Rehabilitating an old house is an incremental process that is often accompanied by long periods of neglect and avoidance. That is why after thirty years we will have a bathroom that does not resemble an after thought. Bathrooms and plumbing were still a futuristic fantasy when this house was built, so in many ways the existing sal de bain was an after thought squeezed into a corner of the logs to simulate a certain level of upward mobility that all the residents of this abode have strived to achieve over the centuries. We are merely the most recent occupants who have a sense that we could do better than the previous owners.
When we first moved in, the bathroom was accessible through a closet under the stairs. It’s hard to say why the builder decided on this architectural anomaly, except perhaps that it afforded an extra layer of privacy when a parent wanted to scream at the top of their lungs, “Why did I have so many damned kids!” For our part it served as a great hide and seek location in which we could relish a little shadenfreude when we scared the bejesus out of our own kids on long winter nights. Ah, those were the days, when we could elicit the high-pitched scream of a 3 year old with impunity.
Of course, that didn’t last long and the entrance was finally moved to an accessible wall in another room and the creepy sacristy of coats and boots became the thing of legend and nightmares. Every five years or so we tried to transform this space into something close to a modern bathroom but it has resisted change with the obstinance of solid oak. There is also the added disincentive of having to remove toilet, sink, and tub every time we have an extra 25 bucks for an upgrade. That’s why my own attitude towards this room has been one of diligent avoidance.
But last week my intimacy with porcelain fixtures finally came to an end, or at least that’s what I’m hoping. In one last burst of renovative hysteria, the bathroom was gutted for the last time to lay a tile floor and finish the ceiling that had been begging for drywall for about twenty years. The rest of the house was briefly transformed into an obstacle course of tools and plumbing parts, but it was worth it in order to come closer the Platonic ideal of “bathroom”. There is, of course, more work to be done, but for now I have a reprieve from the demanding middle class aspirations that will bring this house into the twentieth century.
