I have reached the point where it’s time to Reno the master bathroom. I’ve had ideas in my mind for awhile but then Ethan made a couple suggestions.

Anyway, I started with the hard part. The jacuzzi tub. It was built in and looked really heavy. Turns out it wasn’t that heavy and I was able to get it out on my own.

Join me on the project descriptions and some personal reflections (skip over those if you want).

Every time I slip into doing a renovation project I can’t help but reflect on how these changes apply to my life as well. When I moved up here I knew no one, including myself. I have spent the past (almost) three years getting to know who I am. This is the longest period of my adult life being single and living alone. At first things for me were a bit uncertain. I wasn’t sure I had made the right decision. But then I started to learn who I am. I believe this is a challenge to do for anyone when married or dating someone. It’s especially a challenge when you have children. Unless you already know who you are.

I have reached a point where I am very content being alone out here in the woods. I thrive on it. Maybe that will change someday and maybe it won’t. The peace and quiet I am experiencing is good for my soul.

My soul was not always at peace. I didn’t have the best childhood mainly because I believe my mom was a deep seated narcissistic, manipulative, angry, and negative woman. She sucked the life out of anything. I’m not sure how my dad and step dad made it through. Then again, maybe they didn’t. I didn’t get to know my step dad Jim (I’ve always considered him my dad…he adopted me when I was six.) My mom did whatever she could to get in the way of my relationship to him. In fact, it wasn’t until I left home for the navy that he and I were able to connect without the interference of her. Sad really.

It’ll sit here until I haul it out behind the shop. I’m trying to decide if I want to build a stand for it out back and use it for an outdoor tub.

Lewie continues to check my progress and often inserts himself into the middle of what I’m doing. Sometimes that bothers me, but lately I’ve been taking it in stride. He’s just trying to make sense of the shit changing in his world.

The shower stall is next. I had to break out the edges of drywall around the shower to find the screws to release it from the wall. When I took that thing apart I found it to be so disgusting. Hiding in all of the spaces you can’t clean was years of God knows what sort of filth and junk shoved in there from multiple families. Ick.

I soon realized it wouldn’t fit out of the door. So what do you do when that happens? You cut that fucker in half. I decided quickly there was no way I would be able to repurpose this unit. It’ll go in the dumpster when it gets here.

Tomorrow I’ll decide if I’m going to tear into the walls. I’m planning to tile the walls over so the drywall will need to be replaced with cement backer boards all around. My son Ethan suggests I’ll need to apply some self leveling floor cement before I tile up the floor. Makes sense. Also, the question then becomes, should I put down in-floor heating? That might be a nice touch.

I’m also trying to decide if I’m even going to put a tub back in. I was thinking a self standing unit. Yet, I’m just not a tub guy and it’s biggest purpose would be for a resell if I do that. Right now, I’m feeling like this could be my forever home. Time will tell.

I spent some time reminiscing on the complex layers I’ve been learning about as I work on these projects. I feel like I’ve gotten more figured out, resolved, and forgiven out of this chapter in my life than I ever did with years of counseling in the past. Go figure. Right now I can honestly say I’m more grounded and healthy in my mind and soul than I could have imagined. I’m not a religious man but I am Spiritual. I have a relationship with God and Jesus without the trappings of organized religion. That’s all I’ll say about that for now.

This relationship has only grown stronger and the blessings are coming in fast and furious. I couldn’t do this without that. Thank you God.

Stay tuned for more progress on my projects. Skip over the personal reflections if you don’t care to read them. That’s ok by me.