My mahster baathroom

When we bought our first house in Pasadena, one of my massage clients at the time said "Congratulations!" and then, without missing a beat, "Tell me all about the master bathroom!"  Actually what she said was "mahster baathroom" with a slight British accent which was totally ridiculous as she had never traveled outside of California. (Say what you want about Madonna and her accent but at least she actually lives in England.)  While I was used to my client's fake accent and her chummy way of asking about my life, I was stunned by her basic assumption.  For, you see, our new house was quirky and lovely and sunny and perfect and.... TINY, with one weensy bathroom that could not rightly be called the master anything.

We loved that house, including its tiny bathroom.   But when we later planned to move here to Virginia, with two children and a dog, we had lived through several rounds of houseguests - and stomach bugs - so knew we wanted at least two bathrooms.  Buying our current house from far away was challenging;  I spent many, many hours squinting at real estate photos on my computer screen trying to figure out how a certain room really looked, how it would feel to walk through the space and make it our own.

Our new home was clearly right for us from the beginning.  We were looking for something bigger than our old house but not too big, close enough to town to walk easily but on a quiet street, preferably a cul de sac.  We found it and snatched it up and didn't really think too much about why the seller didn't post photos of the master bathroom.  We knew it existed, we just didn't have photos of it.

I was tempted to call my old client and crow, "I have a mahster baathroom now!"  But then I would have had to actually pick up a telephone and we all know that's just a crazy thing to do unless a gun is pointed to your head.

What we discovered was that our new mahster baathroom hadn't been touched in the 30+ years since the house was built.  Luckily, it was built with the cheapest contractor grade materials which were starting to disintegrate!  The toilet rarely flushed properly, the tiles were crumbling in spots, the sinks and shower head and tub were all bizarrely - uncomfortably - low to the ground as if they knew we would be bringing in two little ankle-biters who would rule our lives.

We began fantasizing about remodeling the bathroom from the moment we moved in.

We started the actual process a year later with budgets and savings accounts and architect-designer friends and many, many bathroom magazines.  The actual, honest-to-goodness remodeling began last week.

Here is our bathroom a week ago, Monday 8 am, right before a sledgehammer smashed its beige blahness to smithereens.

And here's where this post starts to go off the rails.  Because, you see, when I look at these photos, I see a perfectly functional bathroom.  Boring and blah but basically functional (mostly) and all the little crumbly issues could be dealt with in spots and we had gotten used to stooping over the sinks and under the shower head and not bothering ever to take a bath because the water only covered the back 1/4 of our bodies.

If we had just accepted it as it was, then all this money we are spending to make it nice and modern and fulfilling of every capitalist middle class fantasy would be free to donate to someone without a job and a comfortable house, someone without any bathroom, master or not. 

I have been haunted by this post by Catherine Newman which I read right after the new year, ie.  right after we had signed the contract to actually start remodeling our bathroom.  

 "We stretch to give, and I hope you do too. There are some good resources at the end of that piece about how to find organizations to give to, although we give everything we give to Partners in Health, and I feel good about that choice. And every year, it comes down to the same question: build a mud room, or give it away. And every year I think that people need to not be holding dying children in their arms more than we need a better place to keep our boots. 
I'm all about "tax the rich," "eat the rich," and occupy everything. You know my politics. But with respect to the developing world, upon whose backs we have amassed much of our nation's wealth, we are the 1%. Even if, yes, you trip over a lot of shoes and coats and backpacks when you walk directly into our dirty kitchen from the muddy outdoors."

After I read that post, I couldn't get it out of my mind: People need to not be holding dying children in their arms more than we need - a new master bathroom.  When it's stated like that, how can you ever purchase anything "extra" for yourself ever again?

I can't help it, I am trembling with guilt over our master bath remodel.  Which is ridiculous, I know.  Is there anything less tragic than middle class, liberal, privileged guilt over their freaking bathroom remodel?  Perhaps a long winded blog post about a master bath remodel?  Jeezus.

I really have one of two options as a reasonable adult:  I can insist we forgo the new modern bathroom and give the money to reputable charities or I can enjoy the remodel, grateful for my good fortune, and accept the reality that I am enjoying a luxury that few in the world can afford. 

I seem unable to choose either of these options.

I'm remembering this post too, which I found last year on (in)significant detail, by mimismartypants.

"My brain does a serious push-pull when it comes to larger questions of how to be in the world.  Specifically, stuff.  There are things I want.  I want a remodeled kitchen, with an extremely kick-ass stove.  I want to put a skylight in our stairway.  I want to make over the upstairs bathroom with an extremely expensive shower.  I want lots of new shoes, an upgraded iPhone, new pots and pans, an Xbox with Kinect (embarrassing, but true), a few sessions of personal training.  I want a long interesting vacation to a foreign country.

Then I start to freak out about the cost.  And not just the cost as in our personal budget, but about whether remodeling the bathroom or buying an Xbox is more or less the same as kicking a poor person in the face.  There are people in the world who will watch their children die of hunger, and I am thinking about dropping fifty bucks on an All-Clad saucepan?  Really?

And sure, I could send fifty bucks to a hunger relief agency, and I do that periodically, although the charity budget has to be split several ways because everything matters!

It does not change the fact that I still want the saucepan."

This is the rub:  I could have insisted we not remodel, given the money to charity.  But it would not have changed the fact that I still want the saucepan.

What do you all do, if and when you have extra money?  Does it go into home improvements of the practical or enjoyable kind?  Does it go into long term saving?  Does it go to help people who have so much less than we do?