the upstairs hall bathroom

 

The upstairs hall bathroom, while being outshined in the ultimate pursuit of ugliness by its brother, the master bathroom, and not even in same league as its cousin, the kitchen, has the unique distinction of being the only room in the house containing a real, live, honest to goodness Finnish sauna. Huh, you say? We kid you not. Read on...

  

On first glance, the upstairs bathroom that opens onto the hallway, and currently serves the second, third and fourth bedroom, was really just your garden variety 1970's ugly. Dark plastic paneling on one wall, the identical avocado mosaic shower tile as the master bathroom (in case you've forgotten, see here), a fake gold marble-plastic vanity top and plastic peel-and-stick floor tile. Nothing to strike either excitement or fear into the heart of any self-respecting renovator, right?

So then we explore behind the bathroom door, and find the door to the linen closet. Well, we thought it was the linen closet. We found this:

This particular space began life as a cedar closet. We know, because the clothes pole is still in it. Somewhere down the line, though, someone added a cedar bench seat and a sauna heater, and voila! Instant conversion from a mothproof place to store your wool sweaters to a full-fledged sauna, (certified blonde masseur named Sven sold separately).

We were even thoughtfully provided instructions on how to sauna (you must click on the image below for the full scale effect!):

Despite the fun the guy on the instruction sheet seems to be having, we haven't fired up the sauna, and not just because the bare red lightbulb that serves as its only illumination was burnt out when we moved in. See, we were looking for the ventilation, figuring that you'd have to vent out a whole pile of steamy, moist heat from a 1860's structure (the hall bath is on the second floor over the kitchen, part of the 1860's addition discussed here). But ventilation? We don't need no stinkin' ventilation! Apparently the sauna installers thought that actually having a place to vent the steam created when you ladle water over 500 degree hot rocks is optional.

Not being sauna people ourselves (sorry, Sven), we plan to co-opt the sauna space to create a full bathroom out of the closet/sink alcove space currently in the second bedroom.

So what does one do with a used sauna heater? Only PG rated responses, please...

At any rate, after we finished the master bathroom, we moved right along to gutting and refinishing this bathroom. Made sense, since they share a wet wall.

 

 

 

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