A little bit closer to a bathroom

If you've been following this blog, you've seen some before and during pics of the 2nd floor hall bath. Here are some pics a bit closer to done - floor tile is in, trim is up, sink and toilet are installed. Bill started sanding and spray painting the exterior of the old clawfoot tub yesterday, so hopefully we'll get that into the bathroom soon(ish). That will allow us to put the door back on (tub is too big to fit through the doorway), and we'll be back to a full working bathroom!

PS, When I took the pics for this post, I took a close-up of the tile. Once I downloaded the pic, I realized how crazy dirty that floor is, so you'll have to zoom and/or squint instead. I'm happy we found this tile though. I thought vintage-style tile would be expensive and have to be ordered online somewhere, but this white and black pinwheel tile was pretty cheap and came from Lowes. Luck!

Next Up - The Great American Road Trip!

Dear reader - and here I'm speaking primarily to myself, as I'm writing mainly to document these memories for my own future enjoyment - I must apologize. I barely captured anything here about our Costa Rica trip in summer 2024, and nothing at all about our two weeks in Prague and Vienna in 2025. Maybe someday I'll catch up, but in the meantime, let's forge ahead! This summer we're staying in the US. Time for a nearly 6-week long road trip! Why now? Ruth will be a senior in high school next year, so this might (?) be the last time we can all do such a long trip together. Bill quit his job in April (yay for FIRE, aka Financial Independence / Retire Early... but that's a whole separate post), so we've got this short window where we all have the time freedom to do it. Here's the plan: Leg 1 - Raleigh west to Denver. We'll visit Asheville, Chattanooga, Huntsville, Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, and Great Sand Dunes National Park along the...

Wall and shower (?!) paint

Last post, I mentioned that we'd painted the walls, so here are finally some pics. The color was pre-selected for us: we found this teal on one of the three layers of walls that we demoed. Bill installed a fan in the wall above the window, which got new trim to match the rest of the house. He also put in two recessed lights in the ceiling, a medicine cabinet, and a light over the cabinet. In the pics below, you'll see only the top half of the wall painted, since the bottom half will have white beadboard. The last picture shows the shower area, painted in a crazy "liquid rubber" waterproofing goo (ShowerSeal). Here's hoping that works.

Dishwasher and stove and sink, oh my!

Bill took today off work, and blew my mind. When I left this morning, the stove was in the entryway. I came home to find our stove in place and working. While I was playing with all the knobs and seeing how high a quick boil gas flame goes (answer: pretty darn high), I noticed a strange noise. It was the dishwasher. A running dishwasher!! Do you understand how fabulous that is?! It has been 6 months since I've heard that noise. And that meant... water is on throughout the kitchen. We have a sink! In the kitchen! A big one! Unlike the little pedestal sink in the downstairs bath, it's big enough to wash dishes in. Of course, screw washing dishes by hand - we have a working dishwasher! Woohoo! If that all wasn't enough, Bill also installed the under- and over-cabinet LED light strips. Nice!! We still have plenty to do here, including installing the tile backsplash, adding baseboards, and trimming out the doors. Cabinet installer also has a few tasks - filling that hole next to...

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