the home stretch

The end is near, the end is near!   Here are the latest photos of the bathroom, taken this morning after vacuuming up about 10 tons of drywall dust.

The frameless shower door guys are coming to measure this Wednesday, and hopefully within a week or so after that they'll install the shower door and glass walls, enclosing the shower.  I can't wait to take my first shower in that puppy.  We could take one now but without any glass it might be pretty wet and slippery in there.

Andrew worked his butt off all weekend painting, installing the light fixtures, hanging mirrors, etc.  Craig is coming back tomorrow to finish installing the pipes to make the sinks operable.   He'll also install the wall controller for the heated floor, put in the shower overhead light. 

Once he's done, I think he'll bel moving onto his next job.  We're beyond thrilled with the job he's done and the care he's taken to make this bathroom so beautiful for us.  We enjoyed getting to know him and his family, and we'll miss him.  But never fear, we have three more bathrooms and a kitchen that will all need updated at some point!

We haven't ordered the wall artwork yet, so that will probably happen this week too. That will really finish it off.  I also want to add a wall mounted bronze cosmetic mirror.  We've been thinking a bonsai tree somewhere might be a nice touch, too.  Once we have towels hanging and such, it will be lived in again.

Our bedroom, bathroom is to the left just past the tall dresser.

Looking into the bathroom from our bedroom. The double doors will be put back on tomorrow too.

close up of floor

We can't put the drawers back in the vanities until the sink plumbling is installed tomorrow. The  middle cabinet will give us some storage and we liked it added a different height in between the two vanities.  You can see the new commode, too.

I just love the river rock.. and when it gets wet it changes to darker shades. The wide part to the right will be the shower bench,with a glass wall facing the tub.

new bathtub fixtures to match

I don't think I've posted a photo of our granite yet.  It was installed Thursday evening, and then Craig was able to get the new faucets in.

We went with rectangular undermount sinks, which I think work nicely with the clean lines in the bathroom.

The shower, no glass yet.

shower floor and threshold

half wall looking into shower, new towel bar and better view of granite

niche to hold our smelly goods

close up river rock

If you go back and look at the before photos, it hardly seems like the same bathroom.  Here is the progression:

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Days Four and Five

Days Six and Seven

Eight and Nine

Ten

Eleven and Twelve

Thirteen

Its been fun watching it all come together.  You choose all these finishes and stones and fixtures and paint colors and you have no idea how its all going to look when its put together.  I can't wait to start living in there again.  It will sure be a nice, peaceful place to begin and end each day.

Delaplane Strawberry Festival

Yesterday morning, we drove an hour west through the quaint Virginia hilly horse country towns of Middleburg and Upperville, and enjoyed a few hours at the Deleplane Strawberry Festival at Sky Meadows State Park.  We met our good friends there, and the kids enjoyed some good old fashioned fair games, a petting zoo, and of course, yummy strawberry desserts.  And maybe a funnel cake.

We had a nice picnic after plopping down under a huge shade tree, too.  A great summer day with wonderful friends.  We'll mark our calendar to go back next year, for sure.

And for those who were there, I bid you a very fuzzy, wooly sac.

11

Love begins in a moment, grows over time, and lasts for eternity.

Happy 11th Anniversary to my sweetie.

waddle waddle quack quack, it was fun

Even though Logan has ONE more day of preschool (Tuesday next week), the end of the year party was this morning.  The class hosted an ice cream party, and we all gave the teachers their end of year gifts. The teachers had gifts for each child, and they also gave us the many books the kids have compiled over the school year including their weekend journals, ABC book and a memory book the teacher made for each family with photos and special items they've saved the entire year.  

I wish I could share the entire book here, its so special and so full of memories that sum up a great year in the life of our special 4 year old.  But here are photos of a few of my favorite pages:

I won't lie, there were some tears.  It seems like he was eons younger when this preschool year began.

I don't know when my toddler became a little boy whose now ready to move into kindergarten and take on the world.  They tell you when you have kids it "goes by so fast"..   And its true, it really does.  You have to savor every minute, the great ones and the not so good ones, because next thing you know they don't want you to kiss them at the bus stop anymore and they start getting their own phone calls.

They memorized and recited a poem about what it was like to be a Lucky Duck this year.

And then it was time to give the teachers their gifts.  The room moms (I was not one this year) had a great, creative idea to collect money from us all and put together picnic/BBQ baskets for the teachers.  They filled them with all sorts of marinades, cookie cutters, grilling tools, s'mores fixins, Wegman's gift cards, and lots of other fun stuff.  They also collected favorite summer recipes from all the moms and compiled a Lucky Duck cookbook, and gave us all copies.  Fabulous idea, and I can't wait to try some of the yumminess listed in there.  I did share my Mom's famous baked bean recipe and my recipe for lemon bars which I've been hankering and I'm gonna have to make soon.

After all of that, it was time to dig into some ice cream.  At 10:30 in the morning.  It tastes even better before lunch.

As preschool ends and we look to kindergarten, we can certainly say Logan was a Lucky Duck to share the company of these teachers and his friends this year.  I met some really nice moms too.  I'm really going to miss that preschool.  There are no words to describe how much I respect the teachers and the program there.

And as one door closes, another one opens.  Tonight we head to our elementary school where the rising first graders will sing to the incoming kindergarteners, and Logan will get to ride the school bus around the neighborhood.  I can hardly believe our little bear is heading to big boy school in a few short months.

Waddle, waddle, quack, quack.



latest on the latrine

Yesterday and today marked days 12 and 13 of the bathroom project, and its moving right along.  Its been exciting getting to this stage since all the design elements are coming into play now.

Today Craig and his son finished the tile in the shower, and grouted the floor. The only part left to do in the shower is the smaller tiles inside of the rock framed areas (and they'll be at a diagonal).  He'll work on that tomorrow.   The floor looks different with grout, and it was still wet when I took these photos.  So as it dries, it will look lighter.

We're so happy with it, and everyday it looks a little more finished and how it will be at the end.  The granite and sinks will be installed Thursday (counters and shower thresholds), the glass company will be coming to measure soon. That will really add to the whