The Devil is in the Details

I have ordered new light fixtures, toilet paper holder and towel bar, and am searching for someone to install a pocket door so I can finish up the bathroom renovation. In the meantime, I will trim off the bottom of the old door so I can rehang it. I bought a new circular saw at Lowe's - - - a Black & Decker battery-powered one. The rechargeable battery can be used in a bunch of other Black & Decker tools, including a weed-whacker I bought at the same time.

Speaking of weed-whacking, I am going to need to bust a move outside in the gardens. After sitting empy for a year, the plants here are pretty overgrown and somwhat weedy to boot. So while I wait for the stuff to finish up the last details of the bathroom, I will try to make a dent in the garden. This weekend I transplanted a bunch of the perennials, and weeded out some that were spreading out everywhere they shouldn't be. Some of them were moving from the garden spaces into the driveway, and all the tallest stuff had moved to the fronts of the beds. Today was rainy, so I bought some flats of impatiens, ajuga, and petunias that i will put out tomorrow. It is dark out now, so i will have to wait until then anyway to take a couple pictures.

I want to plant some tomatoes and herbs in a sunny spot in the backyard, but i will get someone to cut down one of the trees first. It is right in the way of the view out the back windows, way too close to the house. There wouldn't be much left if we tried to prune it back, so I am thinking it will just be better to cut it down. I will call my landscaping guy and have him tell me what he thinks we should do.

I also have some carrot seeds that i bought in Japan. The Japanese carrots (and NO that is not me in the Japanese carrot video) are so wonderful - short and very fat compared to the ones we get here, and SO delicious. They are so fat you can actually make musical instruments with them, for crying out loud. I am not sure if they will grow in this climate, but it will be fun to give it a try. I am hoping the rabbits I have seen out in the backyard won't eat the tops off - - - might have to frame them up and cover them.

One of the Costs of Unfinished Renovation Projects

Still haven't put up the new toilet paper holder or towel bar, so the roll of toilet paper was just sitting on the vanity top. This is the second day in a row I have come home to find that my little cat Sharky has gotten the brand new roll of toilet paper and absolutely shredded it.

I didn't put out another one today.

My Review of 11.5" Wall Sconce in Brushed Nickel with White Fabric Shade

Originally submitted at CSN Lighting

This one light wall sconce is not like many of the bold, eccentric pieces from George Kovacs. It is reserved and simple with a brushed nickel finish and white fabric shade. This sconce is a great way to support you modern decor in a simple, stylish way without becoming overbearing or dis...

11.5" Wall Sconce in Brushed Nickel with White Fabric Shade

Is George Kovacs already married?

By renovationbloviatrix from virginia on 4/28/2008

 

5out of 5

Pros: Easy To Assemble, Shades are very nice, Attractive Design, Diffused light

Best Uses: Powder Room, Bedroom, Living Room

Primary use: Personal

I picked these out to contrast with the natural stone tiles I put on the wall and floor, and the fabric shade softened the look of the room and provided a nice textural contrast. The white shades were also a nice color contrast to the dark grey and black tones in the tiles and vanity base, and matched those of the white sink and toilet.

The brushed nickel finish matched some brushed aluminum accent tiles and the faucet perfectly; the square shape of the metal and the fabric shade complemented the square lines of the sink and toilet.

Sadly, these did not fit in the narrow space between the side wall and mirror frame for my bathroom and so i will have to find a substitute. I am deep in despair. The shade fits very close to the wall, so make sure you have enough clearance between light fixture and mirror or other adjacent structures on the wall.

(legalese)

A Day Off to Enjoy the Garden

I am suffering from bathroom-renovation overload right now. So I spent some time outside taking pictures of the plants coming up all around the yard and breathing deeply. Here are some of the best ones:

I recall casually saying that the sink base was no problem...........

