The Earth is Still Here...and So Am I !

Whether you've been wondering where I've been or not, I truly haven't been far.  I just haven't been focused on trying to get anything together for the blog, except for the funny kitty post yesterday.  It's going to be that way through the end of June. 

School is nearly out.  Nick has had one more final tomorrow today.  ONE.  For ONE final, I had to drive 11 miles one way across town.  Because it's only ONE, and lasted less than one and a half hours, there was no point in my driving all the way back home just to turn around and go back to pick him up.  So I stayed.  On Tuesday he had TWO finals, so I ran some errands that I could do on that side of town, then parked myself at the school to wait....but no, my cell phone rang and the contractor had LOST our house key, so I had to drive home and let him in and then return to the school.  Today yesterday was ONE class also and I parked myself and worked on crossword puzzles for the time, which thankfully was cool enough to leave the car windows down.  Afterward, we stopped by the bowling alley where Nick began the summer league, to pre-bowl four weeks of games as we'll be heading off on our annual trek north next Tuesday a.m..  We headed to Costco after that ONE final...perfect timing though as Costco doesn't open until 10:00 and it's on that side of town.  I haven't been to Costco since probably early February.  I won't say how much I spent, but it was a lot...for one visit, but had it been broken out into two or three visits, it wasn't bad.  Since Nick & I aren't going to be home most of June, I didn't buy any fresh produce, nor any fresh meat as Marty usually finds 'quick' things to eat while we're gone.  I picked up a few things he could nuke in the microwave.

Nick was sick all last week though he went to school that Wednesday.  Sinus infection = 10 days of antibiotics! Thankfully he was well enough to get back in time for his finals.

The bathrooms are 'officially' done! I just haven't gotten those darn towel rods & toilet paper holders = procrastination!   All else is done and the city inspector has signed off : ) .  I am well-pleased with the results.  Now I need to clean the windows, wash the tile dust from the freshly painted walls (painted before the tile went in), mirrors & doors, 'wax' the shower doors to help repel/prevent the hard-water spots, buy the new linens and I'll be feeling like I'm at a luxury spa every time I step into one of these bathrooms.  And all we wanted was to fix a leak we couldn't find and buy new linoleum...who knew, huh?

Both bath cabinets have the same knobs, glass with brushed nickel bases.  Raven was checking them out too.  Actually, she was just hoping I'd turn the water on so she could play with it in the sink.

....and a close-up of the handles on the cabinet doors.  The off-white cabinets (Swiss Coffee by Behr Paints) and the glass hardware help 'tone down' what I think is an otherwise very contemporary look.  I'm still a country girl at heart.

I have a LOT of cleaning to do with all the dust and such that's accumulated throughout the remodel process throughout the house.  When I return from vacation, I'll be packing up as many non-essentials as possible from every room downstairs in anticipation of the kitchen remodel we're planning to begin in early 2013.  I'll be in my planning phase as soon as I get back.  There are a lot of things to consider, almost more than I want to think about. 

 I'm not sure why I titled this post with "The Earth is Still Here..." ...probably had something in mind to say yesterday when I intended to post this, but here it is today, and yep, the earth is still here and so am I and I'd be really pleased if my lower back would stop being a pain...literally!

Remodel Update

Upstairs before border tiles added. Love how the tile reflects the light and makes it look spacious.


With the border tile, and quarter round tiles added, and the floor tile has been positioned on the floor. It all needs to be grouted. It's getting so close to being a functioning bathroom room again. I am so excited, so thrilled with how it's turning, and feeling so unbelievably blessed.



This is the downstairs with how we used the 'extra' granite from the slab we got for the countertops. It measures to a 24" height...reminds me of an Oreo Cookies and Cream Blizzard from Dairy Queen :) No tile has been put in yet, but it will be the same as the upstairs for the walls and floor. The same floor tile will be used for the shower floor but has been cut to 4"x4" to accommodate the drainage slope and I'm think it too will look better set "on point" - like how I slipped in that quilting term?

