Downstairs Bathroom

This was another early project, because we felt like we really needed a decent bathroom before we could move into the house. The previous bathroom wasn't decent. It had carpet. That is terrible in a bathroom. And it had kind of a dumb layout, so we changed that. Originally we'd painted it pale blue, but we were both kind of over that when we moved back a couple years ago, so it got a fresh coat of white.

 

(Same angle as above)

All photos (except the awful befores) are Rachel Southmayd's work: find her at Pixy Prints Photography.

Want to see more? Check out the other rooms on the house tour tag:
Bedroom
Kitchen and entry
Jo's office
Upstairs and upstairs bathroom
Downstairs bathroom
Outside and the "we sold the house" story
Dining room
Living room

Small Necessities

Finally, after four years and nine months, I installed a tp holder. It's Threshold from Target and I can't find it online. When the vanity was first installed, I couldn't stand the thought of drilling a hole in its beautiful walnut side. 

We had a really annoying toilet paper stand that fell over all the time, and then we moved. Upon returning, we just left the roll on the counter. The counter's not that big though, and it gets cluttered quickly, so I drilled a hole and went for it before I could change my mind. 

Fine-Tuning the Downstairs Bathroom

As you may or may not remember, we gutted the downstairs bathroom four and a half years ago. It was one of the first projects we tackled (along with refinishing the floors downstairs and replacing some exterior doors. Since we moved back almost three months ago, I've been messing with it again. It went from ice blue to white since the blue hadn't worn very well in the three years we were gone. I framed the mirror last weekend and hung shelves the weekend before that.

I've been wanting to do this project since we first bought the light fixture years ago. I never liked the frosted glass sconce covers but all searches for milk glass turned up nothing. So after waffling on it for a while last Sunday, I decided to take a risk. I grabbed a can of white spray paint and a can of Rustoleum clear gloss spray from my collection and headed outside with my three shades.

After spraying the insides with a few thin coats of white, I sprayed the outsides with the clear gloss. Results are entirely satisfactory, if somewhat unimpressive when photographed. Makes a big difference in the way the light doesn't diffuse as much anymore. I'm really happy with it, and particularly pleased that I didn't ruin anything in the process.

 I also made one other minor but important addition: hand towel hook. You can see in the above picture we really don't have a great space for a bar or loop holder. The switches, floor thermostat and outlet are right in a row, and there's not really another good spot to hang a towel. Then...lightbulb...and now we have a towel hook. I even had a spare copper screw lying around, so the screw matches the hook.

Now, with the exception of some art, it's nearly finished. For now. I suppose.

Project Report

I've had a few projects in the hopper for the downstairs bathroom the last couple of weekends. Of course, we painted it white a few weeks after we moved back. The ice blue had lost its appeal for both of us, plus the crown and ceiling had always needed at least one more coat of paint, so we did it all one color (Behr Swiss Coffee in semigloss). Minimized taping, which was great.

Unfortunately, the paint ended up really gloppy and drippy and kind of looks awful in spots. I haven't yet tried fixing it. I have, however, tried distracting from it. So far, it's working! Here's what it looked like before...

and after. Much better. I haven't finalized the shelves, still messing with styling and art and whatnot, but love the distraction from the crapped up paint. But wait, it gets even better than that... 

 Because here's another before...

And after! (I pulled down the sconces to paint them. Don't worry, they'll be back soon for more pictures.) Mirror is framed!

 In the process of that project, we discovered that our bathroom wall curves in as it goes up. You can see it if you look closely on the left side of the mirror. This makes it extremely difficult to hang a frame so it looks level. Even when it is level, it looks a bit wonky. Seven unnecessary holes in the wall later, voila. 

My original plan of staining ended up not working, when the wood filler I got stained a very different color from the wood, and then the wood took the stain unevenly. Top and bottom were different shades than the sides. I sprayed it brown and then used some blackish glaze so it didn't look like my mirror was framed with Hershey bars. It actually blends unbelievably well with the walnut from the vanity. I wish I was talented enough to plan these sorts of things, but it was a happy coincidence. 

There's another project I finished, oh, probably two months ago now: the headboard. I upholstered one for our house in Bend in navy blue canvas, and it worked really well in our oatmeal-colored room. Here, not so much. Plus almost as soon as I finished that one, I realized I love tufting and should have done that. 

