My Bathroom is a Shrine
Published May 14, 2005
My bathroom is a shrine. I mean that both literally and figuratively. Yes, it's a kind of a holy place of peace and tranquility, but unlike most people, in honor of that fact I've made it look like a shrine as well.
When we moved out to the country near Austin a few years ago we bought a strange house. It was built by an engineer who did most of the work himself, and didn't hesitate to make it peculiar to suit his needs, which as it turned out were similar to ours. It came with seven garages, two bathrooms and four outside doors. One of the doors was a nice front door and the other three were sliding glass doors onto the various decks.
We're in the process of making various additions and improvements to the house with the objective of taking what is a rather modern and utilitarian house and giving it more of an antique look and feel. It's a slow process since we're doing it ourselves a bit at a time, but that means I can chronicle the interesting parts, and one of the first really interesting projects was to add another bathroom.
It's hard to add a bathroom to a house, because you have to take the plumbing into consideration and you have to find the space. A closet is usually the logical spot for it, but no one wants to give up closet space. After thinking about where to put the bathroom only one answer seemed right. I noticed that we never actually used our front door. Anyone who walked from the garages and the parking area to the house automatically saw the kitchen door first and went through it. Some regular visitors didn't even realize we had a front door, because the front door points towards the front yard and is invisible from any normal approach to the house. The answer was clear - embrace the natural traffic flow and replace the front door with a bathroom. This also meant that the bathroom could be essentially added onto the house - and we can always use more room - instead of using existing space, by putting it on the outside of the front door where there was a small 6ft by 5ft rain porch. Conveniently the front door was also right next to the laundry room, so we had an easy source of water for the bathroom.
Strictly speaking the new bathroom isn't a bathroom, it's a 'powder room'. But since I built it and I built it primarily for my use, I'm not about to call it that even if it doesn't have a bath or a shower. I knew it was going to end up being my personal bathroom as soon as the project started, because I could tell how eager my wife was to have the enormous master bathroom mostly to herself as her endless array of bottles and tubes of strange chemicals immediately began to creep over and surround what had been my sink.
Dave Nalle has been a magazine editor, freelance writer, capitol hill staffer, game designer and taught college history for many years. He is an activist for libertarianism within the Republican party. He now designs fonts for a living and lives with his family just outside Austin. You can find his writings on politics and culture at Republic of Dave, on conspiracy theories at IdiotWars and on design and fonts at The Scriptorium.
- My Bathroom is a Shrine
- Published: May 14, 2005
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Culture
- Writer: Dave Nalle
- Dave Nalle's BC Writer page
- Dave Nalle's personal site
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Now that I think about it, this might fall under Opinion, rather than Review.
Then again, you could be reviewing your own handiwork, so maybe it fits.
Or maybe we need a post category for personal recollections? What the heck would we call it?
Reminiscences, Musings or something like that? I was actually thinking we needed a category that would cover this sort of thing and also fiction which we have gotten from time to time in the past.
Oh, and as for too much time on my hands - that's the wonder of being self-employed and working from home. So long as I have a phone nearby I can do strange things like build extravagant bathrooms.
Dave
I actually love posts like this, or the ones that just talk about their day, whether it's sexually inquisitive or whatnot. I agree maybe some of that stuff can be categorized in a distinctly separate area than the rest of the site or not, but it's fun to take a break from politics or tv show reviews and just see how other people spend their day. Maybe there could be a 'lifestyle' and a 'home improvement' section under culture? I actually saw someone blogging the renovation of their living room just a few days ago. It was fun to see how wrong (with all the extra steps) he was doing it all.
I like your style of bathroom. I actually saw the picture first and thought, 'wow, with a house full of girls, that's pretty masculine', then read you wanted it that way.
My dream bathroom, that I'll probably never build, even if the opportunity presented itself, would have a folding computer laptop tray come out of the wall over the toilet seat, have slots in the wall for the tv remote (located above the sunken tub), small fridge, well, you get the picture.
That laptop tray is a damned fine idea, but I'm not for the TV in the bathroom. I find it's the only time I'm alone enough to actually focus on reading anything. I actually spend more time in there than really required for necessary functions, just so that I can get some reading done.
Do you have a link to that living room remodel article, Steve? I'd love to check it out. I could chronicle my own projects which have gone horribly wrong too. The bathroom benefited greatly from NOT being my first attempt at adding a room to our house. The other two went less well and one of them eventually had to be redone from scratch because of stupid things I did along the way.
