Monday, May 26, 2014

Recreational Bathing or 99 year old tub renovation for bathing under the stars!

I Can't Believe We Did It!
We are bathing outside under the stars!
Keep reading to see how we created this BEAUTY...
 from this...
much neglected old tub!
It all began 20 years ago when we first moved to the country into a "charming" 100 year old brick farm house full of "character" which means it was quite the fixer upper...we are STILL fixer-upping!

A local farmer was getting rid of 
this claw foot tub sans claws!  
What a find! 
Our dream was to remodel our teeny tiny bathroom
using our found tub as the focal point!
Well, life gets in the way and the "dream tub"
waited quietly  for 18 years 
upside down in the chicken yard.

Then inspiration struck!
If we can't remodel,
let's use it for a planter!
Classy, right?
A little bold green paint....

Fifty bucks worth of flowers...

And some Restore plumbing fixtures
and we had a nice conversation piece!
The chickens loved it to!
And promptly scratched up the plants....yikes!
You can see the plan forming on the photo-bombing chicken's face in the previous photo...those darn birds!!!!

And so it sat for another couple years....
Until Mothers' Day of this year when my sweet hubby
came upstairs to read me a lovely poem about a lady who names all her bees. The poem was in a favorite magazine about wanna be farm girls. like me!
 On the margin of the poem was a picture of 
an OUTDOOR CLAW FOOT TUB!
"Let's do it" he said when I said I NEEDED that!

So we emptied out the soil...
Gave it a good scrubbing...
Primed and painted the inside and out!
The outer enamel is called Battered Copper...pretty!
See the date?  It was cast on 6-8-15....
NINETEEN FIFTEEN that is!!!
We painted this lovely decoration
 with a stencil and spray paint...
chances are we will need to repaint every Spring 
so a super fast spray application was just the ticket!
It actually turned out pretty well considering the surface was not flat...I LOVE IT!!!

After a couple of attempts, 
we won these delightful claw feet on ebay for $39!
Not bad!
Incredibly the front two fit perfectly!!!!
The back two were small for the larger guides 
cast into the iron.
The original feet must have included
 a large set of back legs.
Never fear, my innovative hubby
 jbwelded them right in place!

Then he build a deck at the bottom of our back porch...

We reused some old lacy curtains, 
and VIOLA!!!!
A big beautiful outdoor bathtub!





 Our one extravagance was the copper finials
 on top of the posts...the posts, btw, were left over from a previous project...so much nice repurposing/reusing/refurbishing!


 There are no words to describe
 how it felt to be under the stars 
(meteor shower even) 
with a soft warm breeze and super HOT water 
(right from a hose connected to the kitchen faucet,
 if you are wondering!)
 Neighbors are at least 1/4 mile away!
Whew!


 I remained in my little bit of paradise 
for 90 minutes the first night!  
Music, candlelight, a good book, a wee drop of wine...
mmmm...so delightful!

A big grateful THANK YOU to my love for making this dream come true in only 2 weeks!  
Unless you count the 20 years of waiting...no wait, don't!

This is my favorite photo...my big strong hubby
surrounded by flowers and lace but still
looking so manly!
Now if we can keep the chickens out!!!!





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