What We've Been Doing

The men have been hard at work here. I don't have any before shots, since being constrained to using actual film made me feel I didn't have a camera :0 Although judging from the length of time it seems to take me to get film developed, I was really better off waiting.

So, those of you who have been here know what the "before" was, and the rest of you will just have to appreciate the current beauty :)

First we have the upstairs bathroom. This project was much bigger than we anticipated. We were originally going to leave the tub and tile in intact, and just replace the floor (it was yucky carpet) and the vanity, countertop, and toilet. But we noticed a tile in the corner by the tub was cracked all the way around, and on further investigation discovered that there had been water leaking behind the tile, across the back of the tub and into the floor. Soggy flooring, soggy drywall and lots of black mold. Long story short, we gutted the entire bathroom.

We are on a very tight time schedule and an even tighter budget, so this was REALLY not good news.

But the new bathroom is much nicer than the old one was. And "they" say bathrooms (and kitchens) sell houses. Hopefully it will help.

Here is the new tile, it goes all the way to the ceiling. Previously it was white 4" squares that stopped just above the showerhead. The tub is shiny and new, and the deepest one I could find. Not the $99 builder special that was there.


This shot shows the tub a little better and some of the flooring. I mentioned it was carpet before right!?! Nasty, beige carpet. It is beyond me why anyone would carpet a bathroom.

New toilet, too.

The vanity that was here before was the standard, plain jane oak that you often see in tract homes.

We got this one at Home Depot. We just put a basic white countertop on it. I would have looked nicer with a more expensive countertop, but there are so many things we need to spend money on that we decided the vanity would have to carry the day.

This is the downstairs bathroom. It had a white pedastal sink, grayish-white floor tile and purple walls.

This shot is to show you the floor tile. It is the first tile we bought and we decided to go with a slightly different tile for the rest of the house. It's pretty though.

Here is the vanity. We got this at Costco and it was a deal, plus it came with the pretty countertop and sink. It REALLY helps the bathroom.

The light fixture and a little bit of the mirror.


On Thursday our friend John Elliott came over to help. Here are he and Mike breaking out the kitchen tile. Right now it is the same as what was in the downstairs bathroom, soon it will be the same as what is in the upstairs bathroom.

I don't know if you have ever broken out floor tile, but it is serious work. And days later I still feel like I am choking on dust.

So, that's is what has been going on here. Mike has about 3 weeks left if things go according to schedule at work. Hopefully the airplane will slide and we will have a bit more time. There is A LOT to do!

And no, nothing is decorated yet :)