New Bathrooms

As an update to my bathroom renovations post, I thought I would share the before and after photos of our labors. Thankfully, all bathrooms were operational on the day our children arrived home. Poor Hubby worked all day at the office, only to come home each evening to hours of bathroom work. Both sink drains leaked (for two different reasons), one countertop had to be modified to fit the vanity, and that wall prep was just a killer. But it's done and I'm happy, and isn't that what it's all about?! My only "to d0" item is to find a new mirror for the red bathroom. The one that came with the vanity is too dark and too small. Hubby hung it high enough so he could see his face in the mirror, but it looks wrong. I'll find another one, maybe in a silver finish, that's a bit larger. I wish I could post side-by-side photos, but alas, that's beyond my area of expertise (without Hubby's direction), so I will post them one after the other. First, the upstairs main bathroom:




And this is the dramatic downstairs half bath. There's a funny glare on the wall from the reflection of light off the mirror but nothing to be done about that on this bright sunny morning. I wish I had taken a photo before we ripped out the old vanity and toilet but needless to say, the change is quite something!





We will renovate our master bathroom in the fall, after our daughter's wedding and our vacation are over. Then I suppose I will have to start thinking about new projects for Dear Hubby....wouldn't want him to sit around getting used to relaxing! Ha!

The masons should be finishing up our new walkways today so I will post those before and after photos later on this week. Our new driveway will be done sometime in May. My next door neighbor asked me last week if we were planning to put our house up for sale. She thought we were doing all this renovation to get the house in order to put on the market. I suppose in a way we are, but we're going to enjoy all the updating for a few years. Once Hubby retires, maybe 5 or 10 years from now, we may think about finding a new home to grow old in, a home on one level but with space enough to attract the children home. Perhaps that home will be "someplace else" but we'll wait to see where the children settle because that will affect where we spend our golden years. Meanwhile, we're still enjoying our "youth"!!

Then and Now

Spurred on by Mrs. Goodneedle's post about her high school prom, I thought I would also reflect on that time of my life. I was lucky enough to go to two proms, once in my junior year and again in my senior year. My first prom was also one of my first dates with Hubby, who ended up being a keeper, just like Mr. Goodneedle. There are two memories of that prom: first, my mother made my dress and I just loved it. Second, Dear Hubby failed his driving test on the afternoon of the prom, so we had to make a mad scramble to find someone willing to double-date with us. Otherwise, oh dear, Hubby's mother would have to drive us! How embarrassing that would have been since she was our high school librarian! Here is how we looked on that day in May 1970.


Here we are at my second prom. Hubby did finally have a driver's license and he was also a college man by then. He was still just as skinny, not having gained the infamous "freshman 15" that year. His hair was longer as were his sideburns. My mother made this dress for me also, but this one left me with a complex. My mother thought the lace down the front along the "princess seams" was very slimming. Did I need slimming? Since that day, I've always thought so. I'd also had my hair done that day for the first time in my life. Ah, milestones. This is the same prom Mr. and Mrs. Goodneedle attended and I believe the theme was "Traces of Love". For the four of us, it turned out to be more than traces, more like a lifetime of love.

But we've come a long way and, I dare say, improved quite a bit over the years. Here we are at our son's wedding in May 2005. Hubby's hair is no longer strawberry blond and he is not the skinny guy I once knew, having found the "freshman 15" plus a few more over the years. I still worry about being slimmer, but I have the confidence and wisdom of age now. We have come so far since being 16 and 17 and I wouldn't trade our life together for anything.

The Power of the Weather

This morning I posted about our Nor'easter storm. Well, it's still raining on and off and the winds are blowing, although not quite as hard as this morning. But the weather has taken its toll a little too close to home. Here are some photos of a house in our little neighborhood after the large pine tree that fell on it was removed. It's hard to see the the damage through the tree, now lying in the road after the crane brought it down, but in the second picture you can just see the damage behind the tree worker. The third photo is blurry, but shows the depth of the slice made by the tree.




This tree stood here for longer than the house has stood. It survived Hurricane Bob back in the 1990's. It has provided shade and a place for birds to sing. But today, its roots couldn't hold tight to the rain-saturated soil. This is the house where all my children took their piano lessons and where we have always felt safe. Today, the weather changed that. I'm grateful that no one was injured and that the damage isn't more severe, but this is too close to home. This house is so much like mine, that window below the damage is their master bathroom window too, just like in our house. How frightening to not feel safe in your own home. But our neighborhood is a happy and caring one and our neighbors will be held in the embrace of us all. A little storm can't surpass the power of love and friendship.

Is It Time to Build Another Ark?

