joys of home ownership

I would have blogged earlier tonight, but I had to paint my bathroom ceiling. Jupiter has a tenatively scheduled play date on Sunday afternoon, and I would like them to come again. Hence, the preperation. Any time I clean, of course, Jupiter asks me who is coming over. She got into the habit of asking during bi-annual to annual cleaning I did before post placement visits. Except for the last one, I guess since it was the last one. So anyway, looking at my bathroom through a visitor's eye, I decided the bathroom ceiling needed to be painted. Which it did. Now the walls need to be painted. I didn't necessarily have the proper tools for painting a ceiling, so I tried using a regular sponge. So there are a lot of drips on the walls. That's okay, the walls needed paint too. And there are drips on the rug.
Yes, I have a rug in my bathroom. Berber carpet, actually. It came with the house. My house came with a lot of great neat things. Some very old things, which I will blog about in a later post. And some unusual things, like a years supply of ziploc bags, and three plungers. It also has carpet in the bathroom. Great in the winter if you don't want to slip on a cold wet tile floor. But sometimes, not so great. The carpet doesn't need to be painted. It needs to be removed and replaced with tile. Jupiter is not always careful about keeping water IN the tub when she takes a bath. So, the carpet is wet, and growing icky stuff in spots. I dream of tile.
The tile, though isn't the problem. My tub/shower leaks. I recaulked it, so it's not quite so bad, but besides the leaky part, it's salmon colored. Absolutely stylish. About six years ago, a delivery company accidentally delivered a tub/shower and a toilet to my house. Left them in my driveway right in front of my garage door one day while I was in the shower. Before I could figure out how to get them in the house, the person who was supposed to receive said bathroom fixtures drove by and claimed them. Bummer. I could use a new toilet and tub/shower about now.
Speaking of the toilet, it's running. Constantly. Finally last night it dawned on me to turn the water off at the valve and just turn the water on to flush. I'm a little afraid of my water bill next month. I went to Walmart (under protest) this afternoon to buy a new flapper thing in hopes of being able to fix my own toilet. Nope. Bought the wrong thing, of course. In all honesty, I want a new toilet. (It's colored salmon too.) But why install a new toilet before a new tub and new tile? Other than to get everything at one time is expensive, especially given the price of heating oil.
Okay, I admit it, I cheated tonight when we came home. I turned the heat up to 64 degrees when we got home just to take the chill off. I've turned it back down to the bottom of the thermostat. I'll try again tomorrow to be good. Heating pads are wonderful things, btw. You can be warm even if the air in your house is Arctic.
So, the bathroom. I need a new toilet, new bathtub/shower, a new vanity top (it's not salmon. It's gold sparkle. The basin, however, is salmon.) And tile. Probably some subfloor too. Why not? May as well do your fantasy bathroom up right when you dream up your fantasy all expense paid trip to Lowe's.