Friday, July 09, 2010

You can take the bathroom out of the 80's...

Anyone know of any ::booming voice:: Worst-Bathroom-in-America ::cut-booming voice:: contests that might be going on about now? Because while I usually refrain from entering contests like that (knowing in my heart-of-hearts that there are so many people out there with bathrooms worse than mine) I happened to look around while taking my shower this morning and realized maybe we actually could win one of those contests...you know...if they were based on how bad your bathroom actually is as opposed to how many family members/co-workers/strangers-on-the-bus you were able to badger into voting for you EVERYDAYTHISWEEKANDNEXTWEEKANDEVENTHEWEEKAFTERTHAT until all the other contestants' posses give up and you win by default.

The problem, or should I say problem(s), in our bathroom can be summed up in a few words. "Pink Nightmare" comes to mind. I can actually tolerate the pink floor,


pink tub,

pink sink,


and...(wait for it)...

pink toilet!!
But what REALLY gets me, is the pink tile ceiling.

Let me say that again.

PINK. TILE. CEILING.



And no...if the ceiling were tiled in a different color it wouldn't release it from my hatred.


Whoever thought of putting tile on the ceiling in the bathroom is sick and twisted. Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to clean the tiles of a ceiling that is only reachable by ladder? It ain't fun, people! And when they were installing this ceiling, they certainly didn't think of installing an exhaust fan...so guess where all that shower steam ends up. ON THE CEILING.


And any moisture that ISN'T gunking up our ceiling, is gathering itself in between the painted wall paper and (what I can only imagine is moldy) plaster walls. Yup...our bathroom apparently had sparkle-tastic wall-paper that a previous owner did us the 'favor' of missing out on by painting over it...with industrial white paint that really is more of the grayish tint bubble gum gets when you have been chewing it for three days. When painted wallpaper gets moist it starts to peel from the walls. But God forbid you tug on any of that wallpaper because I just know that once you do that the entire place will implode on itself in a great shudder of mildew, dust and half-broken pink tiles.





And while we're talking about masochistic bathroom planning, exactly when did putting a big, wood-framed window IN THE SHOWER become the design strategy of choice?


This is the third place I have lived in in Massachusetts and each one of them has had this window 'feature' that requires one to somehow retro-fit the tub with a plastic curtain to keep the water out of the woodwork...a device destined to creeping further and further into the shower like a moist, mildew-y Venus-fly-trap waiting to pounce on any person attempting to bathe themselves.

Rounding out our case for ::booming voice:: Worst-Bathroom-in-America ::cut-booming voice:: is a small, rusty medicine cabinet with cracked glass shelves,



weird, dried-up caulking around old fixtures,


and an extraordinarily poorly placed heat register that prevents us from even considering improving of the layout of the space someday.

We've done the best we can do at this point with this, the one and only full bathroom we have in the house...but due to budget, time and no-other-place-to-shower-in-our-house constraints it's going to have to be what we live with for a long, long time unless we stumble across some sort of bathroom overhaul windfall.

In the meantime, I guess I will have to discipline myself to refrain from pulling at the very tantalizing curls of painted-over, sparkly wall paper that crop up after every shower.

What about you all...do you have any major nightmares in your house that you are resigned to living with?

8 comments:

  1. omg i thought we were alone in the "I have a wood framed window in my shower" thing! ours is so disgusting and instead of doing anything about it, we just seal it and slap some white paint on it and hope the black mold doesn't kill us. there are actually a few big things i would fix in our place, but we don't have the money or the energy to try and fix them.

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  2. Our bathroom is a nightmare too. It's not pink and the ceiling isn't tiled, thank god (tho we did look at a house with a pink bathroom). But it is still a poorly designed, tiny, only-full-bath-in-the-house room with a moldy fan painted to the wall, tile someone painted over (hell, maybe it IS pink underneath??) and a toilet you have to sit sideways on because it's too close to the tub. Ugh. I don't know if we can do anything about it either.

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  3. Well first, let me tell you that after 5 years I finally found a way to fix the wooden window in the shower....it was the only window in the house that had not been replaced when I moved in. Luckily a window company in town was having a sale on vinyl windows - any size, installed $185. I spent an extra $25 to get frosted glass. And then I took town the wood molding and put up composite. So they only actually wood showing is the small "sill". I went to Lowes and they told me to get a piece of cedar wood to put there because cedar is meant to be used outside and withstand water, molding, etc. So no more shower curtain!!! I hated it too. I've spent a little over a year now redoing my bathroom - new tub, surround, flooring, painted walls, molding and light fixture. I can tell you however I was fortunate to not have to deal with tile at all...my flooring was vinyl so I just put some great peel and stick tiles right over it. If you ever want to see pictures, let me know. I'd be happy to share. I hope you can find a few more ways to improve things but I honestly have no suggestions other than demo for the ceiling---and I know that is not possible (I had to use the scary shower in the basement for about a week while some plumbing work was done - NOT FUN). Love Ya!

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  4. our bathroom is from the 50s and it is pink on every wall, should height and down (backsplash and shower included)Thankfully the toilet has been replaced with a white one, and the ceiling is untiled.

    We live in a rental, so we make do.
    But I feel your pain!

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  5. Have you seen this blog? http://savethepinkbathrooms.com/

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  6. Well, that's a lovely site, FM...but you see...my home isn't from the 40's, 50's or 60's...nope...it is a colonial built in 1909 with the misfortune of being saddled with this pink, craptastic bathroom by someone with aesthetic similar to whomever runs the aforementioned website. So, I find myself completely exonerated from any guilt of not appreciating it. NOT TO MENTION THE WALLS ARE FALLING APART!!!

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  7. LOL, this bathroom reminds me of the "guest bath" at my mother-in-law's house in suburban Detroit... Pink Sinks, Pink Toilet, Pink Bathtub (theirs is sunk-in, so the top of the tub is at floor level and you have to step down to get in, SO weird!), Pink tile and to top it all off, Pastel Confetti wallpaper!

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  8. Megs - that's hilarious...Pastel Confetti wallpaper! HA! Maybe she could paint over it with industrial grayish white?

    FM - Please excuse me for my snarky response...re-reading it now made me cringe. I can only blame lack of sleep...sorry if I was rude.

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