If You Give Your Wife Permission to Paint the Bathroom

A cautionary tale about "small" home improvement projects

If you give your wife permission to paint the bathroom orange...

Before:

 She will ask what it would take to trade the dated vanity for the pedestal sink in your basement.

If you tell her you can swap the sinks, but you'll need to change the flooring because the ugly vinyl is cut around the vanity...

She will google search and fall in love with a glass tile floor.

If you buy her the glass tiles, mortar, grout, and all the corresponding tools...

You will both get so excited that you will immediately start tearing out the old floor.

If you start tearing out the old floor...

You will fine one... two layers of vinyl...

Followed by a layer of luan on top of... A layer of original 1950s linoleum...

Plus a layer of plywood before you finally reach the subfloor

And you will get so ahead of yourself that you have to leave a section, or you would have to pull out the toilet and sink before you are really even ready to get started.

If, a few days later, you get everything together and tear out the toilet, sink, and the rest of the floor...

You will find the flange for the toilet is 1 1/2 inches above the subfloor and is plumbed with a lead extender from the cast iron drain, so you will have to call a plumber to get their input on the situation.

If you call the plumber and get the go ahead to just cut the lead to the appropriate level and reinstall the flange...

You will finally be able to start with the mortar and cement backerboard. Of couse you will only be able to start after you put the kids to bed and will have to stay up until approximately 1am.

If you lay the cement backerboard underlayer for your tile

Your project will be ready for your wife to paint the bathroom.

If your toilet and sink are removed, layer of flooring is in but not finished, and your wife finishes painting the bathroom...

You will notice that the rough in plumbing for the sink is only about 8 inches from the edge of the tub and you will decide to call a plumber "just to see how much it will cost to move the rough in a few inches"

If you call plumbers on a Friday to come check out your rough in...

They will tell you they cannot come out until Monday, so you will decide to go ahead and lay the glass tile floor.

If you lay the glass tile floor on Saturday and then grout on Sunday giving the appropriate curing times...

You will realize the plumbers cannot come on Monday because the floor is not "walkable" yet so you will have to reschedule for Tuesday and Wednesday.

If the plumber comes on Tuesday to check out the rough ins...

He will tell you that the supply lines are copper, which is good, but the drain pipe is lead and not only would be impossible to move without replacing, but also should probably be replaced anyway because it will fail at some point.

If you ask what replacing the drain pipe entails...

He will tell you he will have to plumb over to the cast iron drain stack that runs behind the toilet which requires extensive work and will cost a few hundred dollars, essentially doubling the cost of your "small" project.

If you talk with your wife for a few days about the bathroom plumbing situation...

You will both decide that you would rather avoid a leak in the future so you will open up almost an entire wall so that you can call and schedule the plumber.

If you finally schedule the plumber to come a week and a half after originally checking out the rough ins to repair your bathroom plumbing ...

You will have to make a useable bathroom out of three rooms in your house: the still useable bathtub in this room, the downstairs for toilet, and the kitchen for the sink.

Kitchen stuff+Bathroom stuff+Construction stuff= Disorganized mess

If you schedule the plumber to come and do extensive work on this bathroom's plumbing...

You will also get curious about the rest of the bathroom plumbing and decide to open up the wall in the bathroom directly under your project so you can see where ALL the drains go.

If you open up all these walls to see what is going on with the plumbing...

The plumber will discover a way to plumb the new drain and fix all the other bathroom plumbing (and a leak in another pipe pro-bono), all for the same price as the original plan! (Hey, celebrate the small victories) You will also find that the culprit lead drain pipe already has a hairline crack at a bend and was slightly leaking, which makes you feel slightly better about the whole fiasco.

If the old, out-of-date plumbing gets repaired with shiny, new copper and PVC...

You will finally be ready to put the bathroom back together again and decide that since you've already torn out the whole wall you might as well replace the old, rusty,medicine cabinet/light fixture too.


If you prepare the wiring to install the new light fixture...

You will mistake a live wire for a ground wire and electrify the entire chrome fixture so that when you are measuring from the top of the wall to the copper pipes to cut the drywall you will ground the new circuit and zap yourself...three times...before taking the light fixture down.

If your wife calls her Dad for help the next morning who comes over to take a look, and then calls his electrician friend for help...

You will discover your error with the help of a voltimeter and be able to move forward, put up new drywall, tape and mud, have your wife repaint the wall, and move onto "finish" work.

If you want to replace missing tiles in the wall, install baseboard and shoe, recaulk and regrout sections of the bathtub, caulk around the bottom of the wall and floor, put up the new light and mirror, and reinstall the sink and toilet on a Monday and hope to be pretty much done for your wifes birthing class on Tuesday...

Your wife will work her fingers to the bone all day scraping old caulk and grout out from around the tub and you will both be up until all hours of the night trying to get the above list done (hey, we didn't write it all out and think about how extensive the list actually was...it was just supposed to be "finish" work)

If you try to get all the above work done by staying up until all hours of the night...

You will get to the point of installing the toilet, the tank will leak, your wife will cry, and you will crawl into bed defeated at 5am.

If you get defeated after staying up all night but still have half of the "finish" work left to do...

You will pretty much end up taking the day off in order to fix the toilet tank leak (turns out the new seal kit was a peice of sh** and our wonderful plumber, Greg, gave us a new one because he was just around the corner on another job), put in the sink, and put up the light and mirror.

If you want to reinstall the pedestal sink with pretty chrome pipes and decide to dry fit everything so you will know what you are doing before you mount it on the wall...

It will take a couple hours just to mount the sink on the pedestal and you will find that you cut one supply pipe too short and that the other supply line and the drain are leaking.

If you pick up the supplies for a new supply line and to fix the leaks...

You will stay up until 1 am that night trying to get the new supply line properly installed without leaks in the extremely cramped space behind the pedestal sink.

If you get the toilet, sink, and shower up and running again, your walls painted, and ready to finish up the cabinet...

You will discover the small patch peice you'd planned for the bottom of the door casing won't work because the old profile doesn't match so you will have to replace the entire thing...adding an extra full day to the project, necessitating more paint touch ups, and seriously irritating your wife.


If you patch things up, in the bathroom and with your wife, and finally finish "painting" your bathroom...

Your wife will be so happy with the result that she will ask to paint the kitchen ;-)

A Year of Financial Peace

Whew, it's been quite chaotic around here for a little while... lot's going on in life and mostly in very good ways. I told myself just a few months into doing Dave Ramsey's plan and seeing some results that I would share my journey after a year. I am so glad to say that I am as excited to do that now, after that year, as I was when we started. You may remember my post here about getting started Living Like No One Else. Well, here's what that has been like...

I remember so clearly a year ago and what a rude awakening it was to realize how little money we had left after our bills, and to realize that a third of our income was going out every month to debt that was NOT our house. I think the prayer and promise that came along with listening to Financial Peace University must have gone a long way because otherwise I probably would have just cried at the computer, not knowing how we would manage to make it all work. I prioritized food and our children, making sure we would be able to be fed and keep them diapered and clean. Then I allocated very modest amounts to envelopes. I was reasonable and did have an "entertainment" envelope and I can share with you all now that this envelope received a whopping $10 a month, yup that's right. We simply did not have anymore than that to put towards it. That gives you an idea of where we started, and I tried to be optimistic and move forward.

The first few months were pretty exciting, we were actually able to stick to the budget we made with a few adjustments we felt like we were doing great. We were also very blessed because our best friends started FPU last year and have been a HUGE support and partners in the "let's hang out, what do you have in your fridge for dinner tonight" kind of mentality. I know this has made the year considerable easier and more fun. Now, this year was relatively good to us but we also had our rough patches. My husband's job announced last summer that they no longer could afford to cover health insurance benefits at the same level, and that would add another $300 a month to our load. I admit, I cried quite a bit thinking "We finally got our act together and now this. We can't afford to go to out for a date, let alone another $300". Then I put my big girl panties on and got proactive. Dave mentioned in the class that a better route for a healthy family for health insurance was a High Deductible health insurance plan (cheaper per month) with an HSA. As a nurse, I thought this was brilliant, but high deductible means at least a few thousands bucks...a little scary for a young family just starting to get their finances together. So, when we started I thought "We'll look at that when we have our 3-6 month emergency fund in place"...but I am very thankful now that this info was in the back of our minds because when the shoe fell, I did some research. I did some internet searches, and then contacted one of the Endorsed Local Providers for Health Insurance to get some info and quotes, then Tim and I had a long talk. I can say that this process was pretty stressful and not super easy and that we have taken on a bigger risk than I would ideally like. That was our choice though, and when you weigh that risk against the extra $300 a month we would have paid anyways (and that's if rates wouldn't increase next year...yeah RIGHT) we basically took a risk that no major events (more expensive than our deductible) would occur more than once every 3 years. If this is true, than we still save money...which is actually pretty impressive. So, crisis averted and I put the money we saved every month (compared to our previous paychecks...not even the additional $300) towards an HSA and at this point already have $1200 in there. So thanks to Dave's info we are covered and in a BETTER place in that regard than before. We also had some surpise and not so surpise expenses that we were obligated to before Financial Peace, but those all got covered. All the while we worked off debt, by paying every bill, plus EVERY EXTRA PENNY we could squeeze from life in order to pay those off. We worked the HypnoBirthing, cakes, and overtime as much as possible and we sold stuff, not tons of stuff, but quite a bit of stuff to go toward that debt snowball.

