Bathroom in Progress

The half bath is getting close to being done! First, a big THANK YOU to Dale and Jan for coming a few weekends ago to help us with this! Needless to say, it wouldn't have gotten done without them (or some contractors)! We painted - took 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint - all no-VOC, which really did have less odor. The color is called "sagey" and is a pale green - almost looks white without the light on (which is what I wanted). We also got the new dual-flush toilet in, got the new sink in, got the new faucet on the new sink, and put up the towel hook and the toilet paper holder. We still need to:

• find a new light fixture
• install said light fixture
• in the interim of finding a light fixture, Jeff has acquiesced to my desire to try spraypainting the current light fixture - look for results after the weekend
  
• replace light switches and outlets*
• put on switchplate covers

*We discovered during the tear-down/out phase that the POs had glued (yes, glued) the old outlet cover onto the wall. We realized that they must have done this because they had broken off the screw inside the outlet box which holds up the outlet cover. So, we have to replace the outlet box. While we're at it, we're also going to replace the light switches, so that everything is white and matchy-matchy. I was surprised today to find out how expensive this stuff can be at Lowes! Wish Jeff and I luck as we venture into minor electrical work this weekend.

The results thus far...


The following picture is notable mostly for the lack of towel bars/shelves/etc in comparison to the before photo.


While Jan and Dale were here we also upgraded the closet right next to the half bath. It used to be pink (with some yellow near the ceiling, we discovered). Now it's a nice white. And now we have some great shelves in half of it so that we have a linen closet (of sorts)....

Last Chance Half Bath

We're finally doing something about the neon blue half bath with multiple wood towel bars and fixtures. Woohoo! We've already procured the pedestal sink (no faucet yet), and we have a contender for the toilet at Costco. We've gotten some color samples from Sherwin Williams. And, we've got Jeff's Mom and Dad coming next weekend to help us do all the work, so I think we are on our way. For now, here's a photo to let you know what we are dealing with....

Weekend Work

Yesterday Jeff and I ran a lot of errands (including buying some frames for our macro pictures from Belize and looking at mirrors for over the console table). Today we got up early and raked leaves. I guess you end up raking leaves on the last weekend in January when you A. are gone most of the weekends in the fall and early winter and B. winter comes late and most of your leaves (or rather, your neighbor's leaves) don't fall until December. The leaf-sucker truck is supposed to hit our street this week, so we used an assembly line approach of one person raking, the other filling the can and taking it to the street to dump into the pile. Here's the result of our work:


It seems like a lot of leaves for a 1/5 acre lot, especially when you factor in that earlier this fall/winter we put out at the curb (and had sucked up) about 1/2 as many as you see there.


Inside the house today, we finally used the picture hooks and picture rail and hung up the stained glass window I got at a garage sale last summer. Before and after pictures below...

BEFORE
Would have been better if I had taken down the hooks before taking the picture. Oh well!

AFTER