Time For Dancing...and Praise!

Oh, at this moment I'm doing a happy dance, and I think Marty might as well after he gets home and I tell him I found a place that can get our toilets for a little less than "that other place" and we can get them by mid-week instead of the 3 weeks quoted to us by "that other place" AND we can get them in 1.6 gpf (gallons per flush) instead of the 1.28 gpf whereas "that other place" said we couldn't because of the environmental regulations! This place says that the regulation is only 'recommended' not 'must'.

Oh, and one more thing...tomorrow...CABINETS, and the tile can be picked up too. Do ya think I'm getting exciting now? yes, yes, yes! OK, well that was two more things, but oh, I'm just so excited to see all this start falling into place.

A prayer request would be that the granite issues for the shower would be resolved without huge added expenses from having to have the top edge polished so that it can meet the border tile with a smooth joint. Also for an easy & aesthetic-looking way to attach the shower doors (swinging not sliding) because the granite at the bottom is thicker than the tile on the upper 2/3 of the shower.

Praise God for all that He has provided that enables us to do this remodel.

Picture Perfect Day

It's Wednesday and I haven't been on here much lately. Remodel details and things have taken my time. Today's weather, as with the last couple days, is more reminiscent of summer than spring. I almost broke down and turned on the A/C last night. It was 77 here in this room, and outside until nearly 10:00 p.m. The online forecast over the next ten days is showing a high of 83 for Fri & Sat, but it's already been that hot yesterday and will likely be today (which the site is showing should be a high of 75 but it's not even noon and is already that temp). I'm suspecting we'll be hitting low 90's by weekend. Thank God for A/C, I know I'll be using it by the weekend.



Downstairs shower has now been 'floated' in preparation to affix the tile. Tile will be here on Friday except for the darker glass border tile - it'll be here Tues :) And yesterday, the walls were painted in both rooms. It's coming together. But one last critical area to select: the TOILETS ! Oh dear! If we were to get the toilet to match the sink we chose for downstairs (the most used & company bathroom), that toilet's MSRP is $578...and $662 if we want to add the SaniGloss coating that's supposed to help guard against stains and such which would be wonderful in this area. Yikes!!! Did you know that there are toilets out there that cost over $6000.00? And they're NOT gold-plated!



The shiny tile on the left will be placed on the shower walls. In the downstairs bathroom, we're using the extra granite on the three walls from the base of the shower to a 23" height (at least that's the height the fabricator tells us will be available) and the tile will be above a row of that middle border tile piece (bottom center). The granite is shown on the right. In the upstairs bathroom, the tile will extend from the rim of the tub to the ceiling. It will also have a border of the same size/shaped tiles as shown there in the center bottom but they're a combination of dark browns that blend well with the darker aspects of the granite and that border will be higher, around the 5' level. The floor tiles are a co-ordinated/matching tile that's 13x13" with a slightly rougher matte finish.



This is an epiphyllum. It's similar to a Christmas Cactus - not really a cactus as in desert cacti but more like a succulent, heck, maybe it is a succulent. While it has a lot of blooms, it's nothing compared to what it had on it last year. Last year at one point there was something like 30 or so blooms open all at the same time with many, many more buds that opened over several weeks. This year, maybe only 1/2 a dozen are open with maybe only another couple dozen buds showing on the plant at all. The plants tallest branches come up about 4 1/2' and it spreads widely overflowing its pot. I need to clean around it from all the winter debris that's accumulated. There's a schefflera potted behind it.



A pretty little rusty-colored, fringy tulip from the bulbs I brought back from my mom's that got planted 4 mos. late.



This is a type of daffodil/narcissus. I have never seen one like it before. It just opened up yesterday and has an absolutely divine fragrance. Also from my mom's bulbs. There are 3 or 4 of them opening up.



