Thursday, August 19, 2010

Tales from the Bathroom

What do you call it when you take something that has been carelessly handled and "destressed," clean it up (but not too clean!) and then enjoy it and use it in all its "olden" glory?

For that's what I have done. I'm in the middle of the Big Bathroom Project (the project is big, not the bathroom!) and I finally did one of those little niggling tasks that has been on the "to do" list, for, oh, ten years!

What on earth would be so horrible and icky and awful that I would procrastinate that long?

This.


I took a metal spatula (the kind you generally use to apply spackle with) and just chipped away at it. I was quite pleased with the way it turned out.


So pleased, in fact, I tackled the really nasty job I've been avoiding forever. Yes, the painted toilet.

The question, people, is why? Why would anyone paint the toilet? It looks somewhat more deliberate than accidental, don't you think? There was more, lots more, once upon a time. But it has been slowly peeling off over the years as I washed it.



It was time to get rid of the rest of it. Using the the miracle microfiber cleaning cloth, a little soap and lots of elbow grease (including the ever-so-useful handy tool--the good ol' edge of a fingernail), I did this:


Ta da!

(I will be able to get that last bit when my sweetie takes the bolt off to remove the toilet so we can replace this horrible, icky, awful floor.)

Getting that close to my toilet, though, had an unexpected bonus. I saw this:


I looked it up, of course. There was a Johnson Brothers (Hanley) Ltd. in Stroke on Trent. It was founded in 1896. They did make Toilets (or Sanitary ware) at the Trent Factory. (They also made pottery.) Here is the web listing.

A more interesting question may be perhaps, not why did someone try to paint an old toilet, but rather why do we have an old toilet at all? from England?

The tank lid even has a date: 1933. Say, what?

Our house was built in 1949 (as far as we can tell) and it's in a city, on the prairie, in, ahem, Canada.

Strange.

I'm linking to Frugal Friday at


Thanks for having the party!

3 comments :

Leena said...

I think it's prety cool you have such an old toilet seat, and the stamp gives it so much more class. Does it now feel like sitting on the finest piece of china?

Maybe the toilet seat has been laying in a store for that long, before it was installed. That is a quite long wait though. and now idea why it was painted.

The handle and the toilet look very good now! Well done!

Alana in Canada said...

Thank you Leena! I have been trying to find out more about it, but I'm not getting anywhere. It is fun to find out about things, though!

KimMalk said...

What an interesting job that turned out to be. It looks much nicer.

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