The Simple Bathroom Update

We have finally decided to update one of our bathrooms. [Those of you who have been through recent home improvement projects can stop laughing now!]

Even though we aren’t going to start this project for a few months, our contractor suggested we take a trip to the local bath decorating center, see what is out there, what’s new, what we like and dislike, and what these modern marvels cost (gasp!).

Geez! The prices!

It’s a bathroom for Pete’s sake! You use it for… well, you know…and reading and working on the crossword puzzle. And not, in this case, even a bathroom that will, for the most part, be seen by anyone outside the family.

Within a half-hour of entering the store, we both developed headaches. We thought we remembered going into a home-improvement store and saying, “I want one of these and two of these, and, oh yeah, a medicine cabinet with a mirror, and this. Okay, anything else? How much?”

Instead we wandered through dozens of model bathrooms containing equipment we would never put in our bathroom even if we could afford it or figure out how it works.

We are much too practical for current decorating trends or trendy decorating. When I see glass showers I picture trying to clean the watermarks off. When I look at a fancy bowled sink on a gorgeous wooden dresser, I wonder how you get the toothpaste from under the bowl and how the wood is affected by water. Will I be able to fix the new toilet if it involves anything more involved than bending the little float thing to stop it from running?

We finally fled the store with a handful of pamphlets that we could study in relative privacy – maybe in the bathroom.

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I have just realized that our contractor has worked on our house before and knows our lifestyle and probably deliberately suggested that particular bathroom decorating store so that when he gives us the final figure for our regular standard bathroom stuff it will look downright cheap.

While walking around the fancy bathroom fixtures I just couldn’t bring myself to ask how some of the stuff works. Do the employees have a breakroom where they exchange stories about the rube who couldn’t figure out how to flush the toilet or adjust the water temperature in the NASA-designed shower?

I was going to call this "Part I", because you know there will be more on this in the future. But I resisted the urge.