We're Back!

Did you miss us? We've been shamefully absent for, oh, about two months now. But I figure we all could use a breath after the big remodel job. We spent the holidays enjoying our newly comfortable home and getting the rest of our house back in order following all the excitement of renovation. I think it's safe to say we're officially settled though, and loving every minute of it.

Over this past weekend, we finally got around to a few overdue final touches in our bathroom. I ordered a custom plantation shutter while we were under construction and it arrived, so we got it installed much to our (and our neighbor's, I'm sure) pleasure.

So, remember this view? Here's what we've been living with (and ducking around - houses in our neighborhood are built in true old style aka close together):

And here's what it looks like now:

And a close-up of the shutter:

It's great to have the room closed off from the outdoors, and we love the dark wood to balance out the dark door and accent the bright white bathroom. And the best part is we still get some nice light in the room. We chose a divided shutter so that we can keep the main part mostly closed and leave the top few slats open, which lets a surprising amount of light in.

And see the shower curtain?

I finally got around to replacing the "don't-let-it-touch-my-skin" polyester shower curtain we hung when the shower was installed. We realized after everything was finished that our tall shower would not work for a standard 72" shower curtain (it didn't even hit the top of the tub) and selection in 84" shower curtains was pathetic - they were all polyester and/or covered with palm trees. No thank you. So we got by with a cheapo polyester one while I figured out a plan.

So here's a photo of the gross shower curtain that catches all your hangnails:

And now, our new and improved, soft and pretty shower curtain:

The new curtain is made from a linen tablecloth that I got on sale ($12!) at Pottery Barn. I added button holes to the top and hemmed the bottom so that it would fit just right. It makes for  a great, clean look and feels great to the touch. What more could you need?

A New Kitchen

A Finished Bathroom

Everything in its Place

The range finally made it into its nook today, after sitting in the middle of the kitchen for the better part of the week! Finally, all of our appliances are in place, and the room feels open and spacious. The electrician had to order some more breakers, so we're waiting on those for things to be really up and running, but in the meantime isn't it pretty? I love the nice clean back, and the cast iron grid over the entire top of it.

 

Is anyone else craving a fried egg?

Coming Together

I've been a bit behind on my updates, but the good news is that means there's a lot of progress to share. Late last week, tile was completed and the process of installing plumbing fixtures began. This is a big deal, as we've had running water only in the basement for the past two months. The upstairs bathroom was functional over the weekend, so no more dark middle of the night trips to the basement when nature calls!

I couldn't resist adding the decorative accents that I've been stashing in the basement for the past several months. We're still lacking the medicine cabinets, towel hooks, and oh, all the lights but we were nevertheless giddy all weekend to be able to use these adorable facilities over the weekend.

The wall faucets we chose look right at home in the subway tile backsplash. I'm going to switch out the ceramic "hot" and "cold" for the slightly fancier French options ("chaud" and "froid") that came with them.

The shower was not yet operational this weekend, but the tub was and be both enjoyed it thoroughly. It gave a great vantage point of the cute vanity (much like what you see above). They caulked in all the corners this morning, so we should be up and running this week, after I put sealer on the grout.

The little shadowboxes, designed to hold our showering toiletries, turned out a very cute accent in the tile wall. They used a marble threshold to build the bottom shelves of each one, making them seamless (and therefore waterproof) and also very pretty. 

And don't forget the stool! So happy to have this up and running. Although as you can tell from the picture, we're much in need of a good window covering!

On to the kitchen! Our fabulous farmhouse sink requires some special fittings that the plumber didn't have with him Friday, so we spent the weekend with a still-dry kitchen. We've been assured that he will have them today so that the faucet, disposal, drain and dishwasher can be all hooked up. 

I decided not to let the little hiccup slow down my part of the job, so I spent much of the weekend unpacking boxes and loading up the cabinets. I love how the glass uppers look all stocked with our dinnerware. 

I even got to work stocking the pantry. A little better organization is needed, but I love how much space there is for all of our dry goods now. 

And the faucet is in, but without a working drain it's still unusable. Hopefully we'll have progress on that soon. In the meantime, do you see how cute the side spray is? I'd been so focused on the main fixture, but this little guy is pretty charming, I must say.  

