How one family learned through trial and error—popping off baseboards while using floor jacks and sawing a hutch in half to get it in the front door—to turn a 1909 wreck into their dream home
We had decided to split the huge master bathroom, which had been carved out of an extra bedroom years before, in two. We wanted to add a second bath for guests and to carve out space in our own for a walk-in closet, a laundry area, and that claw-foot tub. For days I rearranged brooms to show where I wanted the walls and a bucket for where I wanted a toilet. I had John measure several times, because inches mattered. I outlined the tub's space on the floor with chalk. A local refinisher was fixing its enamel. The missing leg was replaced by a guy in Chicago who salvages old tubs and found a match by fishing around in his barrels of spare parts.
The shower we bought for the guest bath didn't fit, so we found a place for it in the master bath. That was after John put down the heart-pine flooring he handpicked from an old lumber mill. Unfortunately, he had to reset each staple with a hammer and steel bar after he made the mistake of trying to nail the boards down with a mechanical stapler—on the wrong (groove) side.
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