The tub has arrived!

The tub made it as far as Albany on Dec 23rd, but didn't move again until Wed the 28th. It arrived yesterday. It looks great. I am glad I went with the custom paint. I called the contractors and let them know it arrived and they will be back on Tuesday. The rest of the bathroom should be put together pretty quickly now.

While waiting for the tub I did get quite a bit done around the house, but for some reason (maybe because there is still so much to do) I don't feel like I have accomplished much. I did get just about everything sorted and organized and back into the newly expanded quilting closet. I need to run out to the hardware store and pick up some hooks for my quilting rulers and then I should be done with that project.

I also did a bunch of my annual organizing and culling (I love getting things organized!):
I un-decorated the house yesterday. The place looks a lot more open and empty.
I went through my clothes and pulled anything I haven't worn in the last year or so out of the dresser, so now there is plenty of room for the new stuff.
I went through my drawer in the built-in and cleaned that out.
I shredded receipts from this past year that I do not need.

The house still needs a top to bottom cleaning, but I will wait till the construction is done. I am guessing that it will only take to the end of next week. Yeah!

Merry Christmas!

We let Ivan open one of his presents on Christmas eve (the green thing next to him) but as you can see he was still eying his other presents under the tree.

A wonderful Christmas so far. Lots of cool things in the stockings. A great breakfast with a new recipe for lemon ricotta pancakes. And there are few scattered snowflakes coming down.

Peace on earth, good will toward all.

Lots of white stuff, just not snow

The shower is just about done. All the tile is in and grouted the shower head is up and if you turned the knob water would come out, but as we don't have the glass yet we won't be doing that. The glass guys came out on Tuesday and took the measurements. As it is a slow time of the year for them they figure it should only take a week or so to get the glass.

On the reverse side of things the tub which was supposed to ship on the 20th did not do so. I called again and the message yesterday is that it was getting painted and should ship today.

In the meantime the contractor finished the closet in the other room. I looks real nice, so nice in fact that I realized, since everything is already out of it, I need to paint the rest of the inside of the closet. That will be a project for next week. I think I have some white paint down in the basement I can use.

And speaking of white. The odds of a white Christmas is iffy. Usually we are white around here by Thanksgiving. At the moment the 'white' we have now is fog and lots of it.

Starting to look like a bathroom

Progress is going well with the renovation. We have walls up and painted. And they started building and tiling the shower area this week. But my hopes for having a new bathroom in place for Christmas are gone. It turns out that the tub I ordered won't even ship until Dec. 20th. And we have to wait to order the shower glass walls and door after the tile is done. And after the glass is ordered it will take about 3 weeks to get it in. So now we are looking at early Jan.

In the picture you can see the orange water-proof barrier on the shower wall and the black and white hex tile on the bottom of the shower. The black threshold is also in place.

Holiday Decorating - a few weeks delayed

Usually all the holiday decorations go up the Friday after Thanksgiving but with all the construction going on, an unexpected family visit and working on the weekends this semester I am way behind. As you can see even Ivan was getting impatient and as soon as the tree was set up he stationed himself front and center under the tree. I don't have any Christmas music but I did find that the cable network offers classic holiday music as one of the free music channels, so that is what I listened to while decorating.

I was able to work around Ivan and as you can see the tree is decorated. I also sat down with the Christmas cards and got them addressed and ready to go - just waiting for Damon to put his signature on them. I even ventured out to the mall today. Nothing like standing in long lines to really put you in the holiday spirit.




On the construction front all the drywall is up. I believe they will start priming and painting on Monday. The space where the fan is sitting is where our new built-in shelves will be.

Quilting Closet

Here are the quilting closet before and after pictures. Life really seems to be conspiring this year to keep me from getting any quilting time in. First the quilt show prep, then the health issues and now the construction. I did manage to keep most of the quilting stuff in the quilting room. I did cover up the fabric with some plastic bags so they don't get covered in construction dust. (But it is fabric, I can just wash it if it does get dirty). I did put my sewing machine in its travel case and move that to the bedroom to keep it safe.

Construction is moving along. Yesterday they put in the new insulation on the outside walls and added the vapor barrier, finished laying out the plumbing lines and finished the floor layer. Today they are starting the drywall.

Bathroom Renovation will now be effecting Quilting space

Other then using the quilting room as a staging area for all the stuff for the bathroom I didn't figure the renovation would effect my quilting room. But that changed today. The contractors were showing me how the layout will work (now that the plumbing is in) and my concerns about how small the shower was actually going to be turned out to be true. We were discussing options when one of them suggested walling up the closet space and rearranging some things. The result is that we get a substantially bigger shower space (yeah!) but we will lose the bathroom closet. They will compensate slightly by building a small set of built-in shelving to give some storage space to the bathroom.

As this closet abuts up to the sewing room closet (and there is no way I will let them close off access completely to possible storage space) they will break through the closet wall in the quilting room so I can access and use the space in my quilting closet. After they are done working today I have to go in and clear out everything in the closet (eek gads!).

5 More Days of Construction

So days 6 & 7 were spent removing more lath and then going through the garage and basement to get rid of other stuff while we still had the dumpster.

The contractor started on Tuesday Nov. 29th. They pulled up the floor and removed the remainder of the lath. On Wednesday the electrician came in and started with the wiring, adding lighting receptacles and outlets. The contractors also started moving the plumbing to accommodate the new layout.

Today when I got home from work it looks like some ceiling boards have been added, the exhaust fan was installed and more plumbing work was progressing. This week I went out and ordered the tile for the shower floor and sample titles to get some ideas for laying out the tiles for the shower. I also bought a mirror for over the sink.