Fear of Commitment

I’m having some serious relationship issues with the new bathroom. I’ve been having cold feet about committing to the design. I don’t really think there is anything seriously wrong with the design, it’s just, you know, once it’s done, it’s done, and what if there is a better design out there I haven’t seen or thought of yet.

Fear of commitment is not something men usually deal with {cough}, especially not me {cough}, so I just had to muscle through these strange and terrifying emotions, and I did. Today I built the new wall in the bathroom. This is to hide the plumbing, electrical, and telecom chase to the upper floors. It will also house all the new plumbing. The wall is only about 6-inches from the existing wall but it solves a lot of problems.

I realized one flaw in my design just as I started to build the wall. I originally wanted to have floor to ceiling cabinets in the corner near the door. This turned out to be a bad idea because the wall is so narrow the light switches would have ended up being inside the cabinet. Oops. So now I have two options. One, I could make a single 36-inch high cabinet with a small counter on top. The switches would then be on the wall above the counter. The other options is to have an open compartment in the middle of the cabinet. The switches would be in this open space. I’m leaning towards option one.

I actually didn’t finish the wall because I ran out of nails and apparently there is some stupid holiday today and all the hardware stores closed early. Grrrr! To further delay the wall being completed, they will most likely be closed tomorrow as well, so that means I’m in bathroom-wall-limbo until Tuesday.

Of course, I know it’s New Year’s Eve tonight, but I’ve decided not to do anything this year. Last year I went to a martini party and got so shit-faced drunk I regretted it for days. There was an over-eager bartender pouring Lemon Drops and Appletinis and my glass was never empty. The drinks were so sweat and delicious I didn’t really notice I was getting drunk, and by the time I did notice, I was so drunk I didn’t really care, so I kept drinking. It was unbelievable. I haven’t been that drunk since my early 20s.

The party was only a few blocks from my house and was barley able to walk home. I woke up the next day around 1:00 still in my clothes with both cats staring at me with worried looks on their faces. I think they were just hungry, but they’ve both seen plenty of dead things before, so I can imagine what might have been going through their furry little minds.

Mort: The gravy train’s over, Sadie. It looks like we’re back out on the street.
Sadie: Yep. It was good while it lasted. Let's get out of here before he starts to stink.

The next day one of my friends from the party was forced by his wife to call and apologize to me. Neither of us knew what he was apologizing for, so I graciously excepted his apology, and we both agreed never to mention that night again.

It Would Seem, Mine’s Bigger Than I Thought

Well, isn’t my face red. Here I thought I was going to perform some engineering marvel by cramming a full bath into what I thought was a small space, and it seems a lot of you have already done that (or have had it done) in an even smaller space.



This little exercise in reality was not all for nothing, though. It proved that a full bath can easily exist in 63 sq ft or less. Well, OK, easily may be a bit of a stretch for some of you, but it can be done. That’s the important thing. Also, the fact that it can exist in less space is really important, because my bathroom is about to get smaller.

In the back corner of the room there is a chase that takes plumbing, electrical, and telecom to the second and third floors. I could box this in to space a of about a half of a square foot. The problem with that is, I would have a little box in the corner of the room. It would just look odd. My plan is to build a new wall 6-inches out from the existing wall to hide the chase and everything else. Basically, all plumbing for the bathroom, along with all plumbing, electrical, and telecom for the above floors will run in this little 6-inch wall space.

By doing this, I will be reducing the room by about 5 sq ft, but it will really make things much easier. First off, the toilet would have ended up being right over a joist. By adding this wall, it pushes the flange out past the joist. Second, the original wall space was a load baring wall for the second and third floor. I’m embarrassed to say that I already damaged the joist when I ran the new gas line and had to sister another one to it. This means I essentially have a 4X6 beam just under the wall that I was going to have to run all the drains and supply lines for the bathroom. It was just going to be a nightmare.

So, by building a new wall 6-inches in to the bathroom space, I won’t have the odd little box in the corner of the room, and I can simply come up through the sub floor for all supply and drain lines, and bypass the 4X6 beam. Thank you all for living with small bathrooms and making me feel secure in creating what may be considered a mid-sized bathroom.