 So I did. This was not a super-fun project. It was hot upstairs. I went the nuts and bolts route, which meant very sore fingers for jamming 57 bolts through 57 holes and screwing on 57 nuts. But I'm really happy with it. Not a perfect tufting job, but for a first try, not too bad.

 I'm still working on figuring out what to hang above the bed for art. Thinking maybe five or six square frames with TBD images. Also still trying to figure out what to do about bedding. The navy blanket is functional, but we're kind of feeling some yellow and orange as accents. I've been into quatrefoil and trellis patterns for a while, but haven't found anything yet I want to invest in.

 The lamp on the dresser is going to get switched out eventually, once I find something else. In that corner on the right of the image above, I've ordered...ugh...I can't even believe I'm saying this...a fake palm tree.

 I've killed one palm tree so far, and have another that's not hanging on by much in rehab out on the patio. Steady diet of sunshine and Miracle Grow is doing it wonders. Anyway, the corner needs some greenery. The room's not quite big enough to hang art on every wall; it just gets too cluttered. We both like the palm tree, but not the investment of buying a new one every three months. Hopefully this doesn't look like complete crap. I'll report back soon.

Lastly, for the bedroom roundup, are the Ikea Ritva curtains from a month or two ago. You can see them better a few pictures back, but this gives a better sense of their length. Like, 105 inches or something for a very reasonable $60. Awesome. Our ceilings are 98 inches, so no standard curtains now that I've adopted the high-n-wide method of hanging. It really classes up the room.

Surprisingly, they're linen and rather lovely. They diffuse the light nicely in the morning without making it darker than it is already (the blue absorbs a lot of light). Oh, one other thing... THE FLOORS. We had the floors finished in the bedroom and it looks great. Once the kitchen/laundry room are done, it'll be all wood downstairs, except for marble in the bathroom). Three different kinds of wood, but still.

And tomorrow, the tree guys come. We're sad to be losing the oak on the left, one of the two large branches of which is rotted. The guy said, "it could be like this for another 40 years, or it could fall on your house tomorrow." We decided against taking our changes, but cutting down a big tree is pretty much always sad.

Unless it's a stupid magnolia (right) that drops leaves every day of the year, smothers flower beds and craps up the pool. Then you can't get rid of it fast enough.

Trimming trees is decidedly not among the more fun ways I've come up with to spend a couple grand, so I'm hoping that all the other trees look really good after they've been shaped up. We have five other huge old oaks, a large cedar, another magnolia in the front and a mimosa. And some weird tree we don't know the name of, also in front. They're all getting ridiculously long-overdue haircuts tomorrow. Progress :)

Massive productivity with only one mishap.

As I probably have not mentioned, our friends from college (Kaylin and Daniel) are relocating from Alaska, and they're spending this weekend with us on their way to Texas. On Tuesday, we leave for Bend for a few days, and when we come back, we will be bringing my family with (they are here for vacation). There is nothing like knowing company's coming to motivate a flurry of activity. Here's what was done today:

1. Our awesome neighbors' friend cut down the cedar tree in our backyard. It was well on its way to dead, and it was also blocking a lot of sun from the pool. It was a real whopper, like 50 or 60 feet tall, and you can watch the footage yourself below. I am notoriously bad at calculating when things are actually going to "timberrrr" so of course I'm almost mid-sentence when I cut myself off to yell.



2. Look how cute our little garden is! I'm still waging war on earwigs and slugs, but my beer traps seem to be working. I've caught a lot of earwigs. Who knew frat boys and garden pests had so much in common?


3. Speaking of exploding plants, check out a) the raspberry


and b) our tomatoes, pepper and zucchini. They were but tiny starts just a short while ago....oh, they grow up so fast...
4. Lest you think I have only accomplished things inside, I give you this!

Also, this!

No, it's not merely a towel, hook and vent cover. I hung the hook, so that we don't have to put our towels on the toilet while showering (just seemed more civilized). That vent cover has been waiting to go up since, umm, February, and I'm really glad that that's done. And the towel rack is basically the same story. When we discovered a hook on the back of our bedroom door, I sort of lost motivation to put up a towel rack. But again, in favor of looking civilized...

5. Don't have a pic of this, but I put up our new address numbers outside. They're pretty generic, just Times New Roman numerals in brushed nickel, but it's all straight and nice now. Those have been sitting around next to our front door since March.