And how can I not include Raven...no, her eyes are not two different colors. I suspect because they're slightly crossed that the light reflection from the camera hit each eye differently. Another pic showed them both the blue shade. Notice those white marks on my cutting mat? That's where the surface is chipping away to the solid layer between the two green layers. It started happening back when I was cutting up all my scraps and I think it's because I keep this mat on my desk slash cutting table where I'm also known to eat my lunch because I have the computer here. I've always kept a pot holder under any hot plates/bowls, but I can't come up with any other reasons why it might have done this except that for a time I did have the laptop there but it had a chill pad under it so wouldn't have thought it could've damaged the mat.



And lastly, I would love to be snoozing like little Flame. But it's hard to snooze when you have workers in your house...I'm really missing my naps!

Have a joyful Wednesday!

We Have A Decision

First of all, I have to tell you, that for some odd reason choosing our countertops for these two little bathrooms was a nightmare. It should NOT have been that difficult. The over-riding problem was that after our first day of looking at granite (even though we didn't know what we wanted for actual surface material), we had fallen in love with the slab shown in yesterday's post and found that we compared every other surface and color to it and they all fell short. Mind you, I'm not a decorator (the rest of my house will attest to that, as will friends) and I don't feel I have a lot of decorating 'sense' if you will. Even so, I'm usually good with color, just not with decision-making.

After getting the cost from Mr. C(ontractor), my knee-jerk reaction was of utter disbelief that it was that high, even with Mr. C's contractor's discount. I even tried to call a couple other places we'd been to where we found 'acceptable' product but one told us they don't sell to the public, we'd have to have our fabricator contact them, and the other never did get back to me. And the pressure was on (that or the contractor's vendor was lying through their teeth by saying they had someone else interested in the same slabs) to decide within hours. I contacted Marty at work, his reaction was about the same as mine, but after it was all said and done, and we'd given ourselves a couple hours, we went ahead and let the contractor know we'd be taking the slab (shown in yesterday's post).

We're still reeling from the cost, about three times as much as a single 8' prefab counter, but it's what we loved and what we'll hopefully, especially after this ordeal, love till we sell this house, which will probably never happen as we could probably never reach that decision let alone a decision on where to go or what to buy in the future. Actually, we're still reeling from the overall cost of doing these bathrooms which is about 3 times higher than what our naive, maybe under-educated brains thought it should be. It's looking like we're getting filet rather than burger after all.

Now on to choosing those final things: the tiles for the floor and the shower & tub walls (remaining granite will be used for a portion of the shower, so won't be sitting unused), toilets, paint color, accessories like tissue holder/towel bars, knobs, . And of course, I WILL have to purchase new coordinating towels and such. The sinks and related components were ordered 2 weeks ago and will be ready for pickup this Saturday.

By the time we progress to the kitchen remodel, I may find myself looking for a job to rebuild our funds! I haven't worked outside the home since 1998, a whole lot has changed in that time. Scary thought!

Still No Decision

As I mentioned previously, our Mr. Contractor desired our decision on the countertops by this morning. After Marty's taking a vacay day on Friday and going around looking & contemplating even on Saturday, we did NOT come to a conclusion. At first, we thought we had on Friday. We found a prefab that was "acceptable". We came home and reviewed what we found with Mr. C. and he corrected my understanding of the size of the countertops. Instead of 43" and 45" as I thought, they actually measure 46" and 48". Ruh-roh. With the prefab being exactly 8', that doesn't leave much room for any margin of error, or accidental chipping at the end, or even the ability to cut a piece to add to the left end for the bullnose; where the 8' would be cut essentially in half we realize it'd be pushing it. Also, while it comes with the 8' backsplash, the just under 2' end pieces for sidesplash would still have to be purchased, and being prefab, they wouldn't match precisely because they wouldn't be coming from the same piece of stone. Sigh!

