The Creepy Basement Bathroom, part I

Today I'm going to tell you a scary story about a girl and a creepy basement bathroom.

You see, when we bought our house, the listing said there were TWO full bathrooms. Which, we were excited about because our last house only had one bathroom and it was sort of a pain. Fine for a young couple starting out, not so fine when your husband's entire family is crashing at your place for Christmas. Anyway, we were cruising through the house checking it out, and had only come across one bathroom which didn't even really have a shower (Incidentally, that bathroom, my friends, is an entirely separate story which I'll get into in just a minute.) So, I was anxious to find the other bathroom. We only had the basement left to explore, which already was red flag number one.

The basement in our house is unfinished, in every sense of the word (concrete floor, concrete walls, no drywall, etc. I was just starting to wonder, Where's the other bathroom? Then I saw a door. Then I opened the door.

Okay, now here's where I want you to start playing some scary horror movie music in your head. (I suggest the soundtrack to the bathroom scene from Psycho). Ready? Okay. So I opened the door, and I saw this:

Then I screamed! (No really, I didn't scream out loud. But I did scream on the inside. I assure you. I was screaming bloody murder.) I mean, really???? This is the second bathroom? Oh. My. God. You have got. To be kidding. Moldy walls? Concrete floor? No ceiling? Mysterious fan with a cord to nowhere? Raw, exposed light bulbs??? If this is not straight out of a horror movie, I don't know what is.

Okay, look. I'm no diva. Those of you who know me, know that I'm not the girly-girl princess-y type. But right then and there, I declared for all to hear, that I would not, could not, absolutely refused to ever use that bathroom in its current condition. Which, in a house with two bathrooms, shouldn't be a problem, right? Wrong. As I mentioned, our main floor bathroom doesn't really have a shower. See?

It has a shower head, but it's mounted to the wall at about knee level, and there's no shower curtain, so water gets everywhere and it's less than ideal. Have you ever been to Europe? I have found this is quite common with Euro showers, if that gives you an idea of what I'm dealing with. And, I can't just enclose it with a regular shower curtain, because that would put the light switch inside the shower (see picture). I'm no electrician, but I'm pretty sure that's not a good idea.

Anyway, I thought dealing with the euro shower was a small price to pay in order to not use the creepy basement bathroom. This lasted about 2 weeks after we moved in, where there was a daily euro shower ordeal. It was always a big production and took waaayyy longer than any bathing process should ever take.

So Justyn, being the boy that he is, decided he'd had enough and was going to start using the creepy basement bathroom. I said, "Fine. Go ahead." And I continued with my daily bath/shower routine. I stuck it out for another week or so, and then I started getting jealous of his 10 minute showers. After some gentle prodding by him, he convinced me to just try using it. He said, "It's really not that bad once you get used to it. Just get in, and get out." So I gave in, and even though it was super creepy and weird, I sort of did get used to it. This lasted about another week.

Then one fateful day, there was an incident. I had just finished my shower and turned off the water. I pulled the shower curtain back, and I beheld a long, blackish something. On the floor of the shower. By my bare foot. I didn't have my glasses on, so I bent over to look at what the something might be, and it was a freaking centipede. Well, I screamed, Justyn came running, and I made him get rid of it. (I will save spiders all day long, but centipedes? In the shower? With me? They die.) A heightened discussion ensued, in which Justyn did a lot of laughing at me, and I did some crying, interspersed with protests like, "I draw the line at showering with bugs!!!" and "What would my dad say if he saw how I am living in squalor??" Punctuated by my declaration, "I refuse to make our guests come down into this bathroom! Something has to be done!" Obviously, that was the end of the "Stephanie Showers In the Creepy Basement Bathroom" era. Then I went back to my upstairs euro shower existence.

Luckily we had guests coming relatively soon. So, we decided it was time to make the creepy basement bathroom uncreepy. And that, my friends, is what we have been working on. It's done now, but it was a big project so I'm going to give it to you in stages. This is the preface, or the Introduction, if you will. The middle part will come shortly.