Tile, Flowers, & Toads

Hi Dee Ho Peeps!

As my friend from high school says "it's drinking eve"!

We are making progress but it is slow moving so there are just a few pictures to show you.

The powder bath just needs the water turned back on and Hubster to install the light fixture. 

Leo did a great job adding the trim piece back to the wall!

I took this from another angle hoping to get the lighting better.

That open area underneath is space to store pool towels.  I'm super stoked to have some extra room for those.  

Moving on to the main attraction! Francisco worked until about 7 pm last night getting these walls complete.  If you wonder why he stoped there, that is where a row of the accent tile will be going.   Just wanted a little something to break up those really tall walls plus it ties into the bathtub wall. 

Here is a close up of the tile, it's a carrara marble tile and I love how the veining makes each tile look a little different.    Francisco is working away down there but tomorrow won't have much more to show.  It is a big shower for sure. 

In closet news, Leo got my 2 new shelves installed over the long hanging area.

I know those are really high up there but it is going to be great to be able to store things without them being stacked.  

The shelves over my shoe area are also installed.  Same thing, I have several shoes that rarely get worn but I want to keep, like snow boots, heels for cocktail/formal wear and those boxes/bins were stacked on top of each other and always falling when I tried to pull one out.   

That's the house update so let's take a walk out in the garden.   Hubster worked hard getting my garden cleaned up for me this year and I'm happy to not be faced with weeding every time I go out there.

Be forewarned, where there was a lack of bathroom photos, there is an over abundance of flowers/bugs/garden to come.

Heading all the way back to April 18th, my roses and Irises were showing out!

I had little bouquets of flowers everywhere and it was magical.

My climbing rose was even showing off and I cut that little bugger down to the ground in February.

I bought a hanging strawberry basket for the first time this year.  They were sweet but small and when we expand the garden, I think we might try growing berries.    

One of our crepe myrtle trees was being a good host to a little bird family.  

The hardy bird of paradise tree that has been relocated all over our yard must have finally found its spot because it was gorgeous this spring. 

I caught this little fella working his way through the trumpet vines.  I looked him up to make sure he didn't need to be relocated in case he was going to gnaw off every leaf in sight, it's a Salt Marsh Moth and he was allowed to remain.  

I bought a lemon tree at the Botanical Gardens plant sale and I have these two little lemons growing.

I'm pretty excited, my success with citrus here in Texas has not been successful thus far. 

The lemon tree was COVERED I tell ya, just covered in blooms.  It smelled deeevine!! 

These are apparently cucumber beetles and I did relocate them, they may have been ok but I wasn't risking my lemons. 

More blooms to smell. 

This is a small section of the blooms on this tree.   

It truly smelled like sunshine!

Let's move on to my garden.   This was taken on May 17 and it is crazy how much everything has grown. 

I worked out in the garden all morning all the rain we've been getting has made a huge difference. 

You can see Hubsters hard work.  First he put down thick landscape fabric between the beds then came back with a truck load of mulch over the top.  He put my random stepping stones back out for me too because your feet get gross in that mulch and I'm prone to run out there barefoot. 

Here's another view of the garden, I'll have to get pics this weekend because it's crazy how big everything is now.  

I'm working hard to add native pollinator plants to my garden and this yarrow I planted last year is flourishing this year. 

There will always be a spot in the garden for zinnias though, not native but happiness, for me and the pollinators. 

One more peek at the garden.

The zinnias were already in bloom in mid-May. 

This is the middle of the garden, we had to take out about 10 random Hollyhocks that were growing in this section.  There may or may not have been some heated discussions about said removal. 

This is the right side of the garden.  That middle bed had lettuces, spinach and kale. Sadly I removed most all of that this morning.   I did leave all the arugula, even though it's too bitter to eat now, the pollinators love the flowers.    I'll be planting more okra in that bed this weekend.  

I also picked up a fig tree at the Botanical sale and we have a tiny little fig growing.  This is another new tree to grow for us. 

These were my Hollyhocks along my back fence BEFORE I left for vacation.   Apparently the deer LOVE  hollyhocks and morning glory's because they've managed to snack them to pieces. 

Wait till you see what they've done.  Ay yah yah!

Here's one more look at the garden from another angle. 

Found another Salt Marsh Moth in my Kale.   He was munching on that a little too much so I found him a new home where he could munch freely.  

I spy the first cucumber of the season!

