"Before & After" Marathon...Dwnstrs 1/2 Bath

I am coming to realize very quickly, that I am enjoying the sound of my own voice way more than expected...I think the site needs less talkin' & more action. With that said, here is a plethora of before and in progress pics...

1/2 BATH

View from hallway before...

Upclose into the soon to be gone kitchenette... ...Kitchenette and back pantry walls gone.
...View of 1/2 bath from its neighboring full bath, and the drywall is up, awaiting pedestal sink and toilet (which I also sniffed out an awesome bargain for, my beautiful new TOTO sink/toilets from, Homeclick.com. Bonus* They had FREE shipping!) I heart them.

Here's the faucet that we chose for our beautiful new sink...

and here is the lightning (shoot, I couldn't find our exact one, but here is one similar...)

Finally, we decided on this marble tile flooring from Lowes (less than $3 sq/ft baby!)...

Okay, enough of the 1/2 bath...all of the action is in the full bathrooms where my favorite tile in the world will be placed.

eBay takes over the world and A dedication to Marty Roberts

Honestly, I have no clue how anyone stays in business with eBay around...the perfect answer to supply/demand economics, it's beautiful. I say this after several months of searching for the perrrrr-fect vanities for our bthrm remodels. I rummaged through numerous websites, retail sites, home depots & lowes'...to great disappointment. I came to realize that VANITIES ARE EXPENSIVE, a lot of money for the cr*pola these places were selling. I decided to hit up eBay, I am not a huge eBay shopper and it always occurs to me as a last resort - Boy, was I mistaken. Check out these beauts...(I was able to purchase them for about 25% the price they were listed for on "a store that will remain unnamed" website.

Vanity for Full Bath Downstairs

Vanity for Master Bath UpstairsI am not going to lie, I paid quite a bit for shipping but we still paid less than purchasing stock cabinetry, countertops, faucets...etc. Also - always have someone there to help you carry the items in! The FedEx man arrived on a rainy, cold & dreary day with 600lbs of marble and wooden palettes to great dismay when I answered the door in my pajamas, slippers, steaming cup o' joe...and NO muscles in sight. Fortunately, the delivery gods were looking down opon me and had delivered me the son of Titan himself. This delivery man was like that Atlas statue (see below)...he should be used on FedEx commercials, seriously. Mr. Roberts ended up lifting these wooden pallets himself, up two flights of stairs onto our front porch. I have never seen anything like it. We of course ended up tipping him for his efforts, (he certainly went way beyond his job description.) To make him an even BETTER employee, he came by the day after and left us a "thank-you" note inviting us to join his church. Can you even believe that? Marty Roberts, this post is dedicated to you.

On to the interior

Whew, after one sole entry, I am already exhausted with the blog responsibilities...I am thinking of blog content with everything I do now..."Should I bring a camera to our friend's bday party today?", "Do I want to blog about my upcoming weekend with old friends...better bring the camera", "Should I go back to the very beginning of our renovation project or just start from the present?"...ITS EXHAUSTING!...like a monthly status report for work, or better yet, for those like me who kept a diary when we were young. I always felt the need to catch the invisible entity of "the diary" up on my life in-between my 6 month disappearances from writing...so much so that I became too tired to actually write about what I originally intended to, geesh...pure exhaustion I tell ya. Anyhoo, I have learned from my past mistakes and decided to start from the present with the renovation...with the inclusion of past tid-bits only when relevant. (man - I am already growing weary.) With that said...

...after three years of tearing out plaster/lathe, restoring old windows, enlarging and framing in a master suite, demo-ing existing bathrooms and a kitchenette, dealing with knob-and-tube electric (in some cases with live wires dangerously dangling from bedroom ceilings)...we hired a contractor for the major bathroom work...VERY EXCITING! We are adding a bath upstairs for the previously mentioned master suite, a half and full bath downstairs, as well as the addition of a mudroom in the formally used pantry.

We are hoping once these major portions are completed we can move out of what we like to call our "life room". I am sure anyone who has undergone what we are executing is intimately familiar with this room. It consists of your bed, television, couch, a place for bills, phone chargers, computer and anything else you might deem "essential" to daily living. This room is the homeowners' only saving grace in the house, a place where construction is NOT ALLOWED, the only place that is somewhat clean and organized, the only place where electric is readily flowing, the only space where one can escape the chaos surrounding them...this room is what we call the "life room".

(BEFORE Pics: Downstairs Full Bath)

As you can see from the above diagram, the 1st floor bath is pretty tight. We are extending the length of the bath into what used to the "kitchenette" for the addition of a luxurious jacuzzi tub, the old "kitchenette" space is being repurposed into a smaller much needed half bath, and the back pantry area will be a new mudroom...finally time to move the laundry out of the kitchen and into a more convenient space...needless to say, reinforced flooring, so our our entire house doesn't shake-n-roll during the spin cycle.)

Okay, I'm a novice in formatting pics in blogs, it just took me 2 hours to put in those 3 pictures...I am not kidding. I will have to wait until tomorrow before revealing our decorating and redesign photos...(see, like I said earlier, utter exhaustion.)

I leave you with this simple diy-er's conundrum (provided by one of Pj's recent rants), "How can one take a piece of carpentry off, sand it and when one goes to put the darn thing back in its original place, HOW CAN IT BE TOO LONG?" One of life's little mysteries.

...a long time comin'

So, our story begins with Pj and I moving to Tennessee and buying our first home...which of course I did not make easy. I seem to take the long and hardest pathway to everything I do...with that said, I was not satisfied with purchasing a "move in ready" home already complete with modern day amentities, (which I found out quick are "selling points" for a reason.)

After a long hard search for the perfect structurally sound antique house, needing only cosmetic updates ended in disappointment...we found our new home, complete with cracked (hopefully not crackING) plaster walls, drafty windows, and everything else that comes with a 109 (and counting) year old home. I apologize for sounding so negative...because there are SO MANY wonderful and priceless characteristics that pulled at our heartstrings which I can't wait to document in our new blog! So lets get started...To be fair to our (mostly Pj's efforts) I have uploaded the "day we moved in" pics for reference, (see below.)

(BCK, check out that humongo Catalpa tree residing about 8 feet from our back door...worriesome indeed. Sometimes you think with your heart instead of your head!) I measured that sucker, and it is about 13 feet in diameter...I thought we had a state champion tree on our hands...unfortunately, we were 2 feet short, ugh. This new discovery led me to measure all of the surrounding trees on our small city lot. Maybe, if we live in this house for another 20 years, we will be in the running...not sure what the prize is. Hmmm, I guess bragging rights? I love to brag.

Besides the excitement from a future champ sighting, notice the back roof (right above the back door.) Boys and girls, that is not a photoshop effect, something is telling me the original builder did not plan for that business. Well, that is enough for our first inaugural post. We have much more pics and stories...but my Sunday night tv lineup is right around the corner. (In the future, I will try not to allow my horrible tv habits hurt the progression of my new exciting blogging career...BUT I LOVE my television.)

Tootles,

Kat