THE FINAL BATHROOM STORY

I am trying not to think that anyone who writes three blogs, with accompanying pictures, about bathrooms must be a little weird. But my daughter Bryn has reminded me that I left my present bathroom drip in limbo and that I needed to finish up all my bathroom ruminations and not leave anyone hanging with baited breath as to its resolution. So here goes.

First things first. The apartment complex's best handyman, Jack, couldn't find where our leak was coming from but he hauled out his handy wrench and tightened all the joints under the sink -- and voila, the problem was solved. We've had nary a drip since then.

But now for the final installment on bathrooms. The picture above is how my bathroom at our house in Orange, California, looked when we finally got rid of the black and red glossy paint and the oriental theme that adorned this room when we bought the house. It was a long narrow bathroom, and a private contractor who had worked with me on other rooms of the house worked his magic on this one too.

I need to explain a couple of things. I had a half-wall built between the end of the bathtub and the wall, hiding the toilet. A full wall would have made the bathroom appear way too small, so at least some privacy was obtained with this little half-wall. And it gave me a good wall to use as a showcase for lovely piece of Victoriana that my sister had made for me.

I also told Don the contractor I didn't want to have an ugly medicine cabinet and asked if he could build me tall louvered cabinets on each side of the mirror to serve in that capacity. He knew what I meant and built them to my specs. And the last thing I asked for was a tile ledge on the back side of the tub so I could set the accoutrements (candles, etc.) in a place where they weren't likely to be knocked off. He accomplished this too.

For the space I had, it turned out wonderfully well, and I've never enjoyed baths as much as I did there. But I must tell you that there was one interim bathtub between the oriental and the present mode. We developed a leak under the bathtub, discovered by coming home from work one day and finding water everywhere! Unfortunately this house was built on a concrete slab, and the plummers had to use a witching wand of sorts to find the source of the leak.

The next step was taking a jackhammer to the bathtub, which at that time was just a standard ugly white tub. We were not ready yet to do any remodeling in this room so I told the plumbing company to just get a plain old white replacement for it, something that didn't cost an arm and a leg. The plumber said he could find a good five-foot long tub for $500 and I told them that was fine. I figured a bathtub was a bathtub. After a few depressing days having my house torn up, we were back in business again.

This was the first and last mistake I ever made in remodeling this house. The "good buy" bathtub was about as comfortable as sitting in a pew at a Quaker church. I had supposed that since I am 5'6" tall and I certainly didn't intend to lie flat out in it, that 5 feet would be a good length for me. WRONG! That was a 5 foot out-to-out dimension. Which meant that I could either sit upright in it or, if I tried to relax and lie in it, my knees popped out of the water - and the water level settled somewhere around my hip-bones. I gave it my best shot, as I do love long, luxurious soaking baths, but nothing I could do, other than drape a wet, soggy towel over my body while I laid in the tub, came up with an even close-to-satisfying bath. Since I couldn't blame the problem on anyone else (like my husband or the plumber), I simply gave up the idea of bathing and used the shower in the master bath from then on.

So when time came that my bathroom appeared on the list for re-doing, I made sure I did it up right. The whole color for it came from my finding the wallpaper in a store. I'd spent hours in this little store looking at book after book. The poor saleslady kept dragging them over to me. When I spied this brownish paper, I had a very "visceral" reaction -- kind of a low "ohhhhh" moan type of sound. The saleslady said, "Any wallpaper that causes this kind of a feeling should be immediately picked!" Was she right! Everything in my final bathroom was there because of the wallpaper.

I HATED to sell that house. When the lady who bought it told me she didn't care for wallpaper and would repaint all the rooms, I nearly cried. But I'd had my fun with it, and of course now I have my pictures to remember.

The little tiny bathroom we have now is characterless. Nothing can help it out, I'm afraid. It is so small that when we take a deep breath you can see the sides of the walls pull in toward us. It provides the necessities and that is about all. But luckily, and happily, we don't have to have the whole thing jackhammered out because of a lousy drip!

P.S. Oh, I just remembered, I do have another bathroom story to tell but it is about jazz too. So keep your eye open down the road for that one.