We have had rain, rain, and more rain this weekend. This is what we in New England call "a Nor'easter". Accompanying this rain today is high wind, and when you have such strong winds and rain-saturated soil, trees can come down. I went out this morning to the gym, only to dodge enormous puddles and many branches and tree limbs in the roads. Today is also the 111th running of the Boston Marathon and the runners are going to have to battle the elements, not just the fatigue that comes with running 26.2 miles. Our daughter has two friends running "Boston" for the first time....I've said a little prayer for them, and for the other thousands running along side them.

In other news, our bathroom renovations are continuing. We spent the whole weekend working really hard to finish, but alas, we still only have one functioning toilet. Dear Hubby will be working every evening this week to remedy that situation! To everything there is an order, and the toilet installation is one of the last. New baseboards are easier to install without having to work behind the toilet, so I'm letting Hubby take his time. Things really do look wonderful and I will post photos later on this week. Remember, all the kids come home this weekend, so by Friday, we need functioning bathrooms. It's always good to have a goal!

Our new front and rear walks are being completed, although work has stopped because of the aforementioned rain. Hopefully, the masons will be back later in the week to finish up the front walk, then they'll start the rear path. Here is the progress shown in photos (please note the melting of the snow in each picture):







I will post a photo of the completed walk when (if???) it ever stops raining. With all the work left to do, I think the masons will be here till summer!

Progress....

We are making progress with our bathroom projects. Today a different tile installer came and put down cement board on the two bathroom floors and tiled the upstairs bathroom. Here's how that bathroom looks now. I never heard what happened to yesterday's installers. I hope someone found them! We ended up taking the upstairs vanity out so the tile could be laid underneath it. The funny white lines on the floor are actual rays of sunshine coming through the window. I haven't seen the sun in so long that I had to look twice!


Meanwhile, Dear Hubby decided to replace that nasty, rusty toilet ring downstairs and it turned into a bigger job than anticipated. Why is it that all our projects do that??? First he had to run to the plumbing supply store to get exactly the right replacement part, and then he had to get the old ring off. Here he is, with his man tools, working away.


Tomorrow, the tile man will return to tile the downstairs bathroom, and then will come again on Monday to grout both floors. Perhaps by Tuesday evening we'll be able to put the toilets back in place. This afternoon we're going to work on stripping wall paper and doing wall repair since tomorrow we'll be kept out of both bathrooms while the tile cement dries. We will have one more weekend before all the children come home. Will we have three working bathrooms by then? Stay tuned!

Please Pardon Our Appearance!

We are in the midst of another renovation, this time two of our three bathrooms are getting a face-lift. One of the major pieces of work to be done is the installation of floor tiles. We decided to let our favorite floor specialists do this work, and we would just have to prepare the rooms for their arrival which was supposed to happen next week. Yesterday, however, my floor guy called to say they'd had a cancellation and could they please come tomorrow (which is now today). The job would take two days, but that meant they'd be done with it by the weekend so we agreed to be ready. It meant a very late night for us since we had to take out two toilets, rip off baseboard, and rip out one vanity, all after our church choir rehearsal (we couldn't miss choir right before Easter!). It also meant that I had to rearrange all my plans for today and tomorrow. One toilet is sitting in the bathtub and the other, well, let's just say it's certainly not "the hot seat"! I should have snapped this photo early this morning when the toilet was still completely snow-covered.



So, I was ready at 7 AM this morning....I'd showered, had breakfast, cleaned up, and was eagerly awaiting the installers arrival. And then I waited, and waited, and finally at 8:30 I called the store. My floor guy can't find his installers!! Granted, we had a spring snowstorm overnight, but only 3 inches worth of the white stuff, but the installers can't even be reached by cell phone. Did they slide of a road into a ditch? So now, the floor guy is coming to rip out our sub-floor himself. But how long will we be without two bathrooms? For Hubby and I, we just have to remember to climb the stairs for the toilet, but for anyone else coming to our house (like on Easter Sunday), they will have to go through our bedroom to the master bathroom. Not a usual occurrance and I'm not used to sharing my private domain with anyone but Dear Hubby!

Meanwhile, in the upstairs main bath, we are replacing the countertop, sink and faucet. The vanity will stay and we're still doing some wall repair where the old countertop was removed. Excuse the "hole in the floor"! Here's a picture of that room this morning:


Here is a photo of our downstairs half bath. We are putting in a new vanity...a new style, with the taller, countertop height and it will be up on legs, with a black granite top. The wallpaper is all coming down and a new paint job will happen. There will also be a new mirror, light fixture, and faucet. Both bathrooms will get all new baseboards. Hubby even bought himself a brand new power mitre box with a laser light for this job. Oh, men with tools!! Sorry, I digress.... Once again, excuse the hole in the floor....how disgustingly gross those rusted metal rings are!


I'll post another set of photos when the work is done, hopefully within the next two weeks since all the kids will be home for a family wedding on April 21.

The one positive about the installers not showing up today is that I have a totally free day, I've done all my chores already, and I even have had time to post a blog entry! Oh, and Mrs. G: I think I will spend the afternoon with my ironing. Be envious!