She's Baaackk!!

Hey Peeps!!

Did you think I forgot you?  Well, no way could I do that, I just get distracted.  You know, start a million things finish none.   Speaking of things not finished, you guessed it, the bathroom!  

Hence the reason you have not been updated as I'm pretty sure you're tired of seeing the pictures and wondering if they are actually any different.   

Anywho, much busyness is happening today and I know I'll have updated pics tonight so I figured I better catch you up.

Let's jump all the way back to June 4 where I last left you.   (Don't worry, I don't have 14 days of pics stored up)

Flooring started going in and we were definitely excited to see this start to happen.

By June 6 we looked like this.

But the shower looked like this

like only half of the hell portal was still open.

Technically, the hell portal would be on the floor not the ceiling but you catch my drift.  The creepy factor is still there but hey, you can't see into the attic any longer so that's progress!

The water closet is still missing the toilette but it has floors!

We left the house on Saturday the 7th while Francisco was working away and came home to find that he had the entire floor grouted. 

Floor inside the bathroom door area.

Close up of the tile and once again, I know the lighting is bad but it's a pretty good look at the tile. 

Long view of the bathroom

AND 

the portal has been sealed.

The pencil trim around the outside of the shower is installed.

The lower niche is tiled now

and the final trim out of the seat is complete.

We should let that man work alone more often, he got after it today!

Let's jump ahead to Wednesday the 11th and see what happened.

Leo started taping off because painting is about to commnece.

Protecting those new floors for sure.

Merebear and Court came in on Friday so the workers got a nice weekend off and we got to sleep in and just generally enjoy ourselves.   

For some reason I didn't take any pictures after they finished painting, probably because I was trying to clear up some of this 

and this

So poor Merebear could use her bathroom and sleep in her bed.

She very graciously used her bathroom as it was but we did get the entire bed cleaned off so she had a place to sleep.    Since no one worked over the weekend we just piled it all in our master bedroom and then moved it all back Sunday evening after Mere headed back home.  

Here is a pic of my closet and the infamous "boob" lights.  I cannot be the only one who calls them that because HELLOOOOO they look like boobs on the ceiling.  (I know, I know, now it's all you can see)

Hubster only had one in his closet and I have two so it REALLY looks like boobs!

Hubster already changed his out during lunch today with an LED fixture that's summoning the aliens it's so bright.   I'm getting some little rose gold crystal numbers later this evening, hence the reason I showed you this pic.   Also, now you too shall refer to these as boob lights.

And then yesterday after Leo left the house I realized he did this too.

He got the hardware installed on the cabinets. They are quite lovely and this my friends is how you find yourself realizing you are old because I was so tickled with the hardware and the soft close hinges on the cabinets that I was proclaiming to everyone to feel them at how good they feel in your hand when opening. Seriously, I used to be a fun person and now I'm overjoyed by cabinet handles.  Everything is painted too but I failed to take any pictures but I shall show you those tomorrow along with all the other little things that got completed today.

There you have it my friends, you are all caught up.

Francisco should be back today to grout the shower and the plumbers have been busy bees today as well. 

With a hopeful heart I tell you that we are allegedly going to wrap this party up this week! 

They have to come back next week and install our new front doors and then we'll bid our ever faithful contractors adieu until we are ready for another project.

I can't wait to see what they're doing down there today so I'll see you tomorrow with all the news that is the news!!

Peace, Love, and Boob Lights!

Samma 

It's Been One Week

Hey Peeps!

It's been (almost) a week since I filled you in on the bathroom shenanigans.   It went from very little changes to WHAM....now, we're getting somewhere.  Let's dive in because I have about 20 pics to throw down today!

Let's scooch back to last Thursday evening, this is where Francisco left off for the day.

Just a reminder, the area in the middle-ish is where the accent tiles are going.

Little further back view and you can see there's still a ways to go.

It's a whole lotta tile in that shower.

The niche side is still looking a little barren.

