Busy week!

It was a seriously busy week at the new house.  I mean so busy that every waking moment Brett and I had available to work on house projects, that's what we were doing.  If I wasn't driving someone to school or feeding someone or dressing someone, I was either buying tubs, faucets and door knobs, meeting with appliance sales people, designing bathroom cabinets, talking with the plumber, checking on the painter, measuring all sorts of things to make sure everything will fit and function properly, selecting tile... and so on. Brett's spare time involved marking out our bathroom tub on the floor for our plumber (so he doesn't screw it up installing it!), measuring shower head heights, shower basin widths and depths, talking with gas line installers, multiple trips to Lowes and Home Depot, trips to the outskirts of town to pick up plumbing valves for 3 shower heads, meetings with sales reps at Fergusons, late night shopping online for tubs and tub fillers.  It has been NONSTOP and very little sleep around here.

A bit of unsolicited advice for anyone contemplating a major renovation... don't do it unless you really like this stuff.  I mean REALLY like this stuff.  Decorating, space planning, designing, engineering.  I love these sorts of things, and the parts I enjoy (decorating, space planning, organizing, designing) compliment nicely the parts Brett enjoys (engineering, mechanics, functionality, etc.).  So, in the same sick and twisted sort of way that marathon runners enjoy running 13 miles on a Saturday morning to prepare for a race (no thank you!), we really enjoy the remodeling process.  Now, at about 11:30 pm each night this week when Brett and I were frantically searching online for tubs and faucets because our plumber said, "You need to have a tub picked out by tomorrow morning so that I can get the plumbing roughed in before the inspector comes and we can pass inspection and get these walls closed up," I can't really say we were having FUN.  But, we did find an awesome tub (at 11:15 pm, after days of looking at other lesser tubs!).  She's a beauty!

And we selected tile (in less than an hour - nothing like a deadline to get you motivated to make decisions).  The tiles we selected were quite reasonably priced (yay for us!), but then we got the bid for the labor to install the tile.  Gulp.  My estimate that I had used in our budget for the master bathroom planning was about 70% LESS than the actual cost.  OUCH!  Time to revise the tile plans a little.  We had planned to do white subway tiles about 4 feet up the wall all around the bathroom (and subway tiles are CHEAP), but the labor is outrageous, so we are going to have to rethink that part of the vision for our bathroom.  I think we're planning to only tile the wall behind and around the tub and leave the rest alone!

We are having custom vanities made by a local cabinet maker because we can get the exact size, height, look and drawer configuration we want in the bathroom and at only a slightly higher price than shopping online (and, FYI, we can get custom handmade solid wood cabinets for LESS than the Pottery Barn bath vanities - so buyer be warned!).  This is the design I came up with at 11:30 at night.

Oh, and did I mention that at the eleventh hour we decided to add the kids bath remodel to the mix?  It looked like this a few days ago:

Now it looks like this:

I've designed this cabinet (11:35 pm!):

The space under the cabinet will accommodate step stools and a basket for laundry or towels.

To compliment this rockin' sink!

Are we crazy?  Yes.  But, now that we are doing the kids bath too, we can get all the bad plumbing out of the house.  And while I was designing one vanity, I figured I should just do the second and not have to worry about it later.  All the cabinets (including our kitchen cabinets, which are ready to install as soon as we get the walls closed up) in the house will be shaker style, clean lines.  The bathroom vanities will be painted (ours light grey, the kids maybe blue?), and the kitchen cabinets will be all white.

We'll do this light (which we found at Lowes for $40) and this horizontal boarding on the walls in the kids bath.  The pine board project will only cost about $100 and will really change the look of the space for plain to interesting (you can get them at Lowes or Home Depot).  Nice little project for Brett to add to his list.

We are keeping the neutral tiles and leaving the tub alone for now... Simpler, faster and less expensive!

And yes, the move-in date is pushed back to mid-November.  And now our master bedroom ceiling looks like this (to get to the plumbing in the kids bath):

 

Such an inviting master retreat, isn't it!

As for paint... we are going with Valspar's "Du Jour."  It's white.  White white.  Here's what our dining room looked like in the decision making process. 

How did I manage to work from right to left?  So funny!

This picture is very inaccurate in translating the colors (because we have NO electricity in our house and the flash on my camera ruined the colors).  But anyway, #1 is what we chose, #2 was too bright, #3 was too grey, #4 was too creamy, and #5 was just right but too expensive.  Basically, we couldn't tell the difference between #1 (Valspar Du Jour) and #5 (Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace), and choosing #1 saved $200-$300.  So, there you have it. We had several people walk in the house over the past few weeks and ask what the squares on the wall were (seriously?  Isn't it obvious?).  Brett or I would explain, and each time the person would reply, "But they all look the same?"  Ha!  They are definitely not the same - I promise!

Oh, one last thing.  The playroom addition rocks.  Lots of usable space.  Here's a decent picture of the opened space.