I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity. - Diana Vreeland.

Vanity is the art of making sure you put your best face forward to face down the world every day.

Therefore, reality check: the bathroom is all about the vanity.

Think about it: yes, we brake for a superb shower, topple for a terrific tub, but where do we focus when we enter the loo (unless, yknow -)? The vanity.

We rarely toilette in our bedrooms now, seeing they are sanctuaries from life. So it makes sense to get the vanity that works for you.

But #FFS, no vanity is worth more than $500. I DO NOT CARE WHO MAKES IT. I saw vanities priced at close to TWO-FREAKING-THOUSAND DOLLARS. Were they pretty? Yeah. But bimbos age badly too.

I did not want to spend more than $425.00 on a vanity. It's a small world, after all, in my weirdly laid-out bathroom. I can't do massive, especially since the sink is in front of the door and boxed in by the tub. I basically have a maximum of 30" of space and 20" D available for a vanity. And I hate doors. You basically wind up with a disorganized closet floor full of bins you have to move every time you need to change the damn roll.

After many visits and much internet searching and Ikea-Hack-Thoughts, I decided on this:

Hemnes, 60cm, $149.00 CAD

The Ikea Hemnes 60-cm (24" in American) vanity. And it was on sale for $126 CAD when I bought it in white, considering that I may or may not alter the colour (less priming required). Plus it had open, accessible floor space which makes rescuing Probie's mousie toys easier AND gives me a place to stash a bin o' cleaners.

I insist on drawers in vanities. I like order, method and Inspector Japp, even if he doesn't reciprocate. Clutter vexes me. And when I'm semi-pre-coffee-comatose in the AM, you don't want me to have to scramble to find stuff much for the same reason I don't listen to anything but the CBC - it makes me stabby. There is a place for everything and everything has its place and a little pragmatic design makes me less likely to do unnatural things to your corpse if I have a bad morning.

Is it perfect? No. But swiping the crystal knobs off my old vanity makes it something more elegant and sand-prime-sand-paint-polycrylic-coat is not that freaking hard to do. The Godmorgen inserts (or derivations/solutions available at HOMESENSE) which do work in Hemnes help.

Now, I refused to buy an Ikea sink and faucet because (and aside from the weird plumbing thing) they discontinued this lovely little number:

WTH, Ikea? It had ACTUAL COUNTER SPACE!

It was the ONE good sink Ikea made. >:-(

Instead, I decided to make my own counter (post forthcoming) AND to get these:

Glacier Bay Vessel Sink, $139.00 CAD, HOME DEPOT

Delta Classic Faucet, $79.98 CAD, HOME DEPOT

Basically (and not including taxes), I paid $345.00 CAD for the main component parts of bespoke retro vanity.

And what did YOU do today?

Plan to Win: it's just demo, not 'Get me demerol!".

But if you don't plan, it could be demoralizing and lead to this:

You're tearing me apart ......

When deciding to renovate, you always need a plan. Luckily, planning is the jam in my jelly doughnut.

What can I say - I was raised to dominate the PTA.

Before I went all smashy-smashy earlier this week, before I did anything, I exercised my rights as a trained, Eisenhower-loving military historian and developed a battle plan.

I know, I can read your minds (tinfoil is no match for me!): How is that relevant?

Eisenhower understood battles and wars are won by logistical dominance. I liken it to the elastic phenomenon: there's only so far you can go before your supply lines snap and yank you back, so plan ahead and make sure you have the resources to do the job right.

Budget, budget, budget.

We all want the supreme spa bathroom. We are not Kate Middleton. And waging any kind of war requires three things: money, money and more money.

Google means no excuses for going over budget. Google means you can go to www.homedepot.ca and many other sites to establish pricing in advance. Google means you can find contractors to come in and quote and then verify via various e-sources the veracity of their pricing. If you understand the costs, you won't have ugleeeeee! moments.

{Disclaimer: my Dad gave me $800.00 towards the reno after he ruined my bathroom door and damaged the metal frame. Don't ask; it was one of those moments where if my mother was still alive, he would've hidden in the garage for days on end whilst dreading the sight of soup pots.}

I got quotes, I analyzed. Veni, vidi, vici the calculator. EXCEL is my best friend.

Analyze the Field Of Battle

Terrain maps, topography, whatever you want to call it: if you don't understand your space, you won't be successful.

What exactly are we dealing with here?

My bathroom is 7' high. Irritatingly, the rest of my home has 9' ceilings. It's an HVAC thing, apparently, that I alas cannot alter. The room is 5'6" wide and 8' long. I think we can all agree that is in theory a pretty good footprint. If only the architect had used their brain and laid it out intelligently. #LeSigh

Clearly, the smart thing would have been to STICK WITH THE FLOOR PLAN of the other units in my building. Alas, the original purchaser was "special" (and probably a celibate aesthete, but we'll get to the closet conundrum at some point in the future). Pragmatic design was clearly a foreign concept to my fellow evolved simian, and he had the architect make changes which basically made the sink area difficult to use on a good day.