Okie dokie, let's move on into Friday

This is what happened on Friday.  

Hector was out of town Friday, so Francisco was all alone all day.

 

I know what you're thinking because I was thinking the same thing....like, what did he do all day?

I've got nothing for ya except he's gonna be back Saturday morning. 

We had tickets to the Rangers/Cardinals baseball game so it was just Francisco and Reggie holding down the fort.   Side note, poor Francisco is slightly terrified of Reggie.  

High hopes that when we got home from the game, much more progress would be made today.

Annnnddd, we would be wrong.

Needless to say I was disappointed,

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and frustrated, and scratching my head trying to figure out how this took 8 hours.

Oh well, Hector and Leo are back Monday and maybe we'll see some real progress.

Meantime, we've got to get some yard work done before we get more rain and it becomes a jungle in the back yard.

oof...i even lightened that one up on my phone but no such luck.

This is the only pic I could get Monday evening because my bathroom floor has taken on the red room vibe.   The floor was wet so we couldn't walk on it, this is actually the primer prep but honestly, I don't think there was much for you to see anyways.

The floor is LAVA!!  haha   That's exactly what I told Leo this morning.

We did find that all the accent tile pieces are cut and awaiting placement, so he got a little more done than we gave him credit for. 

He did get the sides of the tub walls finished and the pencil trim added.

Ya'll that pencil trim is Fra-gee-lay and stinking expensive.

He's still got a good size pile of it so he must be more careful with it than I was.   I'm afraid to even pick it up for fear of snapping it in half.

He even added the pencil trim to the tops between the windows.

Connected the tub wall to the shower wall.

Hector told me that the shower glass guys love to measure after Francisco tiles because everything is perfectly lined up and level and their glass always goes in like a dream.   

Applied the leveling material to the cut outs where the accent tile goes. 

The scaffolding is in the shower because the ceiling of the shower is still without a single tile added.

I'm afraid he's procrastinated that as long as he can at this point.

Sooooo, the directive on Monday was get the shower finished and the floor prepped and be ready to start tiling the floor on Tuesday.

Wellllllll, as you can see, those things did not happen.   Frustration was felt by every single on of us on many levels.   While I thoroughly appreciate Francisco's meticulous tile work, we do need him to move a bit faster because we have one week until the girls are in town and I'm sure the Mere bear would love to sleep in her room and right now, her room is serving as our closets.  I'm also using her bathroom so we're gonna be real cozy around here if things don't get moving. 

Let's see what Tuesday brought us shall we?

Would you look at that?   All the accent tile is in place.

The pics are dark again because the light in the ceiling of the shower has been removed.

And most of the trim around the outside, which is good because they will be here this week to measure for the shower glass.  

The niche wall will get finished on Wednesday.   Also, that weird wire sticking out of the tile is the wiring for our steam shower controller.

And look at Francisco go!   He finally started tackling the ceiling and that'll get finished up Wednesday as well.      Now you can see why the pics are so dark, there's the light they had to take down to tile.  

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Leo was hanging out wrapping up some chores too.   The area under the tub got filled back in today and is ready for flooring.    He also finished up the powder bath but Hubster needs to hang the towel rings and then I'll get you pics of the refreshed space. 

Something you can't see is that Leo also got all the hinges changed out on our cabinets to a soft close.

Whoop whoop... now I won't wake up Hubster when I accidentally knock a cabinet door closed at night.

It happens more often than I care to admit, grace is not my middle name.

Leo also got the sink faucets installed....and they work!!

Side note, when I brightened up the photos it made the cabinets look VERY bright blue, they are not this bright so don't be alarmed. It was almost 8:00 pm when I could get in there to take pictures and we had a little thunderstorm trying to work its way to us so it was usually dark in there.  

Here's another look at the sink and faucets.

I'm pretty excited to see this, it always is nice when the things you picked out go in and they all coordinate as you had hoped they would.   Let's just hope we feel the same about the light fixtures when they arrive.

