When I moved into my townhouse two years ago there were several changes that I knew right away that I wanted to make.

First, the first floor had pure white carpet in every room, including the foyer and dining room, and I knew that was just a disaster waiting to happen. So I took out all of the carpet on the first floor (as well as the linoleum in the kitchen and laundry room) and put down some really nice Pergo.

Second, the cabinets in the kitchen were very worn looking, so I refinished them and put on new hardware.

Third, at the bottom of the stairs there was a short wrought iron banister. I am a firm believer that no one should ever have wrought iron inside their house, so I built a nice wooden banister and replaced it.

Finally, I couldn’t stand the dated looking bathroom on the first floor.

The first three were fairly easy projects to tackle, but the bathroom is taking a lot more time and energy. I started on the project back in October and I haven’t had a whole lot of progress since then (largely because I was lazy over the winter) but now I’m trying to step it up and get it finished.

The bathroom had the 1980’s look with tile half way up the wall and around the entire bathroom, tiny ugly tiles on the floor, a hideous vanity that no one should be forced to use and it had separate knobs for hot and cold water in the shower (which even though they’re quite common I have still yet to master).

Confronted with all of these problems I decided that I had no choice other than to gut the entire bathroom, drywall and all. That was the easy part. Putting it back together is proving to be a lot harder and more frustrating than I thought.

Over the next few days I’ll give some updates on the project and bring everyone up to present day. Then I’ll just have to wait and see how much longer it takes until it’s actually usable again! At my current pace I’m setting a goal of Spring 2008.