In the normal units, the bath is fully situated along the wall where the toilet is right now. The sink is in the middle of the far wall and the toilet is where the sink exist(ed). The door is also 30" to the left of its current site and is only 30" instead of 36".

I think we all know 6 inches matters. Please join me in the gutter, Rob Ford erased the graffiti with his power-washer earlier.  

Since I can't move everything around to rectify le screw-up, I concluded - rightly! - that cutting down the stupid back shower wall into a knee wall to have a more open-concept shower and replacing the vanity from idiot-land (more later on this) was the best, most practical way to go.

Before you ask: no permit needed. I checked - it was neither structural nor mandatory. In fact, my friend the inspector looked at the layout and did this:

Seriously?

Therefore, I measured. I researched. I figured out where my plumbing and power was, where it ran in the walls, the materials used when constructed. If you don't understand the dimensions, how are you going to make the right choices? 

You wouldn't pitch a tent in a river bed during monsoon season, so why renovate and end up underwater?

Know yourself.

I thought about what I wanted my space to do and look like.

I looked in my closet, at my furniture and previous decor purchases made over the years. (Side note: I seem to buy a lot of navy blue shades, dark wood and white items).

I scoured the blogs of my fellow frugalista renopeeps to learn and leverage. I bookmarked and reading-listed the beejeezus out of the internet whenever something made me go all Gollum.

You will understand your style, your tastes and your preferences for colours, patterns and materials better by not jumping off the cliff after Johnny because his mother dresses him funny  he thinks it's cool.

Solutions sometimes breed problems.

In my real life, I expect problems and eat them for breakfast. I refuse to allow reality to ruin my day. (Does WASP now mean Wildly Annoyed Suburban Princess?)

We all know if you remove the back wall of the shower, you still need to think about where the water's going to go during a shower. The partial solution is obvious: L-Shaped shower rod. Duh. 

The other part of the solution is waterproofing. Fact of Life: we may take the good and take the bad but no one needs water damage after renovating. Water + Drywall = Very. Bad. Things.

Just watch HGTV - Mike says it three times a day.

Acknowledge your limitations. It will save you $$$.

Hi. I am short and I have a bad back.

Hire someone when you aren't 100% confident that you can do it. Me? Drywall and I don't talk. If it has a boo-boo, it knows I will provide tea, sympathy and a bandaid of fiberglass mesh but beyond that? NMP.

I also don't do electrical because I like my neurons as they are, not scrambled, fried or fricasseed.

So what does all that mean?

Before I actually went with smash-smashy, I actually knew:

• what my budget was and how much the labour was likely to cost me;
• what I wanted; 
• where I could get it;
• and where I could go all 'benevolent-autocrat' and hire someone to DIN (Do-It-Now).

I am not stressed, I am enjoying the process and I am not needlessly endangering myself. I get to focus on the things I find interesting rather than using words that would get my mouth lysolled if my dad heard me as I try to do things that I should've just dialled 1-800-DoItNow.

My drywaller will be here tomorrow. I plan to build my countertop for my bespoke hacker vanity while he's doing the do....

CYa.

So yeah. I decided to renovate.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale of a woman with a few power tools and a bathroom designed by a bald, hygiene-challenged man.

Because only a bald man who hates showering would design a bathroom like the one I have.

Need proof?

You may not realize it but I had less than a foot of usable space at my sink, which for some stupid reason is less than 2' from the stupid oversized door!

Now, I can't complain TOO much - my place is well-built, and the plumbing is awesome. However, I am what I am: a GTA-raised Suburban Princess. I'm not going to deny it. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am the voter Harper longs for but can't capture (what can I say, I play permanently hard-to-get!).

I don't want much from a bathroom - counter space, storage and an aesthetically pleasing decor. And hey, not getting electrocuted when I'm doing my hair - bonus! (And as my fellow Suburban Princesses can attest: it is ALL ABOUT THE HAIR.)

That being said? I am totally a product of Robert Munsch's The Paperbag Princess. My parents ordered it from Scholastic after hearing about it. Remember, back in 1980, feminism was something encouraged. Legos were non-gender-specific. My Barbies drove my GI Joes' tanks and jeeps, TYVM!

My Daddy gave me my first hammer at 2. He drummed it into my head that Prince Charming can order in; I should be busy slaying dragons, not tied to some sink. I am better than that. And Daddy wanted to make sure that I could at least do the basics so that my 'Honey Do' list was more a 'Honey, I can do it myself, thanks!' list.

I had always planned to fix the bathroom but it wasn't even remotely urgent. Until now.

I nearly electrocuted myself *again* and boy did I have fun taking revenge:

I did what Snow White should have done in the first place: I hammered that blasted mirror. And it was *glorious*. (Smashy-smashy!)

So I thought I would 'sing of arms and of a woman' (heh) and chronicle my odyssey of home renovation here. I figure you lot can either cheer me on or laugh at my screw-ups.

Enjoy, peeps.