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Monday, August 2, 2010

Making a bathroom out of a mole hill...

The bathroom in my little house...oh yeah...what bathroom?  In the beginning, my American Dream had no bathroom!  Can you imagine it being the year 2009 and any house not having a bathroom? Well...that was the one flaw I could see in my little house....although I was willing to live in the woods...grow my own food...raise my own animals...I still, because I do love some modern conveniences....have to have a room IN THE HOUSE, that I can  bathe in and, well, you know...
The day I looked at the house, I knew I could piece together electrical and plumbing...repair windows...make a kitchen...but a bathroom? They cost a fortune! Even just putting a utilitarian bathroom in an existing house is somewhere around 5000 big ones!
I do have to say...there was a place to take a shower...downstairs, in the basement was a drain...over that drain was a pallet...an ordinary, old...mildewed...broken in spots...wood pallet like you see piled by the garbage cans outside the grocery store....and sticking out of the wall was a piece of pipe with handles attached to it... and over in the corner of said basement? was a 2ft by 3ft "closet"....painted bright pink on the inside and dreary gray on the outside....attached to the outside of this closet was an old medicine chest and a shelf.  There was a plank door that looked like one of the doors at a public swimming pool shower room...well, half a door...and when you opened that door? there was a toilet mounted to the floor...along with several well used cat boxes lining the sides so you had to walk straight down the paths of said boxes, turn around carefully, I am assuming...and try to sit ...spider webs...another mirror...and a 200 year old toilet brush laying on the floor...UH UH....

When I bought the house...I wouldn't go into the basement for several weeks...it was wet, mildewed and DARK! The windows were boarded up and I had no electricity at that point...not even my generator with my lamp could make me go down there...

I never did enter that closet...I got sick of being afraid of that one part of my house...I tried putting puck lights down there every few feet so I could get down there and clean it out...that did not work...it only lit up the space below the lights and my lamp and 60 watt bulb? it left too many shadows in the corners...it looked like a scene from a scary movie...so one day...on the request of my Honey...I ventured down there with the promise of heat and plumbing and electricity...he couldn't do anything down there til it was empty and clean...and I tried...I immediately went back upstairs...outside and ripped the boards off the windows...cuz I did not know there were windows down there til this point...HOLY CRAP! and I have to say it like that! There was plenty of light down there! and it was ten times worse than I thought it was...I just started grabbing and hauling stuff upstairs and out into the back yard...it took all day to remove the large piles of wet, mildewed, spider infested clothing lining the walls...the cat boxes...the ones that were NOT in the toilet closet...the piles of shampoo bottles...tools, pans, boxes...benches...and my original preparation table for my kitchen...I cleaned til late afternoon...and my Honey came by...WOW! he said....yeah...WOW...you better git me some light now..I said...and some plumbing...I deserve it! Hee Hee...
He responded to me with..."there is a toilet down here"...with a big grin....NO!  I ended my afternoon with removing the shelf and mirror off the toilet closet and tearing down the walls around the toilet...there was no way I was getting in there...and hauling it all into the back yard...along with that nasty, disgusting toilet with it's green vinyl toilet lid...I stuck a small coffee can in the hole and went back upstairs....to Mom and Dad's house and into the shower....
The were a couple of pluses to this endeavor? There was a brand new, still in the plastic....Washing Machine AND a Dryer! 
I did try to take pictures down there...they came out as black squares...there was not even enough light, with a flash, to get any kind of form to show up...but it was THE END to the Black Hole...




3 comments:

  1. A Washing Machine *AND* a Dryer! Well, Holly Monkey-Crap!! BRAND NEW?!?! Where exactly is the horse shoe you've attached to your person? ... Never mind... I don't need to know that, but what a payoff for a day's worth of evicting 8 legged tennants!

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  2. YOU are so funny! I just found your comment!

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