Friday night, I emailed Mr. C. and explained to him that I was feeling 'rushed' (ok, we've had 3 weeks, but there's a lot of variables in there thwarting my time) and also requested he provide us with an exact cost on the granite, which we as yet hadn't been able to get from him or the vendor. This decision has been the hardest of anything in the whole process. It's in part our personal taste & indecisiveness, a big part $$, and a part of not having all the info/facts to help make the decision. The assistant at the granite place was there on Sat. and we went down with a couple granite samples from another vendor but they didn't quite match so we won't be able to use them should we pick tiles elsewhere, and she started carrying heavy tiles out to the slab to see if we liked them. After several pieces were brought out, I had to call a halt to this attempt. After all, we haven't yet confirmed we are getting this slab. (Still struggling with getting a 54 or 62 sq. foot slab for approx. 25 sq. feet for 2 countertops - but we can use the remaining on the shower wall with tiles above it-not a total loss.) I didn't feel she was really hearing MY desires as to what I wanted and thought would look good, but was relying more on her own thoughts and preferences. I never thought this would be so difficult.

This is a shot of the whole slab. The photo looks slightly pinkish - there is no pinkishness to it; a lot of brownish tones (not milk chocolate, but semi-sweet in tone), and there's quite a bit of reflective silvery mica as well. We fell in love with this piece and it just seems all else pales...even though we've seen a lot of nice runners-up.

I think this closer pic of the right side of the slab shows a little more of the mica reflections. The background is a bit off-white. The left end reminds me a little of cookies'n'cream ice cream, where some of the browns are near-black.

Hopefully, we'll know sometime tomorrow what this thing will cost. I'm hoping it isn't so high that we end up back to rethinking ourselves and our options. Once it's ours, it can be cut, and we can have a sample to take to a vendor of our choosing to pick the tiles for the tub & shower surrounds and the floor (and I'm thinking it won't be from the same place). A tile place here in our own town had a very lovely woman with more design where-with-all than the lady at the slab place.

Thursday Thumpthings

OK, so I couldn't come up with a witty title for today, it was throublethum day.
We're really pushing the time limit (with our contractor) as to having our counter-top selections so that we can then have our tile selections for the two bathrooms. He wants us to have them by Monday morning. All week I've felt the weight of this decision on my shoulders.

Yesterday was a really fun day with a friend who took me to the place where she had gotten her prefab granite counter tops. Nothing jumped out at me but there were a few think-about runners-up. We also went to a large quilt shop in the valley that she had yet to go to...I think she's gonna be in trouble ;). We then had lunch, I drove her home and still made it back in time to pick Nick up from school. We did all our running around with me having a stress headache, muscle aches in my neck and a back that decided to start having fits only minutes before I left to take Nick to school that morning. It was an Rx pain pill day. I don't do those very often, dislike nearly all drugs. Also rolled up a towel and put under my back laying on the floor for 15 minutes. I think it helped some as I'm better today, though all three things are still there, just not as bad.

Last night I spent hours on Google searches to find stone places within driving distance. I called a couple this morning and one had a sufficient piece of remnant granite in the pattern/color we want, so I drove out to see it only to find that the location was the fabricator's and he was out on a job, so his worker called him and we arranged to meet at 1:30. I didn't want to drive all the way home only to return again (a part of that town I'm not real familiar with and I got lost the first time as it was!), so I drove all over the valley and found a couple of other places on my list with no luck, in fact one was completely closed as in out of business...unless they started selling clothing. When I went back for the appointment, he showed me the piece but unfortunately, it was more on the gold spectrum for that 'label'/quarry product, so I took a couple pix of it as well as a couple of other pieces in his yard. The sun was pretty high, and the remnant slabs were tightly packed against each other so none of the pictures give a real good view. I also stopped at the original granite place we'd gone to and took more pictures of the whole slab (54 sq'ft minimum of which we only need about 20! that's why we're looking for a remnant).

At this point, my frustration, and discouragement are running pretty high and I look forward to when the project is COMPLETED, but know we'll go through this and more when we get started on the kitchen. Marty's taking a vacay day again tomorrow, so maybe we can reach a decision. We're at analysis paralysis.