6. Lastly, I hung the curtains again in the office. When my mom and I wallpapered two months ago, I had to take them down. Putting up a curtain rod is real pain, especially since I thought I'd be all tricky and hang them off the window to make the window look bigger (and not block light). Well, I miscalculated how long the rod was, and spaced the holders like four inches too far apart, so when I tried to hang it, the rod separated into two pieces. Ooh, I was mad. Mainly because now I have two holes in the wallpaper that are kind of obvious, which was EXACTLY what I was trying to avoid. And don't give me the "measure twice, cut once" baloney. I DID measure twice. Just not the curtain rod. Anyway, looks cute, huh? Kate gave me those little wooden boats, which I love.


And now really lastly, I leave you with a shot of the pool, patio and fire pit. Todd has kicked some serious algae butt in the past month, and our pool is now almost crystal clear. Major props to him.

What's new as of 4.19

We had a busy weekend. Mowed the lawn for the first time (the benefit of letting the grass grow so long is that when you mow, it actually looks like you have a real lawn and not a bunch of patches of grass) and cleaned out the garage. I didn't take a before picture, but it was really getting out of hand. There was a three-foot-wide walkway through the rubble, and the walkway was starting to get covered. This made navigating the garage at night a peril-wrought journey, and that's not counting other dangers, like spiders.

We emptied out the contents, which we discovered was mostly trash (boxes, styrofoam, other assorted packaging materials) and put it back together, and now we have an enviably organized garage. Without doors. You can't win 'em all.

The bathroom upstairs is also looking a lot better, after a few rounds of bleach-based cleaner and the removal of those curtains. I don't know what it is about removing curtains from houses, but it really makes a difference. I remember when my parents first bought the house I grew up in, and we pulled down the Carter-era burlap-sack-resembling curtains in the living room. Dust streamed down from above our heads, illuminated by the afternoon sun. And the room was transformed without the curtains. I'm going to put a few rugs down on the floor, and I'm thinking about pulling up the carpet on the window ledge and planking over it (so it looks kind of farmhouse-y). The wallpaper isn't horrible, and there's no reason to start fooling with it because we're probably years away from redoing that bathroom.

I'm hoping to make some real headway on the guest room this week. De-clutter, maybe get a chair for the corner and get the bed made up. It'd be really awesome to walk in there and have it look like a peaceful bedroom. Having a whole house to decorate is an awful lot of fun. Unlike our tiny house in Pasadena, this isn't done in a week. I love it.

You heard it here first

I'm going to make a prediction: citrus, and especially orange, is due for a comeback. I have no basis for this, other than the fact that I like it, but I've been right about these things before. I love how the bright pop contrasts with the icy blue and quiet white of the bathroom. And who doesn't love a little citrus? The middle of a nasty recession is just the time to decorate with some cheerful color. You can't look at an orange without feeling just the slightest glimmer of happiness or hope. It's not possible.

So when whoever calls decorating trends starts yammering about citrus, you can smile at the bowl of oranges on your coffee table and think to yourself, "I knew this was coming." Juuuuuust wait.

Let there be light.

I put the second coat of paint on the bathroom tonight. Other than deciding that painting is my least favorite thing to do, especially around things that CANNOT get paint on them, like honed marble and wood, I put the shades back on the vanity light. I've been wanting to do this since last week, and painting was just such a pain that I haven't made time for it. Tonight was the night, and now it's done. Kind of. We're still minus the mirror and painted trim, plus some of the baseboard Trevor still owes us. But one more small step forward. Wahoo!!

Disregard whatever beige-y tan color the paint looks like in the picture. It's still blue.

The moment we've been waiting for...

Yesterday afternoon at approximately 5:15 marked a very important moment in our home's renovation history. What happened? Well, the toilet flushed in the downstairs bathroom. Also, the sink and shower were turned on. It was great. Have a look around:



I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would appreciate having a bathroom so much. Of course, there was a great supporting cast in this tension-wrought drama. I'd like to my dear husband Todd, for handling the situation with grace and..err...innovation, and insisting on heated floors. I'd like to thank my in-laws for letting us use their shower. I'd like to thank the Pottery Barn designers for inspiring the idea, and the good people at Home Depot on North Phoenix Road, Mack from McKenzie's Creations, Stonetech, and myself for making it happen relatively on budget.