We're more than ready for this guy to get pushed back into his spot and all hooked up. 

And hopefully by my next post, this space will be filled as well with our range and microwave. 

Make a Splash

Our tile guys were here today working hard, and look what happened! We have a blacksplash!

We're keeping things cool and classic in here with white ceramic subway tile - same as in the upstairs bathroom. We love the simple look, it's good for the period of our house, and they're incredibly inexpensive on top of it all! 

I love getting to finally see the lower cabinets connected to the uppers, with the cool stone countertop and the clean white tiles. We've been excited about the eclectic look we planned for our kitchen - with two different cabinet colors - and seeing it all together exceeds expectations.

It looks like all they need to do to get the remaining tile up is trim around the window over the sink, then everything should be ready for some nice grey grout to really make these little tiles pop.

Charmed by Tile

When I left the house this morning, Our contractor, two tile installers and a stone countertop templater (not a word, but you get the drift) were all there working hard. While we won't see the effects of countertop guy's work for 2 weeks, the tile progress is showing strong. They laid out our floor tile on Friday, and told us that with mosaic they let it sit for a few days prior to gluing it into place to let the backing stretch out.

It's glued in now though, and looks amazing. Grout will come later - we selected a light grey color that will complement the floor marble and show up great against the white ceramic subway wall tiles.

The floor tile is so satisfying - so beautiful and clean. I can't wait to see the grout between the tiles, making the floor one solid piece rather than the hundreds of small pieces it is now. 

Needless to say, it looks great with our newly installed bath vanity. I can only imagine how much more it will all come together with a nice marble slab on top.

And that's not all! They made some good headway on our wall tile around the shower as well. The two rectangles you see are alcoves for keeping soap, shampoo, etc. They will be tiled in with the wall, all out of ceramic subway tiles like the ones you see.

So, we're thrilled with the progress. In the meantime we're in the process of moving out of the main floor of the house, getting ready for our hardwood floors to be refinished on Monday. I scheduled piano movers to get our piano to the garage, and we've begun adding more piles to our already growing storage space/guest rooms.

Here are some candid shots of our house in the midst of construction. We've changed our guest rooms into storage for kitchen things as well as things we could do without on our main floor - rugs, curtains, decorative accents, etc. The long and short of it is . . . we're a mess. And with hardwoods coming up next week, it's only getting worse. 

So here it is. This is our third bedroom, stuffed full of storage as well as boxes of tile near the doorway.

And our middle bedroom, also a guest room. Or, it used to be. Can you find the bed in this picture? This is also where Nino, our kitten, stays during the day to make sure he stays out of the way of workers as they come and go. 

And, this is where we've been eating lately. We have our fridge, trash and table full of cereal hanging out in the dining room. Is it surprising to you at all that we've been eating out a lot? And see the shop vac box sitting out? It's just waiting to be packed full of stuff so we can move it all out for hardwood refinishing on Monday.

Baby Steps

Bathroom tiling has begun! It's been mostly prep work so far because we're still waiting on floor tile to arrive, but they began tiling the walls above the bathtub, and wow! We couldn't be happier. I love the transition from the pretty white tub to the clean white tile on the walls. It's just a hint of what we're working toward, but we love the look so far. I've looked at so many hundreds of subway tile bathrooms over the past two years that this feels pretty surreal. I honestly have to remind myself that this is ours, and that our dream bath is finally underway.

We've had the the tile installers keep nice, tight joints between each tile so the grout lines will be minimal. We're going to have them do very light grey grout, so it actually won't look too different in color than the gaps do now - just a bit lighter.

Once the floor tile does arrive (come on, Home Depot!) it sounds like progress should move pretty quickly. Our bathroom is pretty small, and while we're using tile a ton (on the floor and walls, all the way to the ceiling around the tub, and 4 feet everywhere else) it still isn't a huge amount of surface area. We hope to be using this bathroom for showering (and bathing - YAY!) in the next week or so, which will be a tremendous relief as our creepy basement shower leaves much to be desired.

We're scheduled for a BIG delivery tomorrow. I won't tell you what it is, but this post should give a pretty unmissable hint.