... do NOT go together like peanut butter & jelly. I should know. I'm currently experiencing both, enjoying neither.
Recently, the time finally presented itself that we had enough money to tackle some of the renovations we've been so desperately needing. Tops on the list were both upstairs bathrooms & carpeting.
Our carpeting, throughout the upstairs and on the stairs themselves, had reached a state of such squalor I was afraid to walk on it barefoot for fear of catching some rare and exotic bacterial infection. With 4 vomiting cats, 3 food-and-beverage-spilling kids, and 2 occasionally incontinent dogs, beige carpet was quite possibly the worst of all possible floor coverings for this family. It had to go. Somewhere but here. Unfortunately, that somewhere is a landfill.
It's possibly been two years since we've had two fully functioning upstairs bathrooms. First, the kids' bath developed an enormous leak which rather quickly led to a hole in the downstairs ceiling just below. We discontinued shower use in there and shared the master shower with the kids. We did this for a couple of months half a year while life generally got in the way of calling a plumber to check it out. Then our shower developed a leak which rather quickly led to a ginormous water stain on the downstairs ceiling just below. We finally called a plumber (since the kids' toilet had also begun to clog rather quickly and easily), whom we paid generously to tell us there was nothing wrong with the plumbing that would cause these leaks and for whom the toilet refused to clog. Another month or two passed of self-plumbing and sharing a shower amongst five people. A different plumber was summoned, who diagnosed and fixed the toilet problem. (Who, by the way, flushes a damn Popsicle stick, people? Really. Only in this family.) Unfortunately, he confirmed (after enlargening the hole in the downstairs ceiling) that the pipes seemed to be in working order, and that he believed the leaks to be water leaking through holes in the shower grout. So we bought some grout and effectively slapped a band-aid on an arterial bleed. Two showers again. For a very short while. Until the shower head broke behind our shower wall. Needless to say, the bathroom situation has been screaming to be rectified for a little while. Since the house was built in the eighties, when carpet and wallpaper in a bathroom and "garden/jacuzzi tubs" (deep, oval, and ugly with built-in steps) were all considered good ideas, new "stuff" was required of this remodel.
Since we wanted to leave as little environmental impact as possible, we I did a lot of research, which yielded mixed results.
Reclaimed hardwood floors offered neither the look nor the price we desired. Bamboo flooring wasn't sturdy enough for pet toenails and general furniture scraping. Eventually I came up with FSC-certified Brazilian cherry from EcoTimber. Our flooring guy was very helpful in getting this for us. We decided to use the engineered version, as it uses less overall wood. The usual worry with engineered hardwood flooring is that there is such a thin layer of finished hardwood, the floors cannot be refinished. This particular wood, however, has the thickest "working layer" he'd ever seen, though, and should take at least one refinishing, if necessary.
We wanted recycled glass tile to re-tile the showers. Until we discovered it was about $100 per square foot, installed. Even just the tile itself from another distributor was $75-$95. Instead we chose to use tile of non-recycled glass from a company that at least has some good environmental practices, like recycling of its rejected tile, its fly ash, and its water. I think I remember (at 5:14 a.m., after being up since 2:00) it also uses renewable resources for its plant's electricity. This tile was $14 per square foot.
We paid extra for Kohler fixtures, including their brand-newest handheld 1.75 gpm showerheads and sleek European dual-flush toilets. Bowing to the possible demands of any future buyers of the house, we got the BubbleMassage option on the bathtub, though we eschewed ugly jacuzzi-type whirlpool jets. I don't want my bathtub to look like a damn space ship.
That's everything going into this phase (I hope I get to squeeze a painter out of this, too, for walls & cabinets). Next we tackle countertops and sinks. We I want renewable resources used: Paperstone for the kids' bath, Vetrazzo recycled glass countertops in ours. Unfortunately, they, too, are ridiculously expensive. ($2000 freaking dollars for a not-even-five-foot countertop in the kids' bath? Between $2500 & $4000 for ours?) I'm debating waiting until we have the money for that, or going for US-sourced granite (since granite sourced from third world countries is quarried with abominable worker conditions). I know. It's non-renewable. It is one reason I agonize. It's what I do.
In two-and-a-half hours, the contractors are returning to make copious amounts of hideous noise, so that I won't be able to take a nap. I tossed and turned from 2:00-4:00, then got up to take an Ativan and write this. I'm just now getting a little sleepy, I think. Perfect timing, since I need to be up an hour before the contractors get here, don't you think?