Look closely (but ignore my dirty fingernails-told you I was gardening -haha)   

I was about to cut this little random tree out but this guy was hanging out so I left him.  

Mostly because 1) I hate toads...like they creep me out immensely.   2) I was not about to touch it (see #1) 3) Later realized I should have shooed him away. According to google image search, these guys (Cane Toad)  have a nasty toxin that would make poor Reggie very sick.  Fortunately, we keep the garden gate closed so hopefully he will hop on out of the garden soon. 

The Zinnias are blooming like crazy!

Happiness indeed!

That's it for today peeps- back soon for updates on the bath, life, garden and who knows what else!

Peace, Love & Salt Marsh Moth's 

Back At It

Well Good Afternoon Peeps!

I thought I would hop on for a minute and show you the lovely things that happened while we were taking ourselves a little beach vacay.    It wasn't near long enough and there wasn't near enough time on the beach but I'm not complaining.  It was just what Hubster and I needed and now we'll focus on ⅔ of the kiddos being here for Father's Day, a quick trip to Chi-town in July, and planning an early fall vacation to Italy (hopefully/finally) and of course, wrapping up this bathroom remodel.  So let's get to it!

Let's start in the pool bath, Leo has the faucets in place and the vanity set.

My apologies, it's really difficult to take photos in this bath.  

I tried to brighten things up in this one, we're just missing a piece of trim and the new light fixture getting installed and this room is complete.  It'll be nice to get this wrapped up.

Let's move on the main bath and see what ole' Francisco has been up to.

Once again, bad lighting when I take these pics but I forgot to brighten them on my phone before I uploaded them.   This is where the tub will sit, there used to be a wall on the left but that was torn down to let some more light in the room.    (FYI- Francisco did this yesterday not while we were gone) 

Here is a close up of the tile on that wall.  This tile is also going to be the accent tile in the shower and the tile that fills the niches.   

This is the floor of the shower, that's the new drain all taped off in there. 

Yesterday we had to get the accent tiles and tile direction of the shower laid out.

Francisco knows he has to let me visualize everything before I can decide.   The language barrier is manageable with 👍👎and a so-so sign.  We had to make some big decisions today regarding tile placements and Hector was here which was great because we'd have worn google translate out! 

This is the shower niche area and no, my camera lighting is fine.    I laughed and said our shower looks like the room in the Amityville Horror.    The red is a water barrier coating, that all got done while we were gone. 

Red Room- Red Room    

Just kidding, this is water our current shower looks like. 

Here's another peek at the tiled wall after Francisco finished last night.   

He'll add this little piece of pencil tile across the top to clean up those lines.

This is where we are going with the Niche area.  It'll have the accent tiles on the back, the other shower tiles around the edges and the pencil tile to finish it off.  

It's a little easier to see with the pieces moved to a corner.  I could only hold up 1 piece of pencil tile because that stuff is FRA-GEE-LAY big time.  It's also pricey and I've already broken 1 piece so best I not push my luck.   

That's all for today.  I think Leo got my closet shelves done today and Francisco is just tiling his little heart out down there today so we'll see what the end of the day brings.    Looks like my shower glass is going to be about 3 weeks out but that won't stop us from moving back into our space.  They'll just have to come add that when it arrives, not like we will need to take a steam shower anytime soon, in Texas in the summer you just walk outside for those!

Peace, Love, & Tile

Making Progress

Well Peeps....I bet ya thought I fell off into the depths of remodeling Hades didn't you?

Basically, I had a picture or two each day which didn't really warrant a post then BAM, I realized I had about a weeks worth of photos that needed to be shared.   So, grab a drink and let's do this!

Let's go all the way back to last Thursday shall we? 

The cabinetry got covered in plastic and then the drywall got prepped, repaired and re-textured. I also went to see the fine folks at Fort Worth Lighting.  We picked out sconces and pulls for the cabinets.  We decided that we are going to leave the lights over the vanity mirror but the middle light is getting moved down to the middle where the white square is located.  That sconce will be the same as the other two but will hang vertically while the others are horizontal.   

Because Hubster likes to go rogue every now and again, he decided this was a good time to redo the powder bath as well.   Fact is, we should have done this last year when we did the den/kitchen since it's part of that area but here we are.

This is the pool bath as we call it, the door on the right goes directly out to our back porch.   The door you see me peeping from is in the den.  If you remember they replaced the door with a pocket door last year.