And most importantly, great thanks and accolades go to Trevor from Trevor Bruce Construction for spectacular craftsmanship, attention to detail, problem solving, and long hours, and also to Eric, for being an awesome friend and giving up a Saturday to get the plumbing in place and coming back two more times to get everything else installed and looking beautiful. Oh, and Jim from Precision Electric, who installed our lights, added a circuit for the bathroom, and hooked up the floor-heating mat. Without the people who know what they're doing, we probably would still have a small, drafty room that looked like the inside of a shack. Anyway, I know you really came for the pictures, so with no further ado...




There's still have some detail work to do, putting silicon caulk around the edges of the tile, the window and the backsplash, putting up and painting the rest of the trim, cleaning a bit... I got a new color of blue (which is so light it looks like white on the brush) and it looks really good. That's the color in the video. It's Behr Airy. Definitely an improvement over that other color.

I was planning on putting the blog on hiatus for a few weeks because I am starting to get a bit tired of having such a mess of projects always going on, but I can't really do that at this point. Why? Since bathroom renovation is all but finished, I have to tackle my office now. Work has been pretty busy lately, and working on the couch isn't the greatest since I use two computers and an extra monitor and it gets really cluttered. So this weekend, I am hoping to clear out the office and get going on that phase of renovation. Stay tuned for the plan in the office -- it's gonna be GREAT! I think after the office is done, we'll have at least a month before we start on the kitchen, hopefully more.

Last weekend, Home Depot had Behr paint on sale for Presidents' Day, so we bought a five-gallon drum of Swiss Coffee (off-white) and a giant thing of primer with plans of painting the upstairs. Something has to be done about it, and since we're not ready to do a full-scale job of ripping out everything, putting in new drywall, etc. we thought we'd paint and put new carpeting in, so it's at least decent if people come visit.

Also, sorry for the idiotic layout. Blogspot is not letting me rearrange the pictures how I want, and it's making me really mad, so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. Grr.

Reasons why I love the fireplace

Todd and I got hit with a nasty cold a few days ago, and it reminded me why I don't normally get sick. (Because it sucks.) I've been having trouble forming coherent sentences, so I bought stuff (which requires little verbal aptitude, only the understanding of credit card usage) and got in Trevor's way instead of blogging. And sat by the fire while I attempted to work. I'm telling you, there's very little, if anything, that beats this when it is raining, snowing, or some combination of the two.

On Tuesday, the two pieces of furniture we've been waiting for arrived. We ordered them on Christmas Eve from Garrison's in Medford (which I love. I'm a big fan of good customer service, and they are the greatest. Even their delivery guys were polite and friendly.) One piece was a matching end table (its other half was has been lonely) and the other is this amazing teak console that I was enchanted by from the moment I read the little story that accompanied the floor model in the store. Apparently, India is redoing its rail system, and some enterprising individual has purchased all of the old teak railroad ties and is making furniture out of them. Cool, huh? (I know it's a little gimmicky, but it's still a beautiful piece.) It's behind the couch in this picture, with my nickel lamp on it. Just as a refresher, here's what it looked like before.

On the note of bathroom progress, the floor is down and grouted as of this morning, the walls are primed, the tile in the shower is sealed (apparently you have to spray a sealer on the grout so water doesn't soak in), and Mack of McKenzie's Creations installed our gorgeous 35" vanity yesterday. This is one knockoff that's worlds better than the original. The green on the walls was supposed to turn out a lot more sage-y than it did, and we're going to switch to a light blue. It'll be somewhere in the spectrum between ice blue and sky blue, and it should look great with the marble. And it won't make the whole bathroom glow green, like it does at the moment.  I can't believe that I'm going to get to use it every day, and I'm utterly stunned that it used to be a cramped, icky little room. So different! When it's all done, I'll post a comparison.

Trevor took the hunk of marble for the vanity top to cut it to size, cut the sink hole in it, and hone the top of it. I have hopes that a honed (matte finish) vanity and a polished (shiny) floor won't look too weird together. Then we just have to have Eric come back to finish up the plumbing, and our buddies from Precision Electric come hook up the electricity, and we'll be in business. Oh, and put the toilet back. Minor detail.  

