Welcome to the Weekly Guest Spotlight.
Christina EsdonTonight’s guest is writer, Christina Esdon. For more about Christina, visit her blog here.
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale
Of a complete bathroom re-do
That started with excitement and hope
In a home that was not new
The contractor was an arthritic man
The electrician was a useless hack.
The team started in mid-December
For three weeks max, three weeks MAX!
Three weeks passed and there was something askew
The bathtub? There was none.
If not for the slow construction crew
The bathroom would be done. The bathroom would be done.
…
So this is the tale of the dream bathroom
That took a long, long time.
I had to make the best of things,
By singing this silly rhyme.
Ahoy! And welcome to my (almost complete) bathroom! ‘Tis I, Christina Esdon, your Captain speaking to you direct from my bathtub! Don’t worry, I’m clothed. I always make sure I am in appropriate bathing attire when I am expecting company. Especially when invited to guest post on Erica’s blog!
As my Gilligan’s Island-inspired prose suggests above I recently had my bathroom renovated. I was initially told it would take three weeks. Happy that this renovation wouldn’t interrupt my life too much I shook the hand of my newly-hired contractor and excitedly browsed home renovation stores for tile, taps and tubs.
Once the crew got started, I quickly realized this wasn’t going to just take ‘three weeks’. One day, months after said deadline had passed I mentioned to my contractor that I was still showering at the gym, to which he responded, “oh right. You don’t have a shower or a bath here, do you?”.
Seriously???
Does he not know the type of pathogens I could have been exposed to showering in a women’s changeroom? Not to mention the dance I had to do to keep my towel on and get changed without scarring the other women in the changeroom for life? I don’t feel comfortable carrying on with my normal shower routine in public. I mean who wants to see me sing and dance around while I’m streaking? You all do that in the privacy of your own homes too, admit it.
About six weeks into the renovation I was feeling angry and really impatient. I have since learned that this is not a good combination of emotions to harbour as it led to stripping the wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom. When the haze of rage lifted I realized I now had two bathrooms under renovation.
Then the Snowball of Expensive Justifications started to roll: Well the paint colour I like won’t match the floor, so I guess I should just rip up the floor and put down new tile. That old linoleum floor was old anyway. And if I’m getting a new floor, might as well put in a new vanity. I mean, it’s the best time to do it, right? And I’d get a new tap, of course. Since everything else was new, I just HAD to buy a new mirror, which ended up being too tall, but I liked it so much I called in the electrician to raise the light fixture.
The realization that I had taken on too much occurred about eight weeks into the reno. I was left in my house for the weekend - toiletless. That’s right, between the upstairs bathroom demolition and the ‘surprise downstairs bathroom renovation’ there was about four days when I was without a toilet. No toilet. No shower. No bubble baths with lavender. But most importantly, no toilet. So I did what every self-respecting woman would do in this situation: I packed my bags and left. There was no way I was considering ‘toilet alternatives’ just to stay in my house. I considered staying at a hotel, but I had somewhere else to stay and really, by this point my accommodation standards were pretty low.
“Do your hotel rooms include a toilet?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll take it.”
It is usually at this stage of stress and frustration that I would long for a hot, steamy, bubble bath. Put on some good tunes, pour a glass of wine, open a good book and forget about all of the day’s stress. However, I would think about having a bath and was reminded that I don’t have one, which further contributed to my stress.
Plaster covered every inch of the house. My gleaming, original, 75-year old wood staircase was taking a beating by the work boots stomping up and down on them day after day. My house was a wreck. So was I.
A couple of weeks ago I came home and found the plumber had (finally) showed up and installed everything. My tub. My shower. The vanity. The toilet. I rubbed my eyes and checked again. Then I pinched myself. Then I screamed with joy. Then I cried with relief. Then I did what I wanted to do for 3 months: I ran a bath - with bubbles!
Since then my bathtub and I have become inseparable. I still go to my day job, but as soon as possible, I run home to my bathtub, grab a book and settle in to utter bliss.
I am in Bathroom Heaven.
All is well.
Until I receive the bill from my contractor.
Here are some renovation pictures of my bathroom:
Christina Esdon is a contemporary romance author currently working on her first novel…in her new bathtub. She has also been known to tweet from the tub using the hashtag #tubtweets and #TubReads. Sometimes she also blogs in the bathtub here: http://authorchristinaesdon.blogspot.ca/
Until the next time…I’ll be jealously drooling over Christina’s bathtub images.