I had to empty out this bathroom and find someplace to stash everything so I can forget where that stuff is too.   

The above pic shows it after the vanity got ripped out. 

And hey, let's just rip out the toilet and get a new one of those too!

This is the transition from the den to the powder bath and you can see why we should've done this in the first place.

Toilet area tile is removed and ready for new flooring. 

Floor is prepped and ready.  The door to the back porch is open in this pic.

The color is off a bit in most of these pics because I tried to lighten them up before posting. 

Now let's switch gears and move back to the Master Bath, by the way, these are still from last Thursday.

The primer went on the cabinets...it's a touch darker than the paint color.

Here's the vanity.  It was VERY dark when I snapped these pics but things are looking good.

Painters come with a LOT of stuff!

Ahh, it's finally Friday and Francisco has been tiling away in the Pool bath.

It's very wet with sealer in this pic and it hasn't been grouted yet.

Toilet area is all tiled as well.  He's coming back on Saturday to grout the floors.

Let's swing over to the Master and see what those guys got finished with today.

I'm not going in to much detail on these because honestly, you can't really tell a lot of difference but these pics were taken right after they left about 6 p.m. so the paint is still wet. 

Cabinet over the toilet

Vanity 

wall cabinets

close up of vanity 

final vanity pic

We're to Saturday and there is no rest for the weary around here.  Francisco will be here to grout the pool bath and Salvador will be delivering the countertops.

Since we lowered the height of the tile on the walls that will be behind the tub, Hector had the idea of adding the countertop material to the sills.

I think it looks great!   I'm prone to setting plants and things in my window sills so this will be very nice when I accidentally over flow when I water.  Just keeping it real peeps!

We also used the countertop material in the shower on the bench.

It'll be more comfy to sit on a solid surface than tiles.

 

I made Hubster carefully hold my faucets so I could see if I liked it all together. 

Fortunately, I do!  It's exactly how I pictured that part to look.

Here's the vanity.  Salvador did a beautiful job, once again, on the countertops.

The full view of the vanity with the countertops.

I can't wait until this is all completed!

And this is the close up of the countertops and sinks.   

It's hard to tell in the pics but that's grey and gold in the veining of the quartz.

Francisco also got the pool bath grouted and sealed. We kept that door closed so Reggie Roni wouldn't wander in there and I forgot to get a pic.    

Sunday was a no work day (thank goodness-everybody needs a day off)

Back at it Monday morning and Leo was pretty busy in the pool bath.

He got the new toilet installed (sorry, I didn't get a pic) but hey, it's a toilet and it works. 

Vanity is in place, still needs to be set and the faucets are in that box on the bottom.  

Leo was off today but he's going to bust out that tile peeking out from the old vanity and replace the trim piece then get the backsplash and faucets installed.  We have a new light fixture coming next week and then this room will be finished.   

The painters came and cleaned up in the bathroom and got the cabinets covered so Francisco could start scraping the floors.  In other words, it was noisy dust day on Monday.

Francisco got about half way through on Monday but came back today and finished up.

I could only get pictures from the doorway because we can't walk on the leveling material until it dries.

Here's a peek at the tub wall.  You can see the white marks from the new texture is where the old tile went.  The window sills are now where that tile will start and that's why we did the quartz material for the sills.   We have some tiny pencil trim that will go between the windows - a tile topper if you will.

Everything is all covered up because the plumbing parts arrived and they will trench out the section for the tub filler tomorrow and then Francisco can start all the tiling!

Hubster also proclaimed last Friday that he too needed some time off and a mini vacation.   We are heading down to the beach for a couple of days so by the time I get back we should have some real progress to show you!     

Yes, I'm going out of town and leaving the contractors here to work.  Look, these guys spent almost 3 months with us last year doing the kitchen/den area and we have some awesome neighbors who will pop in and check up on things and make sure everything gets locked up every evening so we're not concerned.  We actually left them for a long weekend last year and it was pretty fun to come home and see all the progress at one time and Hector will call us if any decisions need to be made quickly.   We talked through a lot of it today just to make sure we were all on the same page.  

After that long, rambling post you guys are probably thrilled it'll be a while before I'm back jabbering on and on about the bathroom.   

So, until next week everyone have a happy & safe Memorial Day weekend!

Peace, Love, & Remembrance!

                                    Samma