Something new...

There's something new in our little farmhouse, something we've not had since leaving our "modern" house in West Richland 30 years ago:  a bathroom fan that didn't have to be plugged in and take up two feet of counter space.

Every update to a nearly century-old farmhouse is a challenge, but our bathroom remodel has been much more complicated than it should have been. This is partly because the original remodel, back in the late 1960s, was not well executed (or conceived). The bathroom straddles what was once the original bathroom and a hallway (we think) that ran between the original dining room (our current bedroom) and the kitchen. We figured this out when we tore out the vinyl flooring and found the remains of an interior wall.

We thought this would only affect how we installed new flooring, but no. Turns out that instead of replacing the original plaster ceiling and leaving the high ceiling intact, and bringing the plumbing up from the basement, they added a false ceiling to hide remnants of the old wall conceal the plumbing. So adding a simple bathroom vent was a bit complicated. We had to tear up floorboards in the attic to expose the old ceiling, run wiring from the hallway, and chisel out (using the modern equivalent of a Saws-All) a small U-shaped gap in the false ceiling joists for the vent pipe to run through.

The outside vent screen went in last weekend, and today Dave installed the lighted fan and ran the flexible vent pipe. Then it was time for a test shower. No steam fogging our mirror or window... success!