Things I've Learned this Spring

Things i've learned this spring with Emily P Freeman

1. It's quite possible that my husband know more about Disney World that i ever will. We recently started watching Victoria and before we got to the episod where she marries Albert, we obviously  know she does, #history
he hops over to Disney's site and pulls up the restaurant Victoria and Albert's and claims it's the most expensive restaurant in Disney. I didn't even know it was a restaurant in Disney at all.

2. Speaking of Victoria:  This series........i wasn't thrilled to watch it, to start with but it has given me all the feels. Can we just veg and watch them all?
These two 

and then these two. 

3. I can handle crazy times and decisions when half of my heart is out of the country and things get nuts.

4. Making house remodel decisions was not something i wanted to be doing this season of life. especially because almost, exactly 2 years ago, we completed a kitchen remodel. but when water damages things, it has to happen, whether we like it or not.

5. Maybe I'm not okay with the fact that my son is going to middle school next year. How did we go from this, my first glimpse of him

to this?

6. I miss dance so very much. My daughter had her first dance recital and while she was only in one dance, the whole production was amazing. I just loved dance.

7. having most of our family together is so much fun. We went ahead and did a combined birthday party for the kids over Memorial Day weekend. I asked my parents to bring up crawfish and a king cake and we had a New Orleans themed party. It was a great time. We did a crawfish boil for Little Girls very first birthday and so this was fitting. It was a weekend of celebrating. 

Books read in March:
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
I'd Rather be Reading by Anne Bogel
Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah Maas
Disenchanted by Heide Goody and Iain Grant
Saving Lucas Biggs by Marisa de los Santos and David Teague
When We Were Young by Karen Kingsbury
The Next Right Thing by Emily P Freeman

Books read in April: 
In Conclusion, Don't Worry About It by Lauren Graham
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Ensemble by Aja Gabel
Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks
Autumn by Ali Smith
Best Family Ever by Karen Kingsbury
The Next Right Thing by Emily P Freeman (AGAIN)

Books read in May;
Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield
The Promise of Dawn by  Lauraine Snelling
Point of View by Elizabeth Hasslebeck
A Breath of Hop by Lauraine Snelling
Becoming Us by Robin Jones Gunn

The Latest

The tile is up and grouted on about 90% of the shower walls. the framing around the shower still needs to be put up and grouted and the floors of the shower and bathroom need to be grouted.

My parents came to visit over Memorial Day weekend and my dad installed our new light fixture for the bathroom. the frosted glass cylinders will go up after everything is done.

if they come out, like they were suppose to do today to, finish the tile work and grout then here is what is next:

take down that white cabinet

install the door (although we do need to go and get the door)

paint

add trim

put toilet and sink back in

Bathroom Update

Last weekend my hubby and i went out of town for the night and on Friday i knew that people would be at the house to work. i snapped this photo before we left, a last shot of the old tile. later that day we got a call from the project manager that said they found more subflooring that was rotted and they would have to come back on Monday to finish. the section is right there by the door frame to the right of my feet (top of the photo) like a 12x12 space.

When we came home late on Saturday night, there was a van in our driveway and two men in the house. We went in to talk to them and they said that they went ahead and got started. They had sheet rock lined up in the doorway to our bedroom and all the supplies all over the place.

This is the boxes of tile for the shower walls

here is the shower floor waterproofed

They were about to start water proofing the walls when they asked if we wanted to see the nook and the ledge above. "Of Course!" i was all the heart eyes right then and there. it was perfect.

There was a weird piece on the ceiling that they described as the same material as a dry erase board. We thought it was staying but they went ahead and sheet rocked it.

here you can see the space that was replaced on the subflooring.

These boxes is the shower flooring and the bathroom floor

all taped up and ready to go. 

follow the brown paper road out the house and too the bathroom.

This was Monday. There was less supplies than Saturday which means progress.

I saw the box was opened and tiles removed so i thought that it was already on the wall.

NOPE!

Just stacked in the bathroom ready to go on the walls. Isn't it pretty though?

also the photo above is the water proofing on the walls.

This is where they stopped after the first day of tiling

This was after day 2 of tiling

that nook though. just love it

i spy shower floor tile

i may have squealed when i saw this

it is coming together so well. i am so impressed with the work. when i get home today i am so excited to see what will be done. seeing it all come together helps all the dust and cleaning that is going to have to be done.

