learning the hard way

So far, I have learned these things about tiling shower walls:

1. Plan ahead and order your tile early to prevent driving around to FOUR Home
Depots to get all the tile you need.

2. Allow more time than you think you'll need for prep work.

3. Don't forget to measure ALL the walls, even the half walls, unless you want
to drive 47 miles back to the only Home Depot remaining that still has
some of your tiles.

4. Try to do all this on a day when your four month old is not teething and
refusing to nap and crying when anyone but his mom holds him. (poor baby)

house anxiety

I would love to say this bathroom remodel is going smoothly, but it isn't. Of course. The cabinets look great; the panel in front of the tub looks great. The mirror... Not so great. We had it removed and cut down a little. In the meantime, Guy spent two nights building a frame for it. They came to install it this morning, and our frame isn't as thick as the mirror. That think is thick! So, it wasn't proper support. They had to install it on a "J ledge," which sticks up out of our pretty frame. I'm hoping Guy will come up with an easy fix for it tonight when he sees it. Mostly because I want him spending time with me and the kids at night and not with his tools.

I think I'm mostly just nervous about this weekend's project. We are planning on using the 3 day weekend to tile our shower and around the tub. I'm very excited and nervous to get that going.

Also keeping me on edge is the fact that we haven't shown our house in TWO months. I'm having a hard time keeping my spirits up. Three other houses in the neighborhood recently got contracts. What's wrong with ours?

This will be funny someday

My husband installed the faucets on the new sinks today and hooked up the plumbing. We reused the old faucets, so he had to put them back together. He knows just enough about plumbing to be dangerous, I guess. He was having trouble with one of the faucets dripping, so he took off the handle to tighten something. Not thinking to turn the water off, he created pressure and the little piece (not sure about the technical names) shot off, hit and broke the light bulb and sprayed water and glass everywhere! I made him smile for the picture promising that we would look back on it and laugh.
The good news is that we seem to have gotten all the glass cleaned up, and the faucet worked perfectly once he got it put back together. I wonder if he's laughing yet?

Doing a granite dance

Our granite counter tops were installed today, and they look soooo good. It makes a huge difference. Here's what the bathroom looks like at this point in the remodel.



We have a pretty long way to go, and I can easily get overwhelmed if I think about it all. In the meantime, three houses in my neighborhood have become under contract. I'm glad to have them off the market, but I am sad that it wasn't mine. That's the whole reason I'm doing the bathroom remodel. I want to make this place irresistible! There are so many beautiful houses in this neighborhood to choose from, and people are selling cheap.

a great idea

I just read a very interesting article about screen savers. I'm one of the people who has a floating photo slide show of my children for a screen saver. I've struggled with the idea of turning my computer off when I'm not using it, but I've never considered just turning off the monitor. I used to be good about turning off my computer at night, but I've gotten very lazy about that. So, here's to putting in a little more effort when it comes to the energy my computer uses. Every little thing makes a difference, right?

Milestones

So many milestones have been happening around here this week. Maybe that's why everyone is kind of out of sorts.

First of all, Tiki got his first two teeth.




Okay, not really. But I do think he's teething. Coocoo got his first tooth at 20 weeks, and Booboo got his at 3 months exactly. Tiki is 16 weeks now.


Booboo has slept through the night for 3 nights (not exactly consecutively, but only one night in the crib) in his big boy bed. Right now, it's just a mattress in the floor. In the picture, you can see his crib beside him. First potty training and now this? My sweet baby is becoming a little boy fast!




No milestones for Coocoo, but we are trying a new book on him. Have a New Kid by Friday by Kevin Leman. So far I love the book. He's responding to it too. Except when I have shameful relapses like yesterday. I'll try to do a full book review once I finish it.