old houses

I drive past this house almost every day. It's just a few blocks from where I live and is affectionately referred to by a number of neighbors as the "Oh My God" House because the huge old victorian structure is such an unexpected sight after driving past nothing but single-story bungalows. The owners of this house have been renovating it for more than ten years and it's still not habitable. I guess I'm one-up on these folks; my house is nowhere nearly so grand, but at least my mom and I can live in it. Just barely. We had the kitchen rebuilt before we moved in and I probably would have had the bathroom done also but I just didn't have enough money at the time so I decided to do the work myself. Almost as soon as I had ripped out the crappy shower installation and pulled off the mildewed sheetrock cold weather set in. I insulated with fiberglass batts and screwed some hardibacker boards to the studs but the bathroom sat all winter in its twilight zone of disrepair; a depressing sight every time you'd go in. Last weekend I finally got the walls prepped and today I start installing tile. Wish me luck.