Day 3...

Today is pretty much just a visual...

living room wall board up...

Inside view of bathroom framing.

It may be hard to visualize, so here is something similar...

My tile will not stop at the shower, as shown here, I'm also having them run it all the way around the room at a height of about four feet with a decorative topper/chair rail type thingy. I'm thinking that will give me a bit of a backsplash look for the vanity and leave plenty of wall space for the paint.  I think I'm going with my favorite pinkish white/rose beige, but wont know for sure until the tiles are up. I am only going with one shower head and a hand-held unit on the wall that makes up part of the linen shelves. I'm having them build a triangular seat in the far corner that will act as a seat/foot rest. There will be grab bars and towel hooks, as well as niches for shampoo and other goodies. My color scheme will be light were this is dark and I'm going with a brownish wood vanity and a dark granite top. Go tomorrow to pick that out.  All is coming together, here on the hill.

Talk soon. xoxo

It's day 2 of the remodel

Yes, it's day two of the remodel. These guys start work early, so I'm changing things up just a bit.  Had to go downstairs in the basement to use the other shower this morning, so I wasn't quite ready when the guys rang my doorbell this morning.  If fact, I was wet-headed and still buttoning my shirt. All of this was noticed and laughed about by all.

The electricians came today and did all kinds of piddly stuff. My contractor said it was bizarre that I didn't have a ceiling light in my basement rec room so he had them put one in. Fine by me.  The folks that originally built this house cut corners wherever they could and at the time the house was being built, our local electric company was giving much better rates if new house were built with the heat in the ceilings.

Heat in the ceilings meant no lights in the ceilings, so there you go.  All that has changed over the years with heat pumps and electric baseboard heat, but the ceiling lights were never added. I'm taking care of that.

Well, the new wall has been framed up, as well as my new smaller closet.  I may have inspectors tomorrow or the next day.  This is really going quite smoothly.  My contractor had me do a "virtual" shower today to show where I wanted my corner bench and how high it should be for me and such.  "OK, now squat like you are going to sit down and let me measure you".  I did as he asked, but in order to keep my balance I automatically put my hands out in front of me like doing a squat at the gym. They said this made me look like I was drive a Harley, so we laughed about that.

Anyway, here is the shot from day 2...if you look closely at today's versus yesterday's shot, you will see how far the new wall comes out into the living room. 

I really like watching what's going on, but I'm staying out of the way as much as possible.  Don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I'll try to document things, as often as they change considerably.

Thanks for staying tuned!

Bathroom demolished

The dust has settled, the main bath has been demolished, the closet is gone and the living room wall is gone. For those of you that aren't on my FB page, I'll try to keep you up to date on the photos here...

There will quickly come a point where you wont be able to see any difference daily, but in the very beginning it's always fun to see the "during", as well as the before and afters.

More soon.

A new record for me...

Can you believe it's only been four days since my last post. (hmm, that sounded vaguely like the beginning of confession, but I digress) anyway, I really do want to write more and while I'm dragging my feet on the next chapter of Lammy's World, I can certainly hit the keyboard here and let some of the words that crowd up my brain spill out on paper, so to speak.

Tomorrow begins, hopefully, the start of another house beautification project. My lovely ranch style home was built in 1969, and while bell bottoms and other retro and vintage fashions are cool again, an avocado-colored tiled bathroom is just not hitting on much anymore. I've remodeled the rest of the house except for the main bath...

I am showing this view, so you will see where the bathroom/living room wall is now.  Note the positioning of the red sofa. That is where the wall will be upon completion of the remodel. My contractor and I (in our combined brilliance) decided that moving the furniture before-hand would help me get a feel for the smaller size of my living room. The wall will be removed, and rebuilt three feet out, to allow for the larger floor plan of the new bath.

Since I think big, I am also taking part of my bedroom closet (it extends out to the left of the door jamb on this shot about 24 inches) to make the bath even larger. Yes, you heard me right. I'm willing to sacrifice accessory space for this new bathroom.  Here you see the emptied (sort of) closet.

 Here are several more views of the main bath as it currently looks...

As you can see, green tile and a yellow tub make for a very dated look.  I am removing the tub completely, as I never use it. I just prefer to shower, so the new bathroom will be dominated by a very large shower.

Now, about that half-bath off the guest room...

 It is so quaint, and I like it, but it really is time for a change...

It is still in it's original wrappings, so to speak. I will only be doing a face lift here. I'll be replacing the red vanity with a modern version. We will be stripping the old wallpaper and painting the walls a soft white called Polite White, which I have throughout my entire house...

We will be replacing this old vinyl flooring, which I actually like, as it brings to mind my Mom's kitchen floor from back in the old days, with the same wood that was used in my hallway...

I actually planned ahead and had the contractor order extra wood to do the bathroom, thinking that I would use it in the main bath. That idea changed, leaving lots of flooring for the half-bath. 

With most remodeling projects, like I mentioned above, things are often subject to change and one has to be flexible. Case in point...the original tile that I chose for the bath was Travertine, a natural stone that has lovely pastel coloring, which I currently have in my kitchen, using as the backsplash. Well, I didn't take into consideration that this stone would have to be sealed, because it is being used in the bathroom, where the moisture level is much higher that that of a kitchen. Sealing this type of stone changes the color drastically, so it was back to the tile showroom for me. After much consideration, I chose a porcelain tile by Fontana in a color called Marini Grey, as seen here...

This comes in small, medium and large tiles with a lovely random pattern.  All three sizes will be used in the new bath, making for plenty of visual interest.  Most of the bath will be devoted to the shower, with a custom-built vanity and a matching linen cabinet.  There will be plenty of room for an accent table to hold decorative items and perhaps a book or two.  I will be installing a white rectangular sink and high arc faucet, in brushed nickle.

Well, I suppose that's it for now.  I do hope you have enjoyed this portion of the Remodeling with Susan show.  Stay tuned for the next episode, which may be titled, "cough, cough, why is there so much dust?"

Virgin Progress

Yes, it says virgin progress.  If you keep up with my blog, and I KNOW it's the most important part of your web surfing, you will remember that I'm trying the Virgin Diet for food intolerances. I'm on day 17 and I am astounded at how much better I feel. I stay on this part of the plan for 21 days, then each week for the next four weeks, I re-introduce certain foods to see just how intolerant my system is to these foods. There are some foods that are so toxic to someone like me that they suggest not reintroducing them. And the foods that you do reintroduce are only to be done in certain amounts. It's not "well, you feel good now let's load you back up with poisons again because you think you miss them".  No it's a gradual thing to make sure that if you do want to periodically eat something that you have a problem with, you will know (from how your body reacts) just how much or how often you can do so.  Basically so if you inadvertently eat something from YOUR list of FI (food intolerances) you'll know what to expect and how to deal with it.

One of the things that surprised me is how much I like the protein shakes and smoothies that I'm eating.  I'm tossing in fruit that I normally wouldn't eat, I'm learning as I go, which items I like best to be blended together. I'm not interested in drinking or eating something that I just don't like, because for me, that is a recipe (pardon the pun) for failure.

Well not much going on other than that, so I'll leave you with this picture of a blueberry, strawberry, chia seed smoothie. I use vanilla coconut milk for my liquid and two scoops of beef based protein powder.

I'll be back soon when I have more interesting things to report.  Hope no one April Fooled you today.
Take care and ta ta for now.