Upon moving into our little apartment here, there was only one aspect that was deemed, um, "scary" by Rachel - the bathroom.  Since this apartment building dates back to the outhouse days, there were no bathrooms in the floor plans.  Since no one remembers when the only toilet in the building was halfway up the main corridor stairs, in a little corner 'closet'.  The bathtubs were in the kitchens.  It was only as recently as the early 70's that a tiny pantry room was converted to hold a bathtub and toilet.  The hot water tank was added years later - in fact, Norbi can still remember the water heating contraption that they had to hang over the tub into the cold water to heat it.  But that little bathroom was never actually 'finished'.  When we moved in there was still the dirt floor under the bathtub, and a very 'scary' open space into the recesses of under the stairs, where who-knows-what little crawling things lived, ready to come out and get some unsuspecting potty-user at night.  And so, the bathroom project was deemed of utmost importance, and the first real improvement to be made on our new home.  We appealed to many of you, our friends, and many sent funds to help in this project.  First will be some 'before' pictures, followed by in the process and basically finished pictures.  It looks great now, but Rachel is still waiting to take 'after' pictures until she has the curtains up that go with her bathroom 'theme' of seashells and ocean stuff.  The curtains there now are temporary.

BEFORE

First Steps

Norbi found bricks out in the backyard (and lots of other strange stuff, see the backyard page) which he used to fill in under and around the bathtub.  Here there is already one row of them on the floor, lining the tub boundaries.

Okay, kind of twist your head to the right for this one - it's a shot of the 'scary' hole - much easier to see while actually sitting on the toilet - the green seat of it is seen in the left corner.  You're looking down and right, see the lined up bricks on the floor, with the side of the bathtub at the top of the picture, the wall in front of the toilet is the big white section.  It was hard to get a good angle for the 'scary hole'.

IN PROGRESS

Scary hole is gone!  Yeah!  Bricks have been placed and cemented over along the bathtub, and tiling work has begun.

Drywall at head of bathtub.

The new window is installed!  Now it won't be so chilly!

Finished!

It's not clear in this picture, but the tiles are white with light blue flecks/swirls.  Still planning on installing a mirrored cabinet under the window, and making curtains that fit the 'theme' of ocean and sea-shells better.  Norbi is also slowly getting floor tiles cut to fit the tiny space - hard work by hand.  But we are so happy with it.  Thank you to all who helped make it possible.