Accidental Hiatus, Final Five

21 - 24. FINSHED THE BATHROOM!! I know, I know, but it's really worth four! I LOVE this bathroom and I love that it is finished! I've REALLY missed taking a bath! Sundays just aren't Sundays without a bath.

The final reveal!

Finished and accessorized

I tiled that mirror all by myself! Isn't that soap dispenser divine!

Sometimes I just stand in the doorway and gaze upon the pretty space!

25. And the most exciting thing I did over the past five weeks - oh the most thrilling - was take a bath in the very gorgeous, freshly finished bathroom. I swear I felt like I was in a luxury spa! I made a pot of my favorite tea - strawberry rooibos cream - and a bowl of chocolate peanut butter ice cream - Haagen Dazs not Wescott - and dark chocolate dipped cheese cake bites. It was a special occasion - the completion of the massive project - so the cheese cake bites were my extra special treat. I also bought a new, very good book to read - I won't tell you what book since I'm a secret romance novel addict (oops, I wasn't supposed to say that!). I got new bubble bath and body butter, too, to tip the event over into true bliss. Oh what a wonderful Sunday afternoon!

Running my first bath! Oh how excited I was!

Thanks for bearing with me while I recounted what I did in the five weeks I was away! It was great fun, let me tell you! I learned so much from Lisa and really ended up with the bathroom of my dreams! Michele hasn't seen the finished product except in pictures, but she'll be home on Wednesday and I can't wait to show her!

Accidental Hiatus, 4 of 5

16. Tiled the tub wall - Beautiful tiles for the new wall Lisa built to make my tub faucet work for this tub arrangement. Originally, the faucet was mounted on the side of the tub wall - a wall-mounted faucet, but I could not find one that I liked for the life of me. So to make the deck-mount faucet I ended up buying work, Lisa rebuilt the tub wall, made it lower and more substantial to support such an impressive faucet and then together we tiled it. Then the next day, I grouted it - my first time ever gouting - and did a great job, if I do say so myself!

You can't imagine how much I love to look at this beautiful tilework - the real and the faux!

17. Spray painted ALOT of things "oil rubbed bronze." And when I say ALOT here, it's not like the claim that I painted a lot of things white. I really did spray paint practically everything to coordinate with the new metal. Originally everything was chrome or was painted white. So I stripped the white paint from the heat register and the hardware on the medicine cabinet and spray painted that. I also sprayed odd things like the toilet pipe and the door threshold. I must have gone though about 10 cans of spray paint - well, maybe 7.

These lovely candle stick - or candle stands - were a gift
from my mom to Michele and I years ago. They were originally
silver/steel, but now look lovely in oil rubbed bronze with copper highlights.

This register had about 6 layers of paint on it. Once removed it was a very
bright chrome, which, while lovely, didn't match at all, so shake, shake, and spray away!

I chose this rope trim to trim out the glass tiles on the wall and spray painted
it bronze. It looked nice, but was missing something, so I got a copper leaf pen
and "painted" copper leaf in all the indentations. In real life, it looks very much like
metal and adds just the right touch around the tub.

18. Met a new neighbor across the street whose name is also Michelle. Such a sweet family! And went to a Scentsy party in her home - Scentsy is scented wax that you put in holders on pretty ceramic lamps. I of course got just the perfect night light for the new bathroom. The scents are a bit strong for me, but I really love the lamps!

I love how the little bee hive shoots light out across the ceiling and wall.

19. Bought and obscenely ridiculous number of oil rubbed bronze accessories. My two favorites are the toilet paper holder with extra roll caddy and the pretty little container to house toothpaste and brushes. How I love picking out the little finishing touches!

I'd planned to make a toilet paper caddy with roll holder myself, but I saw
this one and really loved it. I decided instead to use the supplies I'd
bought for the caddy to make a little cabinet to sit beside the tub
and hold my Sunday bath pot of tea and bowl of ice cream. I haven't
designed or made it yet, but I bet it will be awesome!

We've always laid the toothpaste on a shelf in the medicine cabinet
and held the toothbrushes in an old mug on the same shelf. This container is
completely unnecessary, but it makes me feel very fancy, so I got it - plus it
was on clearance (clearly everyone agrees that it is pretty frivolous.)

20. Took one evening off and didn't work on the bathroom. I ordered a pizza and watched Star Trek, the Original Series. I'm half enjoying it - I love the history and their over the top acting is quite humorous. The other half of me rolls my eyes constantly at the over the top acting! Wow! It's really bad sometimes - yet oddly appealing!

OK, the final five and the finished bathroom reveal will come tomorrow. Plus, you'll find out the MOST exciting thing I did over the last five weeks! Oh boy was it thrilling!

Accidental Hiatus, 3 of 5

These next five have a common theme - of course these last five weeks have had a common theme.

11. Scoured the internet to find and purchase the perfect lights for the bathroom, upstairs hall, and foyer. . .and then had an awesome electrician install them. The upstairs hall and foyer required rewiring and we also had him install a light in the newly renovated bathroom closet, so he nicely switched out the bathroom light, too!


Bathroom light - how I fell in love with this one



Upstairs hallway light. I actually bought this one for the bathroom closet,
but NY law only allows flourescent lights in closets, so into the hallway it went.



We now excitedly have have a light in our foyer - we've always had table lamps
and now have an actual light that runs on the same switch as the upstairs hall light.
I can't tell you how excited that makes us!



