DIY drama

David and I are redoing the 1/2 bath. It is becoming quite the project! It all began with those broken cast iron pipes. David decided it would be cheaper if he found the leak by cutting apart the dry wall and exposing the pipes and then have the plumber come in. It probably saved a bit of money but left a few holes through out the house. I patched and painted the holes on the stairs but not the bathroom.
Here's why I neglected those holes- The bathroom wall was tiled 1/2 way up with beige and mauve and teal seashell tiles (I hate mauve!) and a few broke while David was exploring the plumbing. (Horror upon Horrors!) So rather than finding the exact same ugly tiles and filling in the holes I decided to get rid of the tiles all the way. Sounds easy so far, right? Wrong! On the back wall under the tile we found brick- not drywall, not insulation, not plaster and lathe work- BRICK! Oh cool (I thought) we could chip off the tiles and the mortar parging and have an exposed brick wall. It would be a lot more work than expected but what a cool wall we would have.
Problem one: Not all the bricks looked cool, some were the cool old red brick, some were the cool old red brick that had black tar like stains on them, some were same cement cinder blocks and still others were pieces of wood. However we did not know that until we had chipped off past the point of no return!
Problem two: COLD! Absolutely not insulation! Brick wall and then outside!
So now we need to insulate and dry wall- no exposed brick, no icy bath room and best of all no mauve seashells!
So that is what we are doing with this old house! I loving being able to make this house ours! When we moved in it was freshly painted with new carpeting so we have not had a chance to make everything ours but as we improve it I get to choose what I want and go with it. David vetoed the brown for the bathroom- as he should have, what was I thinking? Dark brown in a small bathroom... Make it seem really small and help you recall why you are there... So we are going green.