Before...

In the beginning, there was...

A rotten, moldy wood window.

In a shower, of all places.

I'm still trying to figure out the genius that decided

to put a wood window in a shower area.

Idiot.

A bathroom long and narrow that reminds one of a dark cave.

Not a good feeling when you're trying to take a shower.

Leaky plumbing and rotting, moldy drywall behind that

oh-so-stylish gold-speckled white tile from the 60's.

Groovy.

Cheap, $10 light fixtures, wood poles with no purpose

(except perhaps to look extremely ugly),

and medicine cabinets from when the house was

built in 1965.

Oh, did we mention the fact that the shower head itself is at a

height perfect for my nephew?

Oh yeah, he's 5.

Was no one in 1965 taller that 5'2"???

So, the obvious issues notwithstanding, we could only imagine what we would find once we got behind the walls. We are hiring a General Contractor to help with a few things that we would just rather a professional do, and do correctly, than have us start something and make things worse.

We hired First General Services of Colorado Springs for this one. They did some work for us before and they were fantastic.

So, the GC will be taking care of:

*Putting up Durock behind the tile area (basically, that's Sheetrock made out of concrete material - it won't mold, and will last a helluva lot longer than regular Sheetrock.

*Tile - so beyond our experience level it's not even funny.

*Plumbing - gotta fix the leaking faucet in the tub area, and we don't need to set anything on fire trying to weld piping together.

*New window - vinyl, thank you very much (It will match the new windows we had installed in the house last year. We skipped the bathroom at that time because it was such a mess and we didn't want a new window being installed where we were pretty sure there was mold and dry rot present.

*Electrical - gotta move the light fixtures from beside the medicine cabinets to above the cabinets. Also want to have an exhaust fan/light combination installed. (evidently, folks in 1965 didn't have any such thing as mold to worry about.

We will be painting, replacing the counter top & sinks, replacing the medicine cabinets, sanding and refinishing the bathroom cabinets, and changing all the fixtures to ones with a oil-rubbed bronze finish.

Here is the color scheme:

The walls will be the light beige color, the cabinets, medicine cabinets & etagere will be the dark brown color, and the accent color will be the blue color. The floors will be addressed later, because our budget is tight, and not expandable at all. If we run out of dough, we have to stop, so we will be very careful when we buy the fixtures, etc...

Our max budget (very, very max) for this bathroom is $5k.

So, here we go.

Wish us luck...