Nothing in this house is as easy as it looks.

My husband and I recently purchased our fourth house in eight years. With our three young kids in tow (ages 8, 6 and 4) we are expert packers and movers. With each move our mortgage gets bigger while the house gets uglier! We seem to be addicted to ugly houses with potential so we move in, fix them with the intention of creating a home for our family and then just as we're finishing the renovations, we stumble on another fixer upper that's calling our name. Our current house should be our last because we'll be old and broke when we're finally done with all the work that we need to do.
Last week my parents were visiting from out of state for the first time since we moved. While I gave my parents the tour of our new digs I included details of our plans for renovating. When we got the kid's bathroom (a room that still looks the same as when the house was built in the 60's) I told my parents that while ugly and out of date, it was functional and therefore LOW on the list of projects. That's when my father innocently asked how we planned to deal with the leaky toilet. I hadn't even noticed that the toilet was leaking but on further inspection, I could see a bit of water pooled in the grout around the toilet. According to my father, all we needed to do was replace the wax ring and the problem would be solved. Eager to help, he headed out to the plumbing supply store and came back with a new ring.
Together we removed the toilet only to find that in addition to the wax ring needing to be replaced, the flange was broken, and the leaking water had rotted out the sub floor under the tile. The tile around the toilet was literally flaking off the floor. So now we had chip away all the loose tile and cut out the rotted sub floor. We ended up removing so much tile (the rot was BAD) it suddenly didn't seem to make sense to try to salvage any of it. An hour later it was all gone which created a new problem. With the floor tile gone the wall tile looked even worse! If I was going to replace the floor tile, I didn't want to have to match it to ugly wall tile, so off with the wall tile! We started swinging our hammers and yanking off the wall tile leaving huge holes and pits in the plaster walls. Now we're covered in sweat and dust and standing on top of a huge pile of tile. We haul it all out to the dumpster in my driveway (I must say, the only good thing about a renovation is how great it is to have a dumpster in your driveway...seriously, I'm going to miss the dumpster!) and then survey the scene. Clearly, the wall board needs to come down. A patch job at this point is out of the question. More swinging and banging and the walls are down. We look up at the ceiling and nod in silent agreement -the next step is obvious. The ceiling is a popcorn ceiling and I hate that bumpy look so down it comes. We haul all the plaster chunks to my beloved dumpster and return to the bathroom to survey the scene. The foul beige floor tile is gone, the vomit colored wall tile is gone, the walls and ceiling are gone. The only things still left are the tub and sink - also a horrid shade of beige. Why go this far when you can go all the way? Out they came. That night my husband returned home from work to find a full dumpster in his driveway, and a sink, toilet and tub on the front lawn. My parents stayed for dinner and then high tailed it to a hotel for the night - I guess the chaos at our house didn't make for suitable accomodations! The next day, to my husband's great relief, they headed home ( he was scared he'd come home from work and find the kitchen appliances on the front lawn too) eaving us with one more new project placed at the top of the list!