I was going to post a bunch of bathroom pictures, but blogger is not cooperating and won't upload anything at the moment.  Stay tuned, I guess.

Sort of after

Well, folks, I'm excited to present you with something of an "after" shot of the bathroom. Trevor grouted the tile last night, and it took another step toward being finished.  Here's the video:



And here are some pictures:
I was out and about yesterday, and used the fact that I had to drive past my favorite antique/resale store as an excuse to take a quick look around. My rationalization was rewarded with this! It's a nickel lamp with a nickel shade, and it has this great weathered quality about it. I looked at it in the store and thought "I would keep this forever," (cue Todd groaning) so I bought it. It's going to look great on the teak console that should be arriving today or tomorrow. Again, please disregard the shade of red the wall appears to be.  It's not accurate.

After having a good chuckle with a few people about this, I thought I'd make a note of it here. Back in November, and even more so in the months before we bought the house, I really, honestly believed that Todd and I would restore this house on our own. And mostly I'd be doing the work, because Todd has a job. Like, I thought I'd just throw in the office door and window one afternoon. In a week or so, I imagined I'd be done gutting and redoing the bathroom.

I was OUT OF MY MIND. I don't know exactly what possessed me to think these things. It has taken Trevor, a hardworking professional who not only has all the tools he needs to do things but actually KNOWS what he's doing, at least two weeks to get to this point in the bathroom. I also thought I was going to do the fireplace (ask Todd; I set a budget of approximately $200 for materials and told him I'd do it in a weekend, though I secretly thought it would take about four hours). Never mind the fact that the most experience with brick I'd ever had was sitting on the brick hearth my parents' fireplace has.

We couldn't even put up the crown molding in our bedroom without Trevor's help. If there was a distinct point that I lost Todd's belief in my remodeling fantasies, it was when he watched, looking incredulous in a pained sort of way, as Trevor did the work on the molding in about 15 minutes that it had taken us (and I kid you not about this) six hours to do on our own. Anyway, I think I was suffering from temporary insanity or something. HAH!!

Late weekly update

I got a new sd card for the camera (2 gigs for $10...so cheap now!) so we are back on track for updates. Just in time, too, because you almost missed a lot! Sorry for the shaky camera work.



Trevor's been busily working on the bathroom. I've helped with tiling the past few days. It's kind of fun; sometimes I wonder if I missed my calling in life as a construction worker or something. My dad's on his annual weeklong serving/construction trip to the Dominican Republic this week, and I've been thinking of him and the team and the trips I took in high school to work. I guess the taste of hard labor worked for me, because six years after my last trip (!) I'm still at it.

I really have to call our plumber to install the gas log lighter in the fireplace. I really suck at starting fires (I admit it), and consequently I've been using my garden clippers to take branches off the Christmas tree, which is conveniently situated on the front porch. They're still kind of green, being only a month after Christmas, so they're super-crackly still. I make a nice nest, put a log on top, then light the whole shebang with a blowtorch. It lights a nice, hot fire. For about three seconds. I'm sure it's coating the inside of the chimney with creosote. But nobody's telling me not to do it, and it's pretty fun.

As you can probably tell, I don't have all that much to say at the moment. I said most of it in the video, so you should check that out. And we really would like feedback on the paint choices for the bathroom, so feel free...

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!

Drywall!

Before we get into house progress, last night was the first night we had dinner that we cooked here! Since we still don't have a stove (no gas yet) I crock-potted a chicken (a whole one, which I've never done before...it was interesting...) with some potatoes and carrots and stuff. Other than being something of a small milestone (eating dinner other than takeout, frozen buffalo chicken strips, and toaster-oven fare of toasted cheese and...umm...toast) it turned out pretty good.

I spent part of yesterday trying round two of washing the windows.  A few weeks ago, I tried warm soapy water, which was a failure.  Yesterday, I tried a combination of baking soda and white vinegar, to remove what I believe are lime or calcium or something deposits.  No luck.  So after being green didn't work, I tried chemicals.  CLR has never failed me in the past, and I'm pretty sure you could dissolve your finger off with it, but it didn't budge the white junk on the windows.  Annoyed, I complained to Kate and Trevor while we were eating lunch.  Trevor took one look at it and stated that I'd have to razor it off.  Yippee.  I tried it later, and it worked like a charm, of course.  Now I have a few hundred square feet of glass to scrape with a razor.  At least some day the windows will be transparent, and not merely translucent.