If you are curious, the faucets are by Kohler and they are from the TONE line. The finish on all our bathroom fixtures is Vibrant Brushed Moderne Brass.  I wanted something simple but not modern and I think they fit the bill. 

So there you have it, the bathroom showed some real improvement today and I think we are all feeling a little bit better, except poor Francisco's neck, that ceiling tiling on scaffolding is no bueno.

I have a neighborhood ladies lunch tomorrow then I'm going to do a little shopping before I come home and hopefully tomorrow evening will bring a finished shower and some tile going down on the floor!   

    Till tomorrow....

Peace, Love, & The floor is Lava 

#Tryazon and #ProudGrill

Hey Peeps!!

We are going to take a little break from the bathroom remodel to show off some cool new Grill tools to make your backyard barbeque-ing easier.

I was pretty excited to host this party by Tryazon because sometimes our grill gets D-I-R-T-Y!  And I hate finding little wire brush pieces on the grill after I flip my food.  UGH    Apparently I'm not the only one who has that problem, have a little read about how the Q-Swiper grill cleaning tool came to be.

Proud Grill’s flagship product – the Q-Swiper BBQ Grill Cleaner was introduced
after the founder was grilling with bare feet and stepped on what he thought
was a piece of glass. Instead he found a small wire from his grill brush and when
he did some research found that thousands have people have ingested these
grill brush wire bristles which resulted in a trip to the emergency room. It wasn’t
long after he invented the Q-Swiper.
The Q-SWIPER® Grill Cleaner makes grill cleaning easy. It’s a safe, bristle-free way
to swipe away grease and grime for a clean and healthy grill every time you
barbecue. This patented grill grate cleaner combines the Q-SWIPER Grill Brush
and scraper with our tough, moist Q-SWIPER BBQ grill cleaning wipes to safely re-
move tough grease and grime. Use on a COOL grill."

Ok, so that sounds great but let's see what it looks like!

It also comes with some handy dandy wipes that attach into those orange holes. 

The next items in the box were these Slide & Serve BBQ skewers.

These sweet things make grilling kabobs so much easier.  The spikes keep your food from falling off and the ends make turning the kebobs so much easier. These are made from stainless steal, are reusable and dishwasher safe.   Hubster declared them so much easier to flip kabobs that the usual wooden skewers. These will get a good workout at our house this summer.  

And lastly, we have the UltraVersatile Stainless Steel Grill Basket.  

You want to grill some veggies, some delicate fish, maybe even some shrimp?  The little number has a removable handle that allows your to grill those items with ease.  It has 2 moveable dividers that allow to grill and separate your items and those dividers can move into 5 different positions on the basket.   

I can't wait to use this when the okra starts coming in the garden.   

If you'd like to learn more about #ProudGrill products, swing yourself over to www.proudgrill.com and if you'd like to order any of these products, head over to Amazon and use this code, 10GRILLNOW to save 10% on your purchase.  

Time to put those tools to use!

On a cool grill (like before you start heating it up), give that grill a good scrub with the Q-swiper.

'

Really get in there and scrub!

Now grab one of the wipes and wrap around the Q-swiper. 

And scrub, scrub, scrub some more.

After you are all done scrubbing, pull those filthy things off and toss them in the trash.

Told ya our grill gets dirty!

Now let's preheat that grill and go inside and get everything else prepped.

A little snacky snack to munch on before dinner.

Of special note, that is my first cucumber from the garden and it was delish!

Let's make a big beautiful salad to go along with our grilling delights.

I bought some kabobs at the grocery but brought them home and pulled them off the wood skewers and used the Slide & Serve Skewers.   Added a little seasoning to the kebobs and we're ready for the grill.

Sat it all out on the counter so folks could look and nibble.  The removable handle on the grilling basket was a big hit.  

Nothing left to do but eat after those kebobs came off the grill.

Thanks again to #Tryazon and #ProudGrill for letting us test out the products!

Peace, Love & Kebobs!