the bathroom is off the kitchen, and the laundry is off the bathroom. these three rooms - bathroom, laundry, bedroom - are about the same size and placed side to side at the back of the house.
the bathroom required more caulking than the other spaces and i'm still looking to put a few mirrors in and caulk over the window, and there will need to be some work done fixing the walls, but it's pretty close to being finished.
the laundry/walk-in closet/sew room is an unfinished space, like the garage/sun-room in the front. this is the one part of the apartment i have confirmed rodent activity in, through an entry point somewhere back behind the piping. the entry point is also the source of a significant draft that i'm not going to plug up until the fall. i had to do a tremendous amount of cleaning in this space.
walking into the bathroom.
the door to the laundry is to the immediate left of the door to the bathroom. there's a door to the hot water tank there, too - so three doors. the boxes in front of the door are a temporary measure to prevent insects or rodents from crawling under it.
this is the entry into the laundry. the three rugs on the ground (which is concrete) were all there when i moved in and cleaning each of them was a priority in this space. i also scrubbed, lysoled, wiped, sweeped, mopped, vacuumed, scraped, sprayed and did whatever else i could to get the concrete floor as clean as i could. the dresser was left here by the previous tenant, but in the main part of the unit.
stepping onto the rug, taking a step forward and looking left opens up a narrow concrete space surrounded by recently built over wood planks, underneath a heating shaft going back to the furnace (also in a closet downstairs). i suspect that this was at one point a hallway and lobby coming in and out of the backyard. there's still the remnants of an old door frame, here, including a metal chain. in that space, the previous tenant left a large clothing rack that i have filled up with tank tops, dresses and old dress shirts from a previous life. there is enough space to get in there and to pull it around a little. i also installed a $10 amazon lamp as a light fixture by taping it around the wooden joist. there's a switch, but it's always on. so, there's the closet.
this is a nice dresser. as mentioned, it was left here. i don't think it's actually an old dresser, but it's manufactured to look like one. i have filled it with a variety of tshirts, long sleeve tshirts and sweaters of varying thickness, organized by thickness. i have a lot of shirts. the dresser is actually totally full.
i bought this wardrobe organizer on amazon for $40 and was not impressed by it. it was supposed to have a more closet-y shape to it with "shelves" for pants and towels and have a rod with some clothes hangers in it for jackets. i was going to use it for exactly what is in the picture - jeans, towels, bedsheets, etc - but i ignored the intended shape of the wardrobe and just built a 4x3 organizer with four shelves and 12 cubby holes, which i'm using for (1) different sized jeans in the close column, (2) various types of dust covers for electronics in the second column and (3) rags and clothes i want to try to sew before i give up on them. i have a big pile of jeans with rips that i want to sew.
this useful little shelf was also left here and is perfect for a laundry shelf. the shelf is broken, but it doesn't matter if i use it like this.
so, that's the wall.
on the back wall is the craft table i'm using as a sewing table and general clothes making or fixing table. i bought the table for $20 on kijiji. the shower curtains hanging from the wall were intended to block the draft but are now also acting as a deterrent to rodents, along with multiple cups of bleach to block paths and a handful of glue traps to catch anything that falls. i'm going to eventually clean them and then put them over the walls, and will likely buy some more for that reason. this is to cover the walls both for cosmetic reasons and because rats cannot climb on shower curtains. i need to buy a chair for in here as well as a step stool to get into the ceiling to clean. the lamp on the ground was left here and will probably not stay in this room, as there are two other $10 amazon lamps intended for this space (currently in the bathroom).
this is a mini sewing machine that i bought for $50 and should do what i need but, if it doesn't, i could get a bigger one, too. the extension cord was recently bought on amazon and has usb ports in case i need them in here. you can see an open hole under the bathtub that has been a problem but that i'm not hearing activity in more recently. i will probably seek to block that.
this is the dryer, on top of what i believe is an ironing table. i don't have any clothes i would iron, but it's there, and that table will open up when i get a chair. in fact, there are wood chairs in the table, but i'd rather get a more comfy chair. the dryer belongs to the owner. it works fine. i was initially confused by the indoor vent, but it's actually helpful as a source of heat in this space.
