Royal Flush

Okay, while it's perhaps not fit for royalty, we are very happy with our downstairs bathroom remodel. After much trial and tribulation, heartache and hairpulling, we have a working, attractive bathroom again. There are still several little details on the punch list to complete, but given how we roll, they may go unfinished for years!

Bathroom before:

I had tried to freshen the bath up a bit right after buying the house, but it was still an eyesore (that shower curtain is hiding an abundance of ugliness):

And now, for the big reveal!

From the mudroom entrance (the door you see straight ahead is off the guest bedroom, so this bath is like a Jack and Jill of sorts):

Vanity nook (mudroom doorway to the left, linen closet on the right):

Window wall:

Shower view:

Shampoo shelf (I'm OCD enough to want matching, pretty bottles, but frugal enough that these stay until used up!):

Here are the details:

Shower tile: American Olean Monte Carlo 1x2 glass mosaic with Polyblend Oyster Bay non-sanded grout
Tub: Bootz Maui enameled steel extra deep soaking tub
Faucets: Price Pfister brushed nickel; shower is Marielle, vanity is Amherst
Toilet: Danze Orrington
Vanity: St. Paul Madeline 36" chestnut
Flooring: Style Selections 12x24 White Travertine with Blue Hawk Saddle Gray grout

I'm not convinced the shower curtain is the right one. I'm still planning on sewing a custom creation, but this little TJMaxx find fills the spot for the time being. I also am hunting for a better plant stand. Sadly, we couldn't center the toilet under the window because of crazy old house plumbing, so the live plant deceives the eye as well as clears the air! But it deserves a nicer perch, when I can find the right one. You'll notice I also haven't shown any light fixtures. I'm really debating whether to go transitional/contemporary, blingy, or vintage basic with the overhead light and vanity sconce, so the old ones are still in place.

And if anyone knows where to purchase the skinniest trash can imaginable, please let me know. I have just a few inches to the left of the vanity and would love to squeeze in a slim waste receptacle. Otherwise, I'll probably look for a small door mounted version for inside the cabinet.

All in all, it's still only a bathroom. Just a simple tub/shower combo, toilet, and sink. The pictures are pretty, but the real dramatic difference is the function. We have new PEX pipes that won't freeze or corrode. Our water doesn't run red. Our hot water flows quickly and forcefully from the taps. Our toilet flushes the first time very time. Our tub isn't leaking into the wall. Our floor is level and clean. Our sink doesn't cause backaches to use. So if you'd like to come to inspect and appreciate the form and function in person, we're ready for houseguests anytime!

P.S. A big shout out to Christina from Little Victorian for the photo tips! It made a big difference in getting nice shots of all our hard work ;-)

Color Catastrophe

I just about had a heart attack while grouting the shower tile Sunday. I had spend hours selecting the perfect grout color, because it can make or break the tile. You can see how very different the sample mosaic looks with various grout colors.

In the end, I had to special order the non-sanded grout and matching caulk in the color I chose. Shipping took longer than expected and held up the rest of the bathroom, but I felt it was worth it. Until the moment Jeff brought me the freshly mixed grout and I began to apply it. Panic! It looked like baby poo! And that is not an exaggeration (or a phrase I use often; we usually prefer more elegant words like stool or feces or bowel movement, but in that moment, it was most definitely baby poo)!

I frequently see subtleties and nuances in color that Jeff doesn't, but even he agreed it looked pretty awful. This iPhone photo doesn't begin to capture the terrible color, and we were in no mood for pictures anyhow.

Now, I know from research that wet grout always looks much darker than dry. I know that people often initially dislike the grouted look after seeing tile bare for so long. I knew I had to let the grout dry and cure and then adjust to the new look before forming an honest opinion. And I held it together simply because I had no other choice. The grout had to go on that day; I didn't have time to pick out another color; I couldn't return the special order; and I couldn't very easily wipe all that fresh baby poo out of the joints even if I wanted to. But it was killing me that my hard fought tile job was being ruined by poopy grout! It made the blue-green tile look washed out, the taupe tile look purple, and the travertine look blah. I can't emphasize enough how terrible it was!

And then it dried. And then it cured. And then it was lovely. What a relief! Just another saga in the DIY adventures of Jeff and Sarah.

Man Hands

This bathroom remodel has not been kind to my hands. Installing the cement board chafed them. Mudding with thinset dried them. Laying the sharp glass tile cut them. Grouting chapped and wrinkled them. Caulking with silicon required constant mineral spirits for clean up, which burned and irritated them. I don't know how working men (and women) take care of their skin, but I need something better than standard lotion at this point!

This doesn't look so bad, but after cleaning grout haze for hours, my hands were quite pruny. I thought surely all that water would help rehydrate them, but I guess the grout sludge in the water defeated the purpose!

Peckish for Pecans

As with last fall and winter, we have pecans coming out of our ears. I still have uncracked nuts from last year, and the yard is full again with this year's crop. I found a nice salmon recipe that uses pecans, so that was our Friday night meal a few weeks ago. I upped the pecans a bit just because I have so many, but I think it would be just as delicious as written. I served it with garlicky green beans, glazed sweet potatoes, and homemade focaccia bread.