Well, that was wrong. It was a huge pain in the ass because the existing plumbing came out of the side wall, not the back, plus it was old and rusted out. Rick had to work all day+ to change the pipes, he painted the waste pipe so it wouldn't show, and did a beautiful job installing new copper pipes that look fantastic. He cut through the side of the cabinet, shimmed the legs to level it, laid a beautiful caulk line between the cabinet top and the wall, and assembled the whole thing. And that was after the herculean effort to install the toilet, which required drilling a hole in the floor to bring the water supply up from the basement, and lifting the entirely assembled toilet to put it in place. He was not a big fan of the toilet design, and had to improvise and trouble-shoot all day long with the supply line, the bolts, the - you name it, he figured out a way to do it. My newly designated plumber-for-life. Here is everything finally FINALLY installed! If the room was a little bigger, it would be easier to get a good picture. These don't do it justice. It really is stunningly beautiful. Next I need to clean up the walls a bit, put a little caulk along the edges of the wall tile, and get a toilet paper holder and towel bar. I have the mirror for over the sink, and will put it up in the morning. And then I can see if the light fixtures I bought will fit. They might be a bit too big, but I won't know for sure until the mirror is up, and then I can check to see how they look.

I am even excited about this silly register cover I found at Home Depot.

Sharky is fascinated by this toilet.

Change of Plans for the Toilet

I consulted with my Plumber Extraodinaire, Rick Littreal (Pyramid Construction), and he is game to see if maybe there is some way the toilet I ordered could perhaps fit. He persuaded the store owners to let him check out their showroom floor model of the toilet I ordered. He brought it over to see how it would fit. And the bad news is - it doesn't. Not only doesn't, but extremely doesn't. He will have to move the water supply line AND change the waste pipe (wrong size and requires a no-flange installation) AND the waste pipe is about 4" too far away from the wall! Here is is in the bathroom, seated on the waste pipe, and you can see that there is a huge gap between it and the wall. This design is just not practical for existing plumbing. I chose it because I like the way it and the sink have the appearance of "furniture" - this is what you see when you come into the house, and I like having it look like "furniture" rather than bathroom fixtures. But enough of this madness. I went back to the kitchen/bath store and asked the manager to cancel the order and find a subsitute that has a similar style.

I didn't think there would be anything quite like it, but he surprised me. He found one made by Duravit that had some quirks, but was a standard installation - if you don't count the water supply line. The toilet had a solid back, so the water supply line had to either be moved farther to the left or could come up through the floor as the god of plumbing decided to do in my bathroom. So I decided to go ahead and grout all the tile (ah, yes, I forgot to mention that I laid the floor tille) so either this Duravit toilet fits, or else we will just put in a standard boring pedestrian toilet like everyone else on the planet.

So the tile was down, and the grout went in. I used a darker grout on the floor because I don't want the grout lines to be a big contrast to the tile. I also laid it with pretty thin grout lines, just to minimize them. I love love love the way it looks. It is a dark grey, but it has a bit of brown in it, which helps it tie into the brick floor in the entryway. My cat, Sharky, loves it, too. In fact he was in the room throughout the entire tile installation. Here he is while i was working on the grout around the water supply line, and laying out the floor tile. I think I'll let him do the next bathroom.

Did I Say the Walls Were Done??

What was I smoking? Yes, the tile was up, but jeez, the walls weren't done. But I did get some grout that looked great and got the wall tiles grouted. There are lots of websites that will walk you through the process better than I can, but here are the steps:

1. Spread the grout on the tiles.

2. Squish it into the spaces between the tiles with a tool called a grout float.

3. Wipe off the excess with a damp sponge. You will need to rinse the sponge frequently in a pan of water, wringing it out as much as you can so that you won't remove too much of the grout.

4. After about a half hour or so later, you will need to go back and scour off the dried haze with a scrubby thing - one of the scrubbing pads that won't scratch teflon off of a frying pan, but will clean it up; I forget what they are called. (but if your grout is light-colored, don't use a green one. get a white one that is sold in the tile aisle at hardware stores. little microscopic shreds of it break off and will get stuck in your grout and show up.)

The one in this picture is a sponge on one side, with a white scrubby part on the other side. It is important to do a good job of removing the grout from the tile surface now, but you don't want to scrub out the grout from the joints.

5. Let it dry overnight and give it a final buffing with the scrubby thing. I love this moment. It is so cool to see the finished, grouted tile. I have to keep going into the room and turning the light on to admire it. After another day or so, put a sealer on it. I used one that is a matte finish. I don't want this to be shiney. Now on to the floor.