Yesterday was also a big turning point in the appearance of the bathroom. Here's a little video detailing that:  
We helped Trevor (a little) with the drywall.  Hanging it was insanely hard; I would never want to meet a drywaller in a dark alley.  Between the drywall and the backerboard in the shower, it's starting to look bathroom-y.  Or at least somewhat less like a shack where the commode consists of a hole in the ground and a few leaves if you're lucky.

We're supposed to give the drywall screws another coat of hot mud, put backerboard around the window sill, and waterproof the living daylights out of everything before Trevor comes back on Tuesday.  And then, we tile!  A week or so from now, we might (maybe, possibly, hopefully) have a finished bathroom, and consequently, we will be able to move in!!

Are you sick of the bathroom yet? I am.

In the past two days, the space that once housed the tub, toilet and vanity has started looking like it might actually be a bathroom once again. Yesterday Trevor laid cement backer-board on the floor, so the sub-floor is covered, and those chilly crawlspace drafts we loved so much have been eliminated. Here's how things are looking, as of this morning.


As things go, though, he had to bust out the window in the bathroom to replace it, so we covered one draft hole and made another. At least he's supposed to be done with that today.

The window (and the door/window combo in the office) presented some issues. The flashing is pretty deep underneath the siding, and apparently our house had gigantic (like 8-inch-wide) trim back when it had wood siding (it's now covered by aluminum, and the two layers is why we think we are sidestepping $300/month gas bills). I was only around for part of the window removal, but there was lots of grunting and muttering and cries of "oh, for the love!" so I got the idea it wasn't going the greatest.

On the topic of the window, Trevor dug it up at Lowe's...another hit! Without time to special-order one, we were going to have to go with one that was 4' high that someone had laying around, instead of the 3' that the current space is, which wouldn't be a problem, except that it had to go down, not up. So what I'm describing here would have been a 4x3.5' space, clear glass (as opposed to opaque for bathrooms), starting approximately a foot above where the tub ends, right in the middle of the shower to the back yard. I mean, the important thing is that your knees are covered while you're showering, so at least nobody sees that when they're looking through that back window. Yeah. Good thing we found the other one. We're planting some bushes that will both shade the air conditioner (thus reducing the load on it and allowing it to operate more efficiently) and obscure the view into the shower without blocking the light, which is so lovely from that southern exposure.

I put the second coat on the formerly green dresser (picture included).  In typical fashion, I was lazy and didn't paint the feet.  I don't even know why.  Now I have to figure out what to do about that.

I'm not going to say I'm crazy about the color, but I do like it. It's somewhat more gold than I would have liked, but I think it looks good with the blue. That's a good thing, because a) I am NOT sanding, priming and painting it again, and b) I am really excited about my vision for the dining room. (The plan is to put in a chair rail, paint an intense royal blue below the chair rail, paint Great Hall Cream above the chair rail, and then stencil this damask pattern in royal blue on the cream. Then crown molding, of course. Probably Behr Antique White like the rest of the house, but maybe something a little more true white.

Staying busy

Sorry I'm late on the update. That was prompt, wasn't it. Here it is:



This past weekend, Eric started the plumbing for the tub, toilet and sink. It was especially easy for him, because Trevor cut this convenient hole in the sub-floor:
We also discovered -- hold onto your hat for this one -- more asbestos tape.  I realize the true weight of this reference might be lost on you...we had an exceptionally, overzealously dedicated duct cleaner tell us that because of the small quantity of asbestos tape on some of our ductwork, we'd have to get the entire system redone, and, for some reason we still haven't figured out, move the newly installed furnace to the attic.  This was to the tune of $15,000, in his pocket, naturally.  We now joke about asbestos all the time, and provide charcoal respirators to all guests.  HA.

You may also notice in the shot above that the bathtub, the 600-pound-plus cast-iron tub, is gone. Boy, was that a beast to get rid of. It's sitting in the southeasterly quadrant of the picture to the right, after we kind of tipped it out the back door.

Our vanity is under construction right now, and I am extremely excited to see how it turns out.  I also picked up lighting for over the vanity yesterday, from -- shocker -- Lowe's.  (I usually have terrible experiences there, but I was desperate to not special-order our bath bar because our electrician is coming tomorrow.  Consequences of poor planning...)  Ours is a three-light, but (not surprisingly) Lowe's doesn't have that on their website.  Chrome is apparently "going out of style" so it's really hard to find. 