Abundance Craziness (aka Construction Update)

I know, weird title, eh? But that's how my thoughts went yesterday after spending just ONE hour at a local (national chain) appliance store (Pacific Sales). The abundance of choices just for style of faucets and such is astounding. Add the finish selection, wondering which brand is best, or at least acceptable based on a budget that is only governed by "reasonable cost", wondering if we buy such and such faucet today, what sink will look best and/or fit, and then that has to tie into the counter material, backsplash, flooring, wall color. You know what? I am OVERWHELMED. I don't handle too many choices very well. Give me option A, option B and maybe option C and I can handle it much better than having all these other options. Add to that the over-eager salesperson hovering over my shoulder and yakking, and yep, I was feeling a little 'crazy' last night. I was ready to say cancel all contracts, and we'll live with these torn up walls and a porta potty and haul hot water from the stove to a plastic tub for bathing. OK, deep breath, breathe! Actually, I did do the hot water from the stove thing once for about a month when I lived in a mobile home and the hot water tank went out! And my grandmother always did that in the one house before she remarried and moved.

Marty did sit down with me after he went to the gym, and we looked through the catalogs and the photos I'd take while at the store, and narrowed it down to one that we both liked. I don't think with that many choices, there's any more of a 'perfect' one than if there were only three, it just made it harder. A part of one choice may be preferred but it would have a part we didn't like. So it'll be what it is, and we will be happy with it.

I have today, and tomorrow in which to purchase the shower valves (and faucets) and same for the sink. Those components come first before other work can progress. Mr. Contractor would like them available should he be ready (as planning to be) on Monday to install them.

While at that store, I also took the opportunity to quickly browse through the kitchen appliances, the toilets, the sinks (bath & kitchen). I was blown away at costs. It was a rude awakening to say the least! I don't care for stainless steel, too institutional for my personal taste. SS was the first kitchen sinks we saw as we rounded the corner and I glanced at the cost: $1703.00 WHAT!?! Seriously??? Oh my, maybe I should start looking for a JOB outside the home!

This sink is a possibility.

But I like this one better, and this one is shown with the faucets we like, only we would get brushed nickel instead of the oiled bronze look. Brushed nickel supposedly 'hides' water spotting better, and we have very hard water here with lots of spotting factor! We're buying for two bathrooms, so maybe we'll get both sinks.



And as of about an hour ago this is how the two bathrooms looked
Downstairs: the bright area is where the newly framed in window will go, and the left side of that black-lined area is where there was formerly a narrow exterior door (prior owners had an above-ground pool so we suspect they had installed the door). And you can see the initial framing for where the all-new-to-this-bathroom shower will go :)



and, upstairs - this shows where the tub was, attempting to show where the water traveled underneath. It seems pretty spread out and Mr. Contractor 100% believes it was all due to the breakdown of the grout between the tiles allowing water to go through (even though there didn't appear to be gaps or holes, it was loose) and saturating the WRONG TYPE of wallboard that had been used behind the tiles to the point of being like a sponge. I was also going through a case of "buyer's remorse" last night as to the whole project. We're spending thousands of dollars (more like 10s of) all because of a 'leak' issue, setting aside the fact that the house needed to be upgraded from it's primarily 1966 workmanship (tract home, slapped up quickly from my understanding). Had we been able to figure out that the leak was simply from tile/grout issues and opted just for repair, it would have been a whole lot less expensive!

On the bright side of all this, and helping to ease my concerns of cost over runs, NO MOLD was found, and even the plywood beneath the tub was still intact and not showing signs of rot so will not have to be removed or cut and no other structural damage (not included in contract) was needed to be remedied. Praise the Lord for that huge favor!



Off to other things...

Contracting Bathroom

If you'll recall, we've recently had some troubles in a bathroom. I got a bee in my bonnet, figuratively speaking because I don't have a bonnet and we're not discussing bees in this post, and called a contractor yesterday.