When we started a year ago, I was hoping just to live successfully based on a plan, and if THAT could work than maybe to bring our bills down in a year to a place where we would at least break even every month and not have to rely on the "tax bonus". Well, this year has been more than I could even dream. We have lived successfully on this plan, and we've even lived well. We've found ways to still have fun, see movies, go out to eat occasionally, enjoy life. We had Christmas, and yes I spent almost every penny of that budget (just $4.50 left over), but I had NO GUILT after Christmas, I spent exactly what we had planned for Christmas this year. A big thing for me has been the actual Peace part of Financial Peace. I feel an incredible weight has lifted because I KNOW that we can manage our money and anything that comes our way from here on out. Also, it has been incredibly good for our marraige. We used to be stressed pretty regularly about money and maybe not have blow out fights, but definetely have arguments and I'd have the pit in my stomach feeling when it came to our finances. Now, I can remember the one "argument" we've had about money ALL YEAR, and it wasn't so much an argument, but me being upset that my husband had spent $30 while I was out of town that we hadn't planned on or talked about ahead of time. No biggie, we found another spot for that money to come out of, and it really was no big deal. The point is, that is the ONE AND ONLY time we've been in disagreement over money...all year...and we are in a better relationship because of this. It has become easy and important for us to communicate about where our money is going. There is enough in life to stress us out, it feels so good to not argue about money anymore.

The biggest news out of this entire year is where we are as of March. On March 11th I paid off our last credit card and our car loan, so as of last month we are now consumer debt free! (we still have student loans, which is why we are not yet debt free). I could not believe it, I literally cried because it felt so good. In just one year we have paid off  $18,532.69 in debt! It's crazy and if someone had told me last year that this is where we would be I probably would have laughed at them. This, also, more than covers our break even point as this reduces our monthly bills by about $475 A MONTH! I literally want to shout Dave Ramsey's name from the rooftops, because it IS WORKING, and I know that Living like no one else means that we WILL Live like no one else someday...and probably sooner than I imagined.

I got to sit down at the end of March and make our Monthly Cash Flow plan for April, and it was FUN. We decided to re-adjust our finances a little to make room in a few envelopes. We haven't had an envelope for adult clothes this year, and that worked while we needed to get intense and in control, but let's just say that I definetely wore through my jeans and a few other essenials. Not having a budget for clothes is just not sustainable, so now we do. Plus, we've budgeted more now so I can get my hair cut and colored regularly since I am supposed to be some what professional. We also increased a few other envelopes ($15 a month now for entertainment...wahoo!) just to give ourselves a little more breathing room as we keep working this plan and attacking our student loans. Tim has been fortunate enough to have quite a bit of overtime lately, and we are also rewarding ourselves with a bathroom mini-remodel...that story to come :) We'll still have a chunk of extra penny's, though, that I am excited to throw at his student loan.

It's only been a year and with Financial Peace, and we have not been able to call Dave yet for the DEBT FREEEEE!!!! scream, but I wanted to tell you all where we are because if we could do this ANYONE CAN. I want people to know and experience this amazing feeling of success and peace. So, think about it, what could you do with an extra $475 a month a year from now, or even better, what could you do if you had no debt? I'll let you know how it feels in a few years when we get there!