My next two projects are a folly in the garden, which will be a lot of fun, and a sun room which will be a lot of work and require some real creativity to pull off.
Dave
The tv would be for the long soaks in the tub. I mostly just shower now, but that's because I don't have a sunken tub with a tv! You couldn't read in the tub anyway without having to be too careful.
If I come across that living room blog, I'll link to it, but I didn't save it. It wasn't an article from a pro, just some guy making mistakes, but there were plenty of commenters helping him out.
One of the things I was thinking of, is if there were a steady stream of blogs about home improvement, or parenting, or lifestyle - socializing, etc. then possibly more products could be linked to, than just one amazon book that we link to in reviews? Review Kohler products or Anderson windows, etc. in the home improvment blog. It'd be a great way to find out about a product before we buy. Does amazon sell toilets, I wonder?
My little bathroom doesn't have a tub, but one of our future projects is a redo of our master bath along roman lines, and that might be a good place to put a TV, you're right.
>>One of the things I was thinking of, is if there were a steady stream of blogs about home improvement, or parenting, or lifestyle - socializing, etc. then possibly more products could be linked to, than just one amazon book that we link to in reviews? Review Kohler products or Anderson windows, etc. in the home improvment blog. It'd be a great way to find out about a product before we buy. Does amazon sell toilets, I wonder?<<
Books are easy, but I've linked to specific products before too, as with my clothing reviews a couple of months ago. Amazon does have affiliates who sell toilets and other fixtures - quite a few of them, actually. I think that if you include affiliates they've got someone selling just about anything.
Dave
Ah, someone noticed the 7 garages. Yes, the house had 7 of decreasing levels of sophistication as you move away from the main house. The first two were a traditional double garage with a garage apartment over top. They're in the process of being remodeled into a rec room. The next building is a triple garage with a large workshop attached, and that's what we use for cars, and there was a third double car-port which we've converted to a small barn for chickens, goats, etc.
The guy who built the house had a variety of odd vehicles, including a golf cart and a hunting jeep and three cars, so he needed the space.
Dave
Dave,
I love your bathroom project and hope you don't mind if I post a link to this post from my blog The Daily Tubber. I really like the door and stained glass - a really neat touch. I don't think it's about building a lavish place to take care of certain bolidy functions. Rather, I see it as paying attention to detail and adding personality to a room of a house that is often ignored. Adding some form to the function if you will.
Ooooo...love the BR! The wood panelling is SO nice - & the stained glass window is to die for. Great job!
I hate to spend time in blah bathrooms. I ended up painting the walls in metallic gold, & then painting Egyptian scenes & heiroglyphics all over it, so it looks like being inside Tut's tomb. It's quite ... unique. Also possibly startling. When visitors go in there, I can count on a few seconds of stunned silence, and then usually "Oh my gawd" in varying tones of horror, amusement, or awe, depending on the nature of the visitor, lol! I keep an informational printout guide in there as to what the heiroglyphs say (blessings on the house, date of construction, my name & brief bio, etc.), plus a character key for those portions I've left untranslated, for those who'll be in there for awhile & want to amuse themselves.
I love my bathroom. Spend hours there. Reading, Internet...
here
Wow, that's one specialized blog, Alan. Interesting, though.
Liked the picture of your BR, anonymous. Wireless internet does indeed add a whole new dimension to bathroom use.
dave
Nice piece, Dave. You CAN be human :)
It sounds like quite a house. I've never heard of 7 garages. Did you get a good deal on the place when you bought it?
You can make that kind of money selling fonts? :)
That is all.
We got a pretty good deal, but the house was fairly ramshackle when we bought it, plus it's in the middle of nowhere and in a dubious school district. We've been doing a lot of remodeling, bit by bit.
As for the font business, it's not the most profitable in the world, but it's specialized and if you have a market niche you can make money.
Dave
I nominate Dave Nalle's place for MTV Cribs. It sounds pimpin :)
That is all.
My teen daughter refers to our house as a 'craphole'. Is that the same as 'pimpin'?
Dave
You are, indeed, the king of your throne!
Kudos on a fantastic looking bathroom.
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Thank god -- when I saw the title, I feared this was going to spark another "is the the type of post we really want?" thread.
You certainly have built yourself a manly place to take a crap. The door itself is gorgeous, and the stained glass is a hilarious accent.
I think maybe you have too much free time on your hands, though....