the washing machine was dirty and mangled, it needed to be taped up and the dispensers are broken, but it works well enough if you just put liquid soap right in it. it's a shame that it's a little busted, but it works, so whatever. the reflection of the duct is for the fan that was put in in december.
so, that's the close wall.
i bought this shop vac on sale at canadian tire for $50 and it has made it much easier to clean in here, but i'm not done in here yet.
this lamp is above the washer and was here when i moved in as well. this one will stay there, and i bought the other three in this room to be the same type as it.
back to the bathroom.
i bought that dust buster on amazon for $30 about two years ago.
this metal shelf was purchased on amazon for $40. the cardboard taped to the shelves is to eliminate the holes and comes from two cut up cereal boxes. it's shampoo/conditioner on bottom, towels on second rack, then soap and cleansers, shaving items and oral care items.
i built this as a makeup shelf in 2015 and there's a little still there, but it's now intended to hold hair items on top, toilet paper on bottom and frequently used items in between. there are some shower shelves i haven't installed yet on the bottom.
i bought this as a towel rack in the previous basement. i don't remember how much it was. i have a larger mirror to put behind it, but i need to buy a shelf to put it on first.
here's the whole wall.
the shower was pretty clean. it had to be recaulked, which i did. i put my own shower curtain on.
i had to put a little silicone in to keep the shower handle on, but i'm actually not replacing this shower head, and usually do.
this s directly above the bathroom sink. there is a window where there would normally be a mirror. it's to ground level, quite large and directly visible from outside. it's kind of creepy, actually. instead of looking at a mirror, you're looking out a window.
so what i did was cover it up with a drape and get a fan put in for starters. there's a window behind that. there's two of those $10 amazon lights taped to the drapes and a small shard of a mirror that was previously leaned against there but fell to the ground and got smashed.
what i am going to do is take the drape down, seal up the window and then cover over it with a large piece of cardboard. that has the pieces of the shattered mirror glued on to it. i'm going to have a string of bright usb lights placed around the shards of glass. it should have a pretentious art deco look to it.
that will be my bathroom mirror with vanity lights
as for myself, i'm still recovering from a year's worth of damaged hygiene. i'm looking better everyday.
there's the sink. it was pretty dirty, and the sink wasn't leaking, exactly, but needed to be tightened. it was not connected to the wall well and a lot of caulking was needed to fill a crack at the wall. it's much more sturdy now. the black soap holder replaces a margarine lid and was an amazon buy.
this is the fan they put in, and i'm glad they did. brand new. works great.
unfortunately, this is where the rodents have been sleeping. one of the managers just punched the wall open to fix a leak. it is actually the kitchen sink and not the bathroom sink that is directly above this. i put some glue traps and a container of bleach in there and i think there's actually a dead rat in there that's decaying because i'm seeing insects in there. i am not touching it for now. i've just taped it over, and they won't touch the tape, but i have at times seen several in there. it's weird. i can cut open the tape with an exacto knife and put things in there. the rats are not afraid of me, for some reason.
i will need to get that fixed. for now, that is gross, but of minimal concern.
the tenants above me are not from canada and don't seem to be that concerned about cohabiting with rodents.
the toilet was filthy when i moved in, but that's not why i changed the toilet seat. the toilet seat was for somebody that must have been barely five feet tall. i bought that toilet seat in 2014 for $50 at home depot, and it's been in a bag since 2018, and became mildly discoloured. the containers on the side are bleach and vinegar, and the top is full of powdered bleach. you can see where i tried to seal up the floor and the sink in the back.
you can see the bleach on the replaced toilet seat.
i bought a makeup and charging table with a separate mirror and lights for this space but i have to set it up due to concerns about water leaks from the rodents sleeping in that space. that will go there when the rodent issue upstairs is resolved.
that's a picture of the wall, missing the makeup table (that power cord will go on the table and the lights will all be swapped out).
...and, that is looking out of the bathroom and back into the kitchen.