The roof, the roof, the roof is..... gone?

For those of you who know the Bloodhound Gang song that the title of this post refers to, nothing is actually on fire. But, for some reason, that song came to mind while I watched the drycleaner across the street being demolished this morning. We have known for awhile now that the very unsightly drycleaner across the street from our house would eventually be torn down and converted into 6 condos, but we didn't know when. This morning I wake up to a backhoe tearing into the roof of the building with a vengeance  Woopee! We are really excited to have this eye sore out of our lives. We are a bit concerned that with 6 condos on the lot instead of a small little business, we may lose some of the sunlight in our dining room. Not much we can do about that though, so for now I'm enjoying my front seat view of this demo process while working at my desk. Here are a few pictures! 

And one video titled "backhoe vs. steel beam". I think the beam is winning... 

Finally... the bathroom is finished!

Finally, after many months, the bathroom is finished! We started the renovation back in May and got about 80% finished in the first few weeks and have been chipping away very, very slowly for the last few months. The bathroom was a significant change, with both the sink and tub moving to different locations. The "before" picture really does not do justice to how bad the bathroom was. Try to imagine the cardboard walls, the inches of caulk sealing the round tub to a square wall, and the "no mans land" behind the shower head (to the left of the sink) when you look at the pictures.

Notice Ash posing for the camera in the after picture

The new layout actually gives a lot more space, as we went with a 48" tub (rather than a 60") and recovered the "dead space" on the right side of the room.

Demolition - you can see the layers of wall that have been added over time. Lots of wallpaper! With the help of Grandpa John and Tommy we removed everything but the toilet, all the way down to the lath. There unfortunately wasn't much worth salvaging in this room.

The first step in re-building the bathroom was to construct a wall to enclose the bathtub. We were excited that the new layout would create a little alcove for the toilet, making it less crowded than in the old layout. I was pretty happy with how my first big plumbing job turned out - and after the initial tweaks, we've had no leaks! I also had never done any wall tiling, but a few YouTube videos helped get me started and in the end it was a pretty straightforward job. We did not plan well with the grout though, and most of it had hardened quite a bit before we had time to wipe it off. We were able to "scrape it smooth", but it took much longer than it should have. Caroline was a trooper helping to install the cement board underneath the floor tile at 2am in the morning - she had just had a gum graft done and so wasn't feeling in tip top condition. We were pushing the time envelope so that the tiles would have time to set over night and we could continue working the next day. Luckily Mom was there to help us move along for this part. 

In regards to the window, the new lay out is much nicer because the window is actually part of the bathroom - making the shower more private and allowing more sunlight to enter the room. However, once the window became such a prominent aspect of the bathroom, it was necessary to replace the sill and trim as they had significantly rotted due to being exposed to the water in the shower. In addition, it was all pretty cheap wood and looked very out of place in the house. Dad made the new sill with his router, and it looks pretty good!

We are really happy with the finished bathroom, and everything is much more usable. We have so much more storage (which Caroline is having quite a bit of fun organizing). We now have a cabinet over the toilet, drawers in the vanity, and an amazingly spacious shelf from IKEA next to the sink for towels and commonly used items. We particularly love the back splash over the sink - it adds a nice accent to the room! Also, not shown very well in the pictures is a nifty vertical towel rod (also from IKEA) next to the sink - it has lots of pegs sticking out in different directions so is a really space efficient way to hang multiple towels. 

We still have a few finishing touches to make (e.g., painting the floor vent, installing a threshold, touching up some wall paint, installing a curved shower rod, buying a new bathmat, etc.) To see more pictures of the entire renovation process, click here. 

African violet ICU

Anyone who has heard me talk about any of my gardening attempts knows that I do not typically have great success. I have killed a number of house plants, and the herbs my mom so kindly gave me for Christmas didn't even make it until spring. However, now that David and I have a nice back yard and a house to decorate, I have jumped in with renewed determination to keep my plants healthy. This well-intentioned effort was immediately met by the death of my third African violet (take a guess what happened to #1 and #2).

Luckily the leaves still looked green and healthy, so I set out to salvage the plant by rooting the leaves. At my grandmother's instruction, I placed the leaves in a dish of water and kept them in the sun until they each sprouted a good set of roots. I have now transferred each leaf to its own pot (filled with African violet potting mix) and will do my best to nurse each leaf into its own plant. Wish me luck! This African violet has been on edge long enough that I don't even remember what color flowers it has...