I'm also in the process of painting the green dresser. It's primed, and it's going to be Ralph Lauren's Great Hall Cream, which is also one of the dining room colors. It'll be my first try with this color, and I'm soooo excited to see how it looks. Since it's a metallic (!!) it doesn't exactly translate well onscreen. But it's a warmish champagne, minus the mid-80s Buick associations. It's going in the blue bedroom, and it is high priority to get done so that I can start moving some of my clothes out of the bookcase they've been living in for the past seven months.

Lastly, I'm pleased to announce that we gave the fireplace a first run on Friday.  To honor the legacy of the fireplace, we burned a cardboard box first.  Since the only wood we have at the moment is the green stuff I chopped down a few weeks ago, things didn't exactly go well after the cardboard flamed out.  It looked nice, though:

Yes, we do still have the Christmas tree up. It is bone dry, decidedly a fire hazard, but the room always looks so sad when it gets dumped. This is my first time having my own Christmas tree, and since it always depressed me to get rid of it, I'll do it when I'm good and ready. Or when Todd makes me.

Three bandaged fingers, two broken nails, and a partridge in a pear tree

Since my fleeing the attic a few days ago, I was successful in cleaning things out up there.  Granted, I had to bring Rudy (the in-laws' 85-pound dog) to keep me company, but it's done.  

This week has been mainly devoted to the bathroom.  Trevor and I both took turns ripping it apart, and it turned out like this:



After I removed the mirror (which I did before wielding the sledge hammer) I had to take a picture of what was behind it. In addition to the pink, check out the texture of that dust. I really thing I could have measured depth, like 1/8-1/4 inch or so. They don't make it like that anymore.

I made a lot of phone calls to find our best price for the Carrara marble tile we decided to use on the floor.  After a fair amount of deliberation, we decided to use marble even though everybody says it's fragile.  Todd's going to try really hard to not wear his high heels in the bathroom, and I will not drag my sledge hammer around after demolition is complete.  I can't figure out what bare feet could possibly do to stone, though I do suppose I will have to remember to trim my two-foot-long toenail... Everywhere else in the valley was turning up $9.95/sf (yikes) for the marble, except Home Depot, which is $3.99/sf.  Guess where we're getting it....

We also priced out radiant flooring, which came in at about $250 with the programmable thermostat.  It's now available as an electric net, so it can be cut and flipped around to fit the space.  That's a lot handier than having to lay a slab of concrete and lay a hydronic system, and it will be quite nice on those chilly mornings!

The vanity is underway, and it's going to look like the picture I posted last week.  Trevor nabbed a sink for $35, which is great.  I don't know anything about it, other than it's white, and I'm pretty sure it's porcelain.  I find the less I know about things, the better.  Before the idea of a soaker tub crossed my mind, we would have ended up with a $50 tub from Builder's Bargain.  Sometimes knowing your options isn't the best thing.  The fan, pictured, falls into the category of tolerably tacky.  It's better than the one that looked like a modernist's interpretation of a magic carpet ride.

Yesterday, I also picked up the tongue-in-groove pine paneling that I'm going to use to put a chair-rail height border around my office. It will be painted white. I was inordinately proud that my roof-rack bungee job held firm about five miles home. I did upset quite a few drivers behind me for going going ten under the speed limit and accelerating even slower than usual, but if I'd been in California, I'd probably be dead (some kind soul having shot me), so I consider the trip a success on all fronts. I love bungee cords.

This weekend, our plumber friend Eric will be doing all the plumbing stuff for the bathroom. I had hopes for installing a system that would use graywater (drainage from the sink or bathtub) to flush the toilet or water landscaping, but after doing a little research, I've concluded that a little more planning may have been useful for such an undertaking. It's apparently not so easy, plus you have to be really careful about using biodegradable soap and stuff. The book Todd's aunt gave us for Christmas about green remodeling has green-brainwashed me into entertaining all sorts of interesting methods of efficiency and conservation.

Speaking of conservation, we're using Trevor's blowtorch to light up our first fire in our fireplace tonight! Burning things is almost as much fun as smashing them with a sledge hammer.