a room of a different stripe

Finally, the surprise! It's going to be a disappointment, I promise - we only decided to re-paint a room. But it does look a lot better and feels a lot cozier to hang out in.

The blue-gray we had painted the tv room, aka service porch, was a little too close to the color of the kitchen, so we decided to darken it a bit. And to get a little crazy, we left some of the old color at the top. We've since added roman shades similar to the color of the couch but I haven't taken pictures of those yet. They are nice though and make it really dark for watching movies.

executing the perfect stripe

We also got a new rug really cheap from WS Home. It reminds me of an LL Bean boat & tote! We got a nice cushy carpet pad to put beneath it - here I am cutting it in my pjs.

And here is our male model, dressed to match the new room:

Now we just need to get some shelves on the wall above the desk (just barely visible in the left corner of the above picture - it's a hard room to photograph), get some stuff on the walls, and replace the light fixture.

new look

I've pretty much been copying my sister my whole life, I'm just old enough to admit it now. She got a great new background for her blog, so naturally I had to follow suit! Sorry Tera, hope you're not mad.

you say spotty, we say shoddy

The renovation of the original bathroom has been a loooooong adventure. We had planned to have it finished several weeks ago, but two big things beyond our control have stood in our way.

First, the window...it was one of the few that had not already been replaced when we moved into the house. Kyle called the supplier he had used at former jobs and ordered a replacement window - the guy said it would be delivered in about two weeks.

Fast forward about three weeks...no window yet. Kyle called the store and they had no record of the order. Sweet. So he ordered it again. A few weeks later the guy called and said he'd leave it on his front porch for us to pick up. Of course he wasn't home when we stopped by and Kyle realized it was a new construction window - not a replacement. (I wouldn't have known there was a difference 15 months ago!) Kyle was, um, not happy.

He talked to the guy later and they decided that Kyle would just try to cut the flashing off (I think that's the correct terminology...fortunately, most of my readers probably wouldn't know the difference anyway.) and see if it worked. After installing and spraying water at it for 10 minutes, we were satisfied. So, about 6 weeks later, we had our window installed.

Meanwhile, we visited the granite store where we purchased our kitchen countertops to choose a top for the vanity Kyle and Corey built. It's a small vanity, only 30 or so inches across, so we were able to get a marble remnant for a great price. Score!!!

Delivery #1: while drilling the holes for the faucet, they cracked the marble. Fast forward two weeks to...

Delivery #2: Install successful, and it looks beautiful from afar, but up close there are these little brown spots (in gray and white marble) with greasy looking "halos" surrounding them. It looked as though they had filled in a scratch with some brown putty and it seeped through the porous stone. In choosing marble, I was aware of its porous nature and agreed to be really careful with hair products, toothpaste, etc (and you guests had better be too!) but I would have liked to at least start out with a perfect piece. See the evidence below:

See what I mean? Not awesome. So my persistent (and dashing, might I add) husband sent digital pics to the store. They agreed to send someone to the house to check it out. The guy who came - one of the owners we think - claimed that it was naturally occurring in the stone. We disagreed because 1. these marks go against the natural grain that all the other markings follow, and 2. that is just b.s. I mean come on, we're not idiots. That halo effect wouldn't happen naturally.

So, finally after Kyle pushed up the sleeves to show his rippling biceps, they gave in and agreed to try one more time. (oh, and after Kyle went to the store again to see other pieces and verify that they didn't have those same kinds of spots) So Delivery #3 is happening this afternoon.

We have a suprise that I'll try to unveil in the next few days. Try not to get too excited.

UPDATE: Delivery #3 did NOT happen on Monday. Big surprise. They just didn't show, even after Kyle left work a few hours early to be sure he'd be there when they arrived. Supposedly they're coming on Thursday - I'll believe it when I see it.