Updates to our Home!

Andy and I are steadily asserting our personality into our home, making changes and venturing into decorations and the like that reflect us and who we are.  We're getting bolder as we go.  It started with a bit of painting.  Then, a couple of adventures in plumbing fixtures, minor first and then something a bit larger.  Those small changes though, definitely encourage me to keep thinking further.

Final Step:  BASK

We cut pieces out of the baseboard and trip of a room to put up a Murphy bed--we finally have a guest bed again!  This is a LOT more than a couple of picture frame nails in the wall.

Hidden bed is hidden. :)

There are two large projects that occur to Andy and I:  firstly, we want to build a closet space in our bedroom.  Originally, the master bedroom was upstairs, but we had a vision for the guest bed space they had in the basement, mainly extending it out and also granting us main access to a bathroom, instead of theoretically sharing it with the other bedrooms.  I especially needed the comfort of the latter.  Building a closet shouldn't be too bad in terms of cost and time, just the deciding and a bit of rewiring before the studs become actual walls.  I think the framing could easily be done in a day, but the rest might be over a few weeks, stretching out as time necessitates.  I have barely considered what color we should paint it.  The idea, though is sound:  we're extending out on a wall that is just dead space right now.  It should work like a dream.  It'll be annoying to do (like putting in 110 individual stencils on a wall kind of annoying) but not hard.  

But the second idea, that's a bit more ambitious.  The downstairs bathroom is a hallway that happens to have plumbing elements.  

Functional but not exactly exciting

We want to extend this out, blowing out the wall just next to that new closet and extending into that room's dead space, and give ourselves a larger, nicer bathroom.  For as much of my life as I need to spend in a bathroom, I want to enjoy this space at least a little bit.  We're thinking freestanding tub and separate shower.  And, yes, we're finding very quickly that if we wanted to sink a lot of money into this, oof, we certainly could.  This is definitely a long term project.

In addition to asking myself what I wanted in this space, I then began to think of my own personal needs in this camp--what would I like to make my life easier?  I want somewhere to keep all of my ostomy supplies and to have sufficient counter space to prep and perform bag changes easily.  Good start, sure.  But can we take it further?

Currently, when I empty out my ostomy bag, I squat or kneel in front of the toilet, balancing as I open the end closure of the bag, and empty it into the bowl, as close to the water as I can to keep splashback to a minimum.  My knees are not going to tolerate that forever.  What kind of fixture or addition could I add to make this process easier?  Springing off of the last blog post, how can I actually design this bathroom for me and my future needs?  Could I retrofit a bidet of some kind at waist height to clear these parts out?  Or maybe another hovering toilet that is elevated on platform that is open on the side?  Maybe a toilet on a pedestal where there are no steps on one side?  I honestly don't know.  We've got some time to figure it out, but I want to put a lot of thought into this.  This is a facet where I don't care about resale value.  I don't have any bathroom in the world that is designed for my ostomy needs--why not create one in my own home?

Any ideas are welcome, folks!