Might as well start at the beginning. When we moved in last year the floor and paint was in good shape. The kitchen and 1.5 baths, however, were showing their age.
The kitchen was updated recently enough that the cabinets were made out of particleboard rather than solid wood, but long enough ago that the particleboard was disintegrating. Wall cabinets leaned forward off the wall (at their tops, a full inch separated the backing board from the cabinet frames), and drawers swung loose. The bathrooms were very usable but covered in the original pink tiles that were popular when the building was built in the 50s.
I figured the half-bath would be a natural project to attack first and on my own, since it (1) wouldn’t involve any serious plumbing, (2) wouldn’t need to inconvenience anyone (assuming the full bath continued to operate), and (3) should be relatively inexpensive.