TIME LINE:

We are hoping they are completed with all the tile by Friday.

After Memorial Day what will be left is...

new light fixture

baseboards

painting

reset toilet and pedestal sink

mirror

Summer is Almost Here

With summer right around the corner and Anne Bogel's  Summer Reading Guide posted today, i decided to browse it, take quite a few suggestions from her and add a few of my own, for my summer reading guide. 

Here is what i am choosing to dive into this summer:

Becoming Us-Robin Jones Gunn

Field Notes on Love-Jennifer E Smith

This is How it Always Is-Laurie Frankel

Amy and Roger's Epic Detour-Morgan Matson

Miss Pettigrew Lves for a Day-Winifred Watson

Daisy Jones & the Six-Taylor Jenkins Reid

Reading People-Anne Bogel

You are Free-Rebekah Lyons

What are you planning on reading this summer?

Things are happening

i thought that i would come home to things looking a little different in our bathroom yesterday, but ended up getting a call from the project manager saying that the plumber was actually coming out today.

So we took one last glance at the bathroom and wondered what it may look like when we get home.

either way, things are starting to happen.

This weeks timeline:
Monday May 13th Pick out Door
Tuesday May 14th Pay for Door
Wednesday May 15th Order light fixture
Thursday May 16th Plumber coming out
Friday May 17th Tile going in

Exciting times.

Progress

Our time line of events looks like this:

March 17th: was told that there was mold and mildew and moisture under master shower

March 19th: Plumber came out

March 27th: Insurance placed us with a contractor

March 29th: Apex demo'd the shower floor and cleaned mold and mildew. also contractor came out to submit estimate to the insurance company

April 3rd: insurance company approved the estimate but contractor wasn't thrilled with total

LOTS OF WAITING!

May 1st: while we waited i decided to purchase the new mirror for the space

Mirror from Wayfair

April 30: contractor came out with tile guy and the took more measurements and looked at a few more things to resubmit a new estimate

May 3rd: new estimate was sent to insurance

May 6th: insurance accepted and we got a call that we needed to go to the tile shop to make decisions. 

 This was our inspiration for the bathroom. Now, we understand that there is not way to get our bathroom to look like this because like 4 of our bathrooms could probably fit in this space. but, out of all of the colors schemes and bathrooms that we looked at, this was the one that we both liked. 

Our Victorian Italianate

The floor in the above shower room is real wood and the tile on the walls is a real marble. We found out that we would have to modify some choices since real marble is way more than we had to spend and we were told was probably not something we would want to go with even if it was less cost.  I had been searching for things that we liked. the tile i had in mind ended up being real marble, so i knew that i had to put that out of my mind.

we thought we had decided on a wood looking tile for the floor and then my hubby thought he wanted something with more red in it. the wood tile he originally found was way more red that i wanted and we ended up agreeing on the one below. it is actually the one that i had originally saved on my Pinterest board and screen shot on my phone to remember. 

So the wood tile will be on the bathroom floor, the marble looking porcelain tile will be on the shower walls in 12x24 and the shower floors will be the same porcelain tile in 2x2s matte with a gray grout.

writing this out seems easy but let me assure you that it was not. the tile guy was showing us what he would pair with the marble looking tile and it just didn't feel right to me. sure it looked good and i was sure that it would look good in a bathroom but it was not what i had envisioned in my bathroom for the last 24+ days.

In fact we ended up having to leave the tile store and let them know that we would call back the next day after we had a chance to talk about it and think more on it.

May 7th: we called and let them know that the above picture and the 2x2 floor tiles were what we wanted to go with. We have a bench going back in but it is smaller than the one that we currently have ( you can see it in the photo below) we also will have a build in nook to hold soap and shampoo.

Also the mirror came in today and it is heavy and beautiful. I can't wait for it to be hung in the space.

 May 8th: This was a last look at the shower floor, covered with plastic because it is opened to the crawl space.

May 9th: the contractors came to fix the joists (photos to come)

What i have left to do:

*decide on paint color (we are leaning towards Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray (that is the color of the cabinets, i our inspiration photo))

get an electrician to add a vent/light in the shower

buy:

*new light fixture

*shower head

*buy vent/light

I'm sure there is more to do but right not this is all i have.