12. Scoured the internet and read every review I could find to choose the perfect toilet. How I love this toilet! It's a dual flush toilet that stands at chair height - eco-loving and comfortable to boot!

Is it okay to have a love affair with a toilet?

13. Painted ALOT of things white. Not really, but it sure felt like that. Conversation with Michele: Me: I need to paint the shelves for the closet. I am SO tired of painting things white! Michele: But you've only painted the trim and the ceiling white - everything else is color, color, color.
I guess it just feels like a lot because it's white - why paint white when I could paint yellow, right?

Our newly renovated bathroom closet with six lovely white shelves that I haven't even half filled.
I was so tempted to paint each one a different color from the selection of
colors I'd used on the bricks, but by this point I was SO tired of cleaning paint brushes
that I just stuck with white. Plus, it makes the closet look crisp and clean!

14. Scoured the internet to find the perfect vanity. Actually, I chose the perfect vanity and designed the rest of the bathroom around it.

This is without a doubt the most gorgeous vanity we've ever owned.
It's actually our very first brand new, didn't come with the house, never used by another
person vanity. Very exciting for us!

15. Scoured, and I mean SCOURED, the internet for the perfect sink and tub faucets. My whole design really hinged on finding the right faucet for the tub. Not because the tub is the focal point of the room - though it is - but because I needed to find a faucet that would fit on this tub that did not have an attached shower. . .that I liked. And I couldn't do it. So, I found one that I loved and worked with my wonderful handy lady to make it work for my tub. I'll show you the faucet today, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how it works. You can see the perfect - and matching - sink faucet on the image of the vanity above.


I do so love this faucet!



Accidental Hiatus, Part 2 of 5

Thank you so much for the warm welcome back comments on yesterday's post. And now for five more things I've been doing over the past five weeks.

6. Observed recycling in action. Michele hauls for a company that makes paper products. A lot of the time she hauls the finished products, but she often hauls the materials that they recycle into the finished products. I'd like to think that some of the items I put in my recycling bin end up in one of Michele's trailers.

Bales of paper "hay" in the trailer of Michele's truck

7. Ate potatoes and beets from the garden. Michele and I have enjoyed copious amounts of potatoes and beets from the garden. Oh yum!

Freshly dug beets and potatoes from our square foot garden

8. Took my car for an oil change and watched the car next to it explode. Thankfully no one was hurt. It started with a little smoke and then a little fire - at which point they moved my car - and then a big kaboom as the front of the car exploded. The lady driving got out of the car while it was only smoking, so really the only damage was to her car. My car got a free car wash to remove the foam from the extinguishers the oil change folks used while waiting for the fire department.

A very grainy picture of the fire

A very grainy picture of the fireman and car post "kaboom"

9. Made second batch of barbecue sauce. I don't know how I neglected to capture this on film (or on storage card), but I made a second batch of barbecue sauce. Not because we gave it all away, but because we ATE AN ENTIRE BATCH (about a 15 half-pints) in about a month! My handy lady and friend, Lisa, wondered what two vegetarians could put that much barbecue sauce on and I explained that nightly when Michele is home we'll use a half-pint of bbq sauce to marinate Gardein meatless chick'n and then roast it with freshly dug potatoes - oh yum! So I made a batch of about 20 half-pints and 10 pints to tide us over for the next month or two! Ha!

10. Finished painting the bathroom walls. This picture shows all nine of the colors, though the variation between the dark green and the next lighter green is so subtle, it looks like the same color in the pic - so I numbered it for you! I used Martha Stewart's line of paints. They had such cool names like persimmon, custard (really exactly the color of custard), fortune cookie, and tahini.

Not for a million dollars will I attempt this kind of paint job again, but I do so love how it turned out!

Check in tomorrow for 11-15!

Accidental Hiatus

Well, I've accidentally taken a five-week hiatus from my blog. Life has been so good, but so busy! Well, to make it up to you, over the next five days, I'll share five things I've been doing over the last five weeks.

1. Picking peaches - OH SO FUN! I picked two baskets of peaches and had a ball doing it!

A tisket, a tasket, lovely peaches in a basket . . .or two



The trees were full of beautiful fruit

2. Canning peaches and making peach butter. I brought home a lot of peaches and was very excited to try my hand at canning them. Well, peeling that many peaches took FOREVER - I tried dipping them in boiling water and then slipping off the peels, but that didn't work for me. But I canned bunches the day I picked them and the next day I made the rest into peach butter. YUM!


freshly washed peaches



Pretty cans of peaches lined up like soldiers

3. Auctioned off two quilted wallhangings at my church fundraiser - fun and a great cause!

I really loved making these and watching the ladies go ga-ga over them at the auction!

4. Took some "before" pictures of my bathroom. You may recall that when Michele went out on the road I ripped up the floor. . . and then never touched it again. Well, I've been working with my beloved handy lady Lisa Golden to renovate the room.

The bathtub doubled as a landing pad for the paint and supplies



Bathroom sans vanity and toilet - can you really call it a bathroom?

5. Began the weeks-long effort of painting the "bricks" on the embossed wallboard on the lower half of the bathroom walls. I think by color #2 I was cursing myself for thinking of doing this. By color #9, I was no longer on speaking terms with whoever's bright idea THIS was.

First pass with colors 1-6

More on the past five weeks tomorrow! Thanks and it's great to be back!