I'm realizing, like it or not, that if anything is to get done here, I'm going to have to be the one to take the initiative. Soooo, last night we met with him for about 2 hours and that's just a preliminary meeting for him to take measurements, get the history, get a little idea of our plans and expectations. Oh man, are we in trouble there! two people with little to no decorator taste, wishing the money well was bottomless, and realizing we can probably do somewhere midway between "beer budget" and half-way to "fine wine" or "cheap champagne". Additionally, a realistic cap needs to be on that budget because face it, we're not in a high end neighborhood and this house was built in 1966 and there's only so much you can do within it's existing 1948 square feet footprint. It sounds like a lot of room, and to some I'm sure it may seem enormous, but the way it's configured leaves one scratching their heads as to the architects thought processes. Not to mention, it wouldn't be wise to go over-the-top compared to other upgraded homes in the neighborhood. Mr. Contractor did give a point for consideration though. Let's say in the future we need to sell, in a relatively short time, and there are several comp houses in the neighborhood, the one the buyer's going to choose, if prices are also comp, is the one that looks the nicest and freshest. Something to think about for sure. But then, if we move and Nick stays here for college, we may just rent it to him and some roommates. It still needs to be functional and right now it isn't very much so at all.

(note: let me know if this doesn't run. It took forever to load, and I try to view it, but it says an error occurred and to try later :S and it looks funny as is on my end. I haven't posted videos before, so I may be doing something wrong, sizing?)

The bathroom (I refer to it as #2) is very basic, shy of 5' wide and 9.5' long. I'm a fairly simple person and can't tolerate any gaudiness, so simple lines/curves are all I'm looking for. I also like somewhat country styling. We don't have the estimate yet, but the rough costs mentioned for gutting the entire thing - which is necessary at this point will be about twice what I actually expected for a bathroom. Silly me. It also surprised me as the kitchen, which he also looked at, and which we've wanted to re-do for 15 years, was only about twice & a half of the bathroom even with all new appliances and changing things around! Go figure. And did I mention that bathroom #3 which is directly below #2 will also be gutted - which will boot out my 46 yr old wall oven because the kitchen is behind that bathroom & the oven space juts into the bathroom. No oven...until we do the kitchen. #3, with just slightly narrower width, only has a toilet and sink w/cabinet and we want to put in a shower downstairs. A tub would be preferred, but it would have to be custom-made because of the narrower foot print, so a nice shower it will be, maybe with a seat for us old fogies, or any other elderly guests that may need it in the future.

Then there's #1 - the master. It is disgusting, embarrassing even and pitiful for a master bath. Marty tried to improve it a little a couple years ago but that was only by replacing the shower doors, painting & putting in new 'peel & stick' type linoleum tiles. It's just the shower & the toilet, claustrophobic. The sink & vanity are between the door of that area and the door entering the bedroom. Very bizarre design, as right next to those two opposing doors are two closets also with opposing doors and they all open into each other ... 4 doors all opening into a 3' wide bedroom entry.

I don't relish the idea of spending 10s of thousands of dollars for these upgrades, but the house badly needs them. If we were to sell today, it would be considered a fixer-upper and selling price would be well below market in our area and/or we'd be required to do the upgrades and still spend 10s of thousands of dollars and NOT get to enjoy any of it ourselves! Since we're not planning on leaving anytime soon, at least not as long as Nick's in school and he's only in 7th grade, we'll be here for a minimum 5 years unless Marty were to lose his job, so we need to do what needs to be done and do it the way WE would like to have it.

If anyone has had experiences in remodeling and can give us any pointers, I'd sure love to hear them (preferably positive ones, but things to maybe watch out for as well). Our contractor has a good reputation. He's done work for the school my son goes to and may be a member of the attached church, as well as has done work for a couple of people I know. He may be a bit pricier than another out there, but having knowledge of his work and reputation speaks volumes and gives a greater reassurance than finding someone we know nothing about.

I just pray that no major earthquakes erupt right after this process!