Pecan Crusted Salmon with Honey-Dijon

1/4 cup butter, softened
3 Tbsp whole grain Dijon mustard
1 1/2 Tbsp honey
1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
4 tsp chopped fresh parsley
4 (4 oz) fillets salmon
salt and pepper to taste
1 lemon, for garnish

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheet with aluminum foil and lightly oil. In a small bowl, stir together butter, mustard, and honey; set aside. In another bowl, mix together bread crumbs, pecans, parsley, and freshly ground pepper and sea salt.

Pat salmon dry and place on prepared baking sheet. Brush each fillet lightly with honey mustard mixture and sprinkle with bread crumb mixture; press to adhere. Bake salmon 12 to 15 minutes in preheated oven, or until it flakes easily with a fork. Garnish with a wedge of lemon.

Cat Nap

Just as a follow up to the cute cat story, here are some even cuter sleepy cat photos. Not having had felines in my life before, I didn't know the truth behind the phrase "cat nap". Schrodinger can seemingly sleep anywhere in any position!

He's really asleep, not just looking at something!

I guess an exhausting day of paperwork at the office wears us all out!

My Hero

It's a bird; it's a plane; no, it's Jeff to the rescue!

I had just picked up Schrodinger from the vet following his neutering surgery. Since animals have to go under anesthesia on an empty stomach, he hadn't eaten for over twenty-four hours. Our little guy was pretty ravenous and devoured dinner. He still wanted more, so we gave him a little extra dry food and went back to cooking our own dinner. That's when we heard the strange, high pitched wheezing noise. We ran back in to see Dinger apparently choking on a piece of kibble. Jeff gave him several firm compressions around the ribcage and abdomen, and finally out flew the offending morsel. Heidi quickly gobbled it up, so poor Dinger lost his testicles and his tidbit all in the same day!

I was pretty proud of Jeff! Who knew the Heimlich maneuver worked on felines? Now, Jeff wanted it made clear that he did not give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a cat. All that was required was some quick wit and some manly squeezes!

Walk of Life

Jeff and I had the last minute opportunity for a special ballroom dance class with a world class Latin dance instructor. Olga (all the best dancers are Russia, aren't they?) was the partner of one of the Dancing With the Stars professional dancers. So of course we jumped at the change for two workshops under her tutelage.

What might we have focused on for an hour an a half, you might ask? Walking! Well, not walking, of course, but basically the dance version of moving forward and backward. The more we get into ballroom dance (and consider competitive dance sport), the more we realize we don't even know how to move! So an hour and a half spent "dancing" forward and backward (rumba walks and cha cha locking steps, for those in the know) barely scratched the surface. But it gives us plenty to work on!

High and Dry

Well, it's rather pointless to strive for completion of the downstairs bathroom, as we have no water! Yes, we were one of the many affected after the polar vortex worked its abnormally cold temperatures in our area. We kept lines dripping at night, but inexplicably yesterday afternoon I suddenly had no water in the house. A little road trip down to our far-flung meter box, shut off valve and regulator revealed a bubbling spring of county water pouring into the pasture yet again (if you're wondering why "again", then you probably haven't had the pleasure of enjoying our first major water saga and its exciting resolution).

That distant water supply is going to be the death of me. Oh, to have a meter and shut off near the house like regular folks! The flood seemed to be coming from the actual utility box, which would be the water authority's responsibility. But when they got there and checked it, they determined it was "on the customers side". I.e., our dime! So I await the plumber yet again. I'm just thankful that I'm in with so many plumbers that I could get someone to come out the very next day in this week of frozen and burst pipes all over the country!

UPDATE: The plumber was able to repair the break the very next day. It was the piece of pipe running right under the meter box, so he thinks it was the weight of the box combined with the freezing and thawing ground that broke the line. We know our main is undersized and thin walled, so maybe come spring we can finally trench in a bigger, sturdier pipe and stop all these breaks!

It's One Thing AND Another

They are wrong (whoever the ubiqitous "they" are). "They" say, if it's not one thing, it's another. I'm here to attest that it is both one thing AND the other. When it comes to tiling, anyhow!

Jeff and I are exhausted. We feel like we have been tiling for days. I forget now whose brilliant idea it was to do a tiled shower and install it all ourselves (okay, so maybe fatigue causes amnesia, because I'm pretty sure Jeff could tell you who dreamt up the plan). This was definitely a labor of love; it couldn't be anything like the labor of childbirth because I hear that pain fades and you're ready to do it all over again. I'm pretty sure my tiling days are over. In Scarlet O'Sarah style (as Jeff calls me when I get dramatic and plaintive):

I shall never lay tile again!

Well, except for the bathroom floor. Because I still have that to go. And then, of course, the mudroom needs matching tile, so I'll have to do that one day. But after that, no more tiling ever! I hope. So, maybe just no more tiny glass mosaic tile showers with lots of fiddly cuts, itty bitty pieces, tricky obstacles, and special expensive thinset.

This innocent, naive smile is the face of a woman who completed the long back wall of the shower in a day and is sure she can wrap up the two small walls in just another day.

See this niche? The one we spent hours laying out, measuring, and framing so the tiling would be easy? Well, I can't imagine how long it would have taken if we had just decided to wing it, because this niche (and flanking sides) took almost two hours to tile! You're probably starting to realize that we did not, in fact, complete the rest of the shower very quickly. I won't divulge our pathetically slow pace, but suffice it to say that between Jeff and my professional billing rates, we are well on our way to a multi-thousand dollar shower surround!

That's just a teaser photo, because I have yet to grout the tile. But I will say that the shower looks really great (if you don't stand too close!) and we're quite pleased with the last minute tile switcheroo.