The base around the toilet in our 120 year-old house has been leaking. We just moved in 7 weeks ago and there is only one bathroom, so it was on the medium priority list.

This weekend we pulled up the carpet the previous owners had installed (carpet in the bathroom is wrong, btw) and immediately saw we had a very bad problem.

Rotted floorboards, black mold, a hole in the floor — all the makings of an Extreme Home Makeover.

So we took apart the toilet and gutted the bathroom floor — cut it completely out. Then I sprayed mold killer all over, let it dry, sprayed again, then polyurethaned it really well.

Then we installed a new floor made of plywood (also with multiple coats of polyurethane). In the next couple of weeks we’re going to be completely refinishing our original hardwood floors, so we’ll be sanding this flat before putting down new tile.

And then I completely gutted all the moving pieces, screws and seals in the toilet and taught myself how to put it together. Yes!

Just the first of many projects to come in our century-old house. But you can’t argue it doesn’t have character.