out of the burn. It is like a painkiller, while the honey is antibacterial and soothing. Still and all, I would not be able to use that hand for a while. 

The next day, hand bandaged and wrapped in plastic to keep sawdust out, I sanded one handed. I kept at it all day trying this grade and that of sandpaper, getting really nowhere. Though I must say, of all the papers I have tried, by far my favourite brand was Norton. And I have to ask, what hardware store and building centre (especially when there are no others within 50 kms) only sells sandpaper in packs of 3 or 5. I’m gonna break the bank on sandpaper with all the wood refinishing that needs doing in my house. At the end of the day I googled methods of removing 100 year old varnish from floors, and one site recommended scraping. If it didn’t work I’d just have to leave the floors. Thank the good Lord, the paint scraper worked, and I would spend the whole of the next long day and part of the next scraping, one handed. It’s been a while since I’ve refinished a piece of furniture. Scraping is a full body movement. Scraping a floor, a full body workout. Want to develop a killer booty, abs and obliques as tight as a drum and triceps that say ba-ba-boom? Scrape the varnish or paint off a floor. I only did this for a couple of days, so I didn’t develop any of those things, but I sure felt it in all those areas.

Today, I took the day off. I haven’t left the house for a week other than the early morning outing for a sander. I decided to look around the garage. I ventured into there once or twice previously and tried to make sense of all the stuff. Before I moved, Bobbi told me she and Ira would clean out the garage for me and take it all to the dump. Without hesitation, I said, “No! That’s ok. You can leave it. There might be treasure in there.” Truly one of my favourite things to do is sort through big old piles of stuff. 

When I was 12 years old, my mom’s boyfriend John (who my siblings and I renamed Peanut Head), took us a couple of times to his mother’s farm outside Belleville. Once, we stopped at the Bowmanville Zoo, a sad selection of life-weary animals, kept in small cages. I felt so sorry for them, and so guilty for stopping, looking and leaving without doing anything to help their plight. 

At John’s mom’s farm, I knew I was supposed to have grown up in the country. So much wide-open space. So many places to explore. Animals, big trees, a barn with a hayloft and rope swing, and lots of outbuildings. It rained one day we were there and I, in my overalls and plaid shirt, dressed for the occasion, took to the outbuildings to scout around. Some had farm equipment, like tractors and their parts, Some had other tools and hardware and smaller bits and pieces. And one had old furniture and boxes of household goods, stacked. I made believe that this was my new home. This dusty, drafty and dripping wood structure. I could see the main house through the cracks in the wall boards. The cracks gave me enough light to start moving the furniture into an arrangement more conducive to homey living. Furniture was seriously stacked, and it looked like a big job, so I enlisted the help of my 7 year old brother, a sturdy young lad, more than willing to help. In no time, we had a “living area” set up and had pushed everything else to the edges. Then it was dinner time, and a ride on the four-wheeler to the edges of the property. Night fell and the next day we left, never going back.

In my garage, there were boxes and boxes… and boxes of VHS video tapes. All home recorded. All movies. I think every movie known to man was on those VHS tapes, 3 to a tape. While some may scream at me, ”Why did you not watch some of them?!”, it has given me great pleasure (and quite a bit of environmental guilt) to fill eight contractor-sized garbage bags, drag them across the grass and have the garbage men take them away. 

There was a satellite dish, a compressor tank, keyboards and binders… and binders of accounting books. I could almost imagine the life of this person, with his monogrammed notepads and opera and movie collection. There was a single gentleman who moved into the house once, and my wood-helping neighbours went to the door with a plate of welcome goodies. He refused them and said, “I just want to be left alone.” I imagine this is whose stuff was in the garage.

Along with all the rest, the big desk from the dining room took up space at the front of the garage. Remember the big desk I had the movers take out to the driveway so that the garbage men would take it away? Well, it had been sitting for weeks, and they hadn’t taken it. I didn’t want to be the neighbour who has a collection of junk on my front lawn, so I got out the tools and started taking it apart. They would surely take it if it was in smaller pieces. I was underneath the desk, shooing away spiders and unscrewing the long screws that held it together, when I saw my neighbour’s feet approach, I came out and we chatted for a minute. “You got some good firewood there,” he said. I laughed and told him I was taking it apart for the garbage men. “But maybe I should rethink that,” I replied to him, “It is good wood.” “Oh yeah,” he said, “When people ask me how much wood I burn in the winter, I say, ‘Oh about 4 cords, 2 tables, 3 chairs… whatever my wife wants to get rid of.’” So the desk, now taken apart, made it back into the garage as potential firewood or building material. 

I also found three big, wood-framed mirrors that I hadn’t noticed before. I took them in and chose one for the bathroom with my daughter’s FaceTime guidance. 

As far as painting the bathroom, there was a bunch of prep that had to come beforehand. The biggest one, was caulking. Between every 2” vertical piece of bead board, there was a big gap. Not noticeable when it was dark, varnished wood, after a coat of primer the wall looked as though it was black and white striped. Every seam had to be caulked. Heads up for those new to caulking. It is always a good idea to wrap your caulking finger in tape beforehand. Especially if you’re going to be at it for a while. I use a rubber finger tip and cover it in plastic. I was reminded of a young girl working as a painter’s helper at one construction site. Her job was to go around every condo unit and caulk all of the baseboard and mouldings before we, the painters got there. Amidst the constant caulk jokes thrown around, the poor girl was not told this simple trick of wrapping your finger, and by the end of her first day had worn off nearly all the skin on that digit. 

Still one handed because of the burn (that was now slathered in honey, wrapped in aluminum foil and a rag, and covered with a plastic bag while I worked), and with a right shoulder that was screaming at me for having to take on ALL of the work, I built an extension that finished off the god-awful shower monolith, and an edge for the bathtub so that a shower curtain would no longer be required against the wall, and primed and painted the ceiling, the walls, the bead board and window trim. The bathtub walls got three coats (to be extra sure) of the elastomeric paint. It unfortunately only came in a cool grey, which was not tint-able so, for now, that’s just how it was going to have to be. Preferable to a shower curtain surround.

I oiled the floor, and after over two weeks of working at it constantly, called it done. One of these days I’d like to look at re-sanding the parts of the floor with water damage, I just know I can make them look better. 

I finished off the month with a trip to Lockeport, just up the highway, and Crescent Beach. With a big lobster trap playground for the kids, and a general store for ice cream, I can just imagine this place in the summer! But let’s get through the winter first.

Next: Winter Always Comes in February