Hating Something I Love

Sorry to rant for what i fear will be a long time, but i really need a few moments to De-stress and share some frustrations. I am actually really embarrassed to post these photos, but at the moment i just want to cry-scream-punch holes in walls-and start a major demolition project. These projects have built up since we bought our home 4 years ago. Some are little things that we were going to fix from the start, others are major changes that life decided we needed to manage, and a very small amount are self-inflicted unfinished projects. To help keep my sanity for what i fear is a long time still, i need to release some steam in fear that i will explode if i don't. Just let me say first that I love my home. It is perfect for me and my family. But i hate the ever accumulating projects that are piling up.

And so to start, the latest disaster . . . yes, it's my bathroom floor. I know what you must be thinking. "That's disgusting!" I couldn't agree more; really. This happened about a month ago. One, or both, of our boys put too much toilet paper in their toilet causing it to overflow. Lucky for me, i grabbed the plunger out of my bathroom and dashed into theirs and stopped the overflow before a huge mess was made. After cleaning the little mess i went to my bathroom to put away the plunger. As i stepped nearer and nearer to my bathroom i began to hear the sound of water running. Yes, the kids plumbing pipes run towards my bathroom before leaving the house. The result of their overflowing? Mine overflowing. I whipped the door open to find a chunky brown river coming out of my toilet. It took me 10 minutes to get this river to stop flowing. Then another hour before the toilet water went down enough to plunge. I was furious that Josh was working that day, chunky rivers are something i can barely stomach.

To top it all off, one of the previous owners put carpet in our bathroom. I HATE carpet in bathrooms, mostly for this reason. Due to our chunky river, i had to pull up the saturated carpet right away and get it out of the house. So i spent several hours ripping up the carpet, and the nail board, and the base boards, and the nails and staples that held the carpet and foam in place. And then another couple hours Scrubbing everything the chunky river had gotten to and more. EEWWwwwww!!!!!

The result? We now need a bathroom overhaul. We have to redo the base floor because it's uneven, we can't even lay linoleum down because of this. So we'll rebuild the floor and lay tile. As you can see, the really old vanity is attached to the floor. This has to be ripped out because the chunky river ran under it (i can't pull it out yet, i cringe to think what's under it), and then replaced. And our toilet hasn't worked right since the flood, so that needs to come out and be replaced as well. But what happens when 1) there's no money, and 2) there's no time?

If this was all, i think i'd be okay. Of course, it's not. The only doors in the house that close and have trim are the closet doors. The laundry room floor had to be partially torn up and redone due to a bad washing machine (the machine at least was replaced a month after it died). That happened over a year ago and we still have plywood covered by rugs in our laundry room, and we haven't been able to replace the damaged dry wall yet. Then there's also the shower head in my bathroom with the patch job around it that's been falling off since before we bought our house. The ugly wall paper in the kids bathroom that Cody started to peel off about 2 years ago. The numerous holes in the walls and doors that have also been there since before we purchased the house. And then the projects we haven't finished yet, like covering the outlets with covers - that project started a year and a half ago. (The picture is not upside down, the plugs are put in that way for fire safety)

I really just want to cry. There are nights when i would sacrifice all the chocolate in the world to have a nice bathroom. You know, when you can take a relaxing bath and when you get out your not thinking of how to avoid your floor? The bath you get to take with a locking door - keeping all kids from entering as they desire? Or to take a shower without constantly worrying that a spider is going to leap from the failing patch job.

I would love to do laundry without getting splinters in my feet. I would love to have a bedroom door that closes, and a bathroom door that closes for guests to use. Heck, i would love to replace all the doors in my home with working doors! I would love to have my outlets covered so i wouldn't have to worry about my kids electrocuting themselves.

Someday, instead of having to buy a new washer we can fix the floor. Someday, instead of having to repair a car we can redo our bathroom. Someday, instead of medical bills we can replace doors. Someday, instead of no time, there will be time. Someday, Josh and i will get to spend more than 1 day a month together so we can work on projects.

Someday . . . yea, someday.