Charming. Really.

I apologize for the impromptu hiatus.  A lot has been going on.  I've been working a fair amount (for money, not on the house, which is a good thing), and between painting and cleaning and gluing spacers on the backs of our subway tile (see pic on left) and running around the Rogue Valley trying to find a remnant piece of marble for our vanity (so we didn't have to buy a slab -- expensive and way more than we need), I just haven't quite had time this week.

I'd also like to begin a mini-series to note some of the more endearing features of our house, now that I've been spending a lot of time here.  In this issue, we'll look at the kitchen sink.  The "In-sink-erator" garbage disposal doesn't in-sink-erate much, and by that I mean that it doesn't turn on at all, so we can't put anything solid, regardless of how miniscule, down the kitchen sink.  Doing dishes is a joy.  I purchased a scrubby brush on a stick, and every day or so, I run the water really hot and stuff the brush down the drain and scrub around until things drain out.  Otherwise, it smells like something crawled into our drain and croaked.  Charming, right?  Due to the "no solids" rule, I also have to dump all solids that would go down the drain off the back steps into what will someday be a flowerbed.  I'm sure the health department would have words with me if they knew about this, but I live in Oregon, and I'm calling it compost until further notice.  Or until them darn coons start showin' up, at which point I'll have to get my shotgun an'....

Four coats of RL Derby Red later (see video above), we have a stunning living room.  Well, it's on its way there.  I still have some touch-up work to do, and we have to paint the trim and put the molding up.  But the color looks fabulous.  Even the greenish-silverish-brownish couch (that makes it sound so terrible; it's not, it's just a really hard-to-pin color) looks pretty good with it.  The color really doesn't photograph accurately, so you're just going to have to trust me that our living room in no way resembles a tomato.

In even more news, our bathroom is now distinctly resembling a bathroom. After gobs of RedGard (don't hold me responsible if that tub manages to leak; I put tons of that goop on it), Trevor started tiling yesterday.   This was after he assigned me one of the most menial tasks I've done since I worked in an office. Or ever, for that matter.  Because we're doing a marble border around the top of the shower and around the window (where it's still pink in the picture), and because the marble is a different thickness than the subway tile, I had to glue little rubbery-plastic spacers onto the backs of the subway tile to make them the same thickness as the marble.  (For those who don't know, subway tile is brick-shaped.  Ours is 3"x6"). Three spacers to a tile.  Glue, glue, glue, space, space, space, next.  About 400 tiles.  Also, do not burn arm with hot glue.  YEOUCH!

I also spent a bunch of time trekking around, listening to country music (so many stations here!!) looking for a hunk of marble to use for our vanity top.  I came up with this piece, which has much more dramatic veining than our tile does.I felt like I was living on the wild side, picking it out.  Don't laugh!  I could have picked a piece that matched perfectly!  It was $70,coming it at $10/sf from Stone Tech.  This was much better than the lady who tried to charge me $45/sf at Northwest Custom Stone.  Same material and everything!  Our piece is honed, rather than polished.  I hear this holds up better to daily use, and when it gets scratched, it's not such a big deal.  Our floor is polished, so I'm practically clashing right and left!