Update on Reno

Our mast bathroom is finally complete. Done and dusted. After waiting for 9 months for our "greige" tile, we settled for cocoa brown. I do like it. I like all our choices,mand I'm loving the finished product. Especially using the space.

Lights from Restoration Hardware.

Faucets are Delta; sinks are Kohler.

Mirrors from Pottery Barn.

Quartz Counter Top from Home Depot.

Shower Doors from Home Depot online.

Heated Towel Bar and Shower seat are online purchases.

Our back hallway got a new coat of paint: Benjamin Moore, Stone.

The Powder Room is also BM Stone. Tile was installed a number of years ago. Mirror was a TJMaxx find from years ago--a quick substitute when the Nordstrom's mirror was too big for the space.

Library Light fixture is also from Restoration Hardware.

Back Order Hell

When did we start this master bathroom reno? February-March-April? It should have been done by now. The tile guy was willing and able. Within two weeks, I'd selected and purchased all the fittings--light fixtures, shower enclosure, mirrors, faucets, towel bars, heated towel rack, shower seat, etc.

The Quartz vanity top was ordered--a bit of a delivery and installation hassle, but delivered with sinks and faucets installed by early May.

Then everything came to an abrupt halt. The greige (Camo) subway tile was back-ordered, not to be produced until mid-June. Ugh! I considered finding another tile, but being in no real hurry decided to wait it out. There are boxes stacked along one wall in the master bedroom and also in the garage.

Actually, this is the entry before we moved everything to the master bedroom.

One 3-week European vacation later, the tile has been back-ordered again--until September! Yes, grey subway tile is a scarcity. The salesman talked several times to the rep and even checked with another tile manufacturer. Their back-order date is out even further than the company we've ordered from. (I tried several times to get that preposition away from the end of the sentence, but finally gave up.)

So, listen up! Horde any grey subway tile you find. According to the law of supply and demand, prices are sure to rise. Or, maybe this scarcity now just means that in 20 years there will be tons of DIYers scraping grey tiles off bathroom and kitchen walls; filling up landfills. Right on top of all those granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances that are so, so in demand right now.

Hunting and Gathering

In the midst of sourcing the elements required for our Master Bathroom renovation...

Mirror from nordstrom.com.

Mirror we already own
and can repurpose 

Anytime I'm out-and-about or online my search migrates into other projects, real and imagined, i.e., the mirror I found on Pinterest (nordstroms.com) for our Powder Room which necessitated a new sconce from lightingdirect.com. The sconce is lovely, but too small for the mirror. Luckily, we have a spare, smaller mirror in a guest room that works with the sconce for the Powder Room. Now, I'm thinking I'll move the Edward Hopper print from our Morning Room up to the sofa wall in our loft, and hang the Nordstrom mirror here.

Move Hopper print to Loft.

Hang instead of Hopper Print?

And then, there are the (3) gold-framed French architectural drawings (still unwrapped) I purchased second-hand at The New Interiors Anew, locally, for the Powder Room(!). CA looked around at the gold-framed photos and prints (French) on the Powder Room walls and said, "So, you don't like these any more?" MEN!!!

Existing prints and photos in Powder Room. The wall color just doesn't photo well.

Painted sideboard. Chair is turned from normal placement.

Do I go back to Interiors Anew today for that lovely Thomasville small console table that might fit in the Entry Foyer? Or, in the Great Room, necessitating moving the current painted sideboard into the Study-Dining Room--replacing the shabby-chic half-table already in-place?

And, while I love the current American Primative bench and small chest currently in the Foyer, where else can it fit? I wouldn't mind using the Thomasville console in the Great Room, but I don't want the shabby-chic half-table front-and-center.

And, have I EVER used this many en-dashes in a post previously?! Sheesh! It's like they're exclamation points or something. Bah-hah on whoever said one should only ever use (4) exclamation points in one's life!!!! (Or, is it "whomever"?)(And, where does the end punctuation go in a sentence that ends with quote marks not indicating spoken word?!)

**I digress.**

Yes, the painted sideboard can go in the Study-Dining Room. It belongs there. It's filled with dishes and has no business in the Great Room. It was a space filler and never the right color. Light yellow in a room with shades of blond and tan (café au lait). If I don't buy the small Thomasville console, I'd really love a French writing desk here.

This chair turned "out" is really bugging me.

What vexes me about the Thomasville console is that I think they doubled the price since I first saw it. Yes, that's a vague suspicion, but there's recent precedence. A week or so ago, I saw a sewing rocker at a local thrift shop, and behold! there it was (I think) at Interiors Anew, doubled in price. No hard feelings if I'm right; people have to make money. And then, with my current Autoimmune flare and all that confusion added to all the freaking details and moving parts on the bathroom reno... I am probably all wrong.

The best news is that, for now, I have all the products required for the Master Bathroom reno in-house. After much purchasing-exchanging-returning-Internet commerce-big box store wandering. That is, I have all the products except the tile, which I just found out is back-ordered to mid to late-June. Ugh! I revisited Century Tile yesterday to look for replacement tile, but after 10 minutes I told them we'll just wait.

All that, and I still have issues with these pieces:

In Powder Room for convenience. Not working.

This is just hanging around our loft doing nothing.

I'd like this bucket bench out of the Foyer.
Not sure where it'll fit.

The Painter, Finally

All we needed was a rainy day so Lenny could set aside an outside job and show up at our door. Preferably two rainy days in a row. Yesterday he called me at 7:30am and asked, "Does today work for you?" Yes!

Logic would have said, "No. My husband is hospitalized and I'm stressed." I said, Yes!

Lenny showed up at 8:30am and began work on our winter ice dam damages--great room ceiling (20 ft. high) and two small wall segments, the entire master bedroom, and one wall of the garage. As soon as I could manage it, I was on my way to the hospital to be with CA.

After a long day away I returned to a completed great room, master bedroom ceiling and baseboards, and a primed garage. Disarray, sure, but real solid progress. Today it will all be done. A very bright spot in our current medically stressed-out world. Very bright.

Benjamin Moore, Captivating Teal.

 

I think we'll love the color. It'd been the very relaxing Benjamin Moore's Sea Mist, but we've gone one tone darker to Cativating Teal.

Next project will be freshening the doors on our first floor, and finally getting our peninsula's face and legs painted-- Bejamin Moore's Aura, Dove White.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Found Objects

 

We purchased this cabinet on a whim from a now-defunct local furniture store the summer we moved into our home--2001. CA was especially captivated, thinking we'd use it in the master bedroom for our television. That never quite worked out, and t.v.'s soon got flat and light-weight, and wall-hung.

So, this cabinet resides in our greatroom, holding Christmas china, candles, passports, random luggage tags, and foreign currencies (In VERY small quantities, Mr. Robber.)

The amusing fact about this cabinet is that we moved it around from place to place over the years, until one day I noticed something kraft paper-ish sticking out underneath. Upon investigating, I found that a backsplash had been wrapped and taped to the bottom for shipping, and was never mentioned at time of purchase nor discovered until years after.

In situ.

I didn't want it attached, thank you very much. So, it landed on a basement shelf where I would, on occasion, pick it up, note it's heaviness, and replace it on the shelf. Somewhere along the way I had the brilliant idea to repurpose it into a coat-rack/key-holder, and had our handyman(men) drill for hooks and then hang it securely (it is heavy!) in the back hall. I love it! It's functional and lovely. Extremely functional. Classes up an otherwise dreary pass-through from the garage.

Detail.

More detail.