White ceramic subway tile from Dal-Tile is being installed. I’m so excited! The bathroom is finally starting to look a little bit like my inspiration photo.
Look who decided to walk across the still wet cement floor, leaving tiny paw prints in his wake. The Project Supervisor, otherwise known as Jack and more recently other names that I won’t post here, decided that he needed to look out the bathroom window now, right now.
The bathroom door is being stripped in the backyard, so I put up a barricade to keep Jack out. It is going to take more than my feeble attempts to stop him. Now that he is successfully inside the bathroom he refuses to budge. I am reduced to opening cans of cat food outside the bathroom door, but he is having none of that.
He is lying underneath the window on the still wet cement, safely out of reach, and I swear he is laughing at me.
The cement board, which goes underneath the tile, is mostly installed. All of the fixtures, lights and hardware have arrived with one major exception, our bathtub! It is 3 weeks late due to a bottleneck at the warehouse. Frustrating!
After you have stripped paint off of a stone fireplace, you know how you are usually left with a fine film of paint residue? And it just won’t quite go away no matter how much paint stripper you use? Plain, white vinegar, any brand, will instantly remove the paint residue and brighten your masonry.
Pretty, pretty!
Smeg refrigerators are now available at Sears. I’m know. I’m surprised, too!
Look at all the delicious colors. Oh, I want one.
Our house has never had a shower and now we don’t have a tub. Oh, the dreaded phase of our project! I have not been looking forward to it. This is one way to get me to the gym…if not to work out, at least to shower.
I have been buying antique light fixtures for years. I adore eBay and find so many irresistible deals on vintage and antique lights. I buy what I love and store it away to use someday, in some as of yet unrestored room of our house. I have so many boxes of lights packed away that I don’t even remember what I have any more. And I am running out of rooms!
I went through all the boxes the other day and it was like Christmas morning. I was overjoyed to find this little light. It goes perfectly in our dining room. I smile every time I see it.
As a rule I try not to spend more than $250. I buy what speaks to me and don’t worry about it’s value or collectibility.
Any time I pull out the camera our corgi WInston strikes a pose. He is our resident supermodel.
We decided to enlarge the opening of the linen closet and add another door. Our contractor found a salvage door that he scaled down and rebuilt to match the existing linen closet door. In the photo above, the original closet door is on the left and the “new” closet door on the right.
Painting the doors will hide a multiple of sins like the wood grain going in different directions and patches around the door handle. We are thrilled with the new door.
I am super excited about the bathroom remodel and don’t want to sound like a big baby, but actively using a bathroom while you are remodeling it really, really sucks! A lot.
A hundred years ago just having indoor plumbing was the height of luxury and convenience. Only having one full bath in 2010 is the height of poverty and inconvenience. I’m kidding, sort-of. This is the phase of the project where I start to get cranky. A lot.
The electrical is done and the plumbing rough in completed.
Shingle Stain Colors from 1912, OldHouseColors.com
I recently stumbled across OldHouseColors.com, a site that provides information on historic paint and stain colors. Boy, would this have been helpful a few years ago when we were painting the exterior of our house!
Our house was originally stained a bright green color very similar to the brightest green stain sample.
I particularly enjoyed Restoring the Colors of a 1912 Arts & Crafts House: Shingle Stains of 1912, an article on the exterior restoration of a beautiful Arts & Crafts home designed by a Pasadena architect.