ORC Spring 2024 - Week 5
/Hello internet people, I’m back!!
If you noticed, I missed the last two weeks of updates. If you didn’t notice, totally fine. No biggie. Coolcoolcool.
These missed weeks were a combination of a planned break (vacation – yay!) and not planned (illness! A new HVAC!). It turns out that it has not been such a great time to launch my first One Room Challenge. LOLZ. But such is life, eh? I think it is just making the wins that I do get that much more satisfying and empowering.
So, on to the wins for the past couple of weeks. We’ll start with the non-ORC win: vacation in the Dominican Republic. I’m still riding the high of this one! As much as the vacation was amazing, the lead up to vacation was peak STRUGGLE. Not the usual packing procrastination panic. It was more of a full sprint to the very end just to get on the plane (fortunately not literally). The chaos was a collision between having PINK EYE and COVID back-to-back (which means having to reschedule a ton of clients), trying to squeeze everything in before I left so client projects were humming along in my absence, and having my HVAC conk out on the first warm day. Oy. It was a lot to deal with all at once. And I have to give a special little shoutout to Frank who was able to rearrange his schedule a bit to meet the HVAC techs and make sure we could get it replaced before we left for the DR. We couldn’t have our baby cat Minion sweltering all alone, could we?? We could NOT.
Pics of the gorgeous view that greeted us at the resort, a few vacation pics, and our fur child, Mini(on):
the views from hyatt zilara lobby
the hyatt zilara spa - made to look like a cave with a cenote! omg, take me back.
the fruit was to die for! i miss passionfruit soooooo much
we got up for sunrise one morning. it was glorious
Mini doing her best to look sad and miserable, even though she has the best aunties in the world
mini getting love from an auntie with her favorite catnip rainbow. “mommy, come home!”
Anyhow, y’all aren’t here for travel pics, so let’s get on with the actual ORC update. Last time I blogged, I shared my inspiration pictures and my design board. As I am wont to do, I ordered some samples to make sure the color/texture/quality was what I wanted. Here is the 3D design board that I have haphazardly propped up in the bathroom:
I have to say that while I LOVE the wallpaper, I have not been as thrilled with the floor tile samples. They seem like decent quality, but the color is not quite what I had in mind. It is hard for it to show on camera, but they feel too gray compared to the warmth of everything else. It is back to the drawing board on that one. But I’m sure I’ll find something that works.
At this point, I can feel myself procrastinating about writing about the actual work. Much like real life when I think about doing the actual work on the bathroom. Much of the fun for me is dreaming and planning. It gets a little scary when it’s time to implement the idea. But that’s the whole point, so here goes!
Based on my list of things to do for this project, I plotted out my order of operations, so to speak. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t working inefficiently or doubling back or God-forbid, making extra work for myself. Based on that, I decided to start with the medicine cabinet. The plan was to reuse the existing cabinet and just cut a wee hole in the wall, shove it back there, secure it, and Bob’s your uncle, right? Wrong. Of course the first item would not go according to plan LOL.
just a little taste of the dust. the bane of my existence.
mini’s first experience with a mirror. who is that other cat??
But never fear; I persevered! While I knew I shared this wall with my neighbor’s bathroom, what I hadn’t known was that my neighbor’s choices of medicine cabinet and lighting would affect my ability to change things on my side. In order to recess my cabinet, I needed to move some of the studs around. Except that some of my neighbor’s stuff, drywall even, was secured to the studs I would need to move. Oops. So… I got a little creative. Suffice to say I got the job done without impacting my neighbor, but I don’t think I will put my process on the internet for all to see…
A reminder of where we started
after! i swear, it feels a lot different in real life
In the end, I was able to push my cabinet back and down about 4 inches. The process was so messy and so much work 😵💫 but it was worth it!! I learned a few things:
I feel so much taller in the bathroom now that I can see below my chin!! I think I know what being 5’5” feels like now 💁♀️
I’m better at the reciprocating saw than I used to be, but it’s still not my favorite.
Safety glasses are not the same as GOGGLES. I suspect that the intense amount of dust is what brought on the pink eye (I never knew it was SO painful!). Henceforth, I shall be wearing goggles.
I am a little obsessed with dust control, but I’m not very good at it. The whole bathroom and even out into my kitchen/dining area was a dusty disaster; I hate that part.
I have a much better idea of how the walls are in this building and what the limits of the shared wall are.
There really was a pretty big hole behind my cabinet already, which I already suspected. It was just interesting to have that validated.
Just a reminder, folks - learn from my initial mistake and get yourself all the safety gear! Drywall dust and wood particles stay in your lungs FOREVER.
brand new safety goggles
all the safety gear, my friends
As you may have already noticed, I also decided during that work that I would add some recessed shelves between the studs on the adjacent wall. I hacked open a bit of wall and was pleased to see that the idea could work.
After taking care of the medicine cabinet and opening up another hole in the wall, that’s how the bathroom stayed for about 10 days. Minus the dust – that I cleaned up immediately. So satisfying!
Somehow in those 10 days I got a little intimidated by the next step – patching the drywall. It doesn’t really sound like a big deal, but my anxiety-prone and perfectionistic brain was making it into one. More dust! More noise! Fortunately, the little break allowed me to realize that I would need to move the electrical box up higher to accommodate my new light fixture. It was just the push I needed to get going again.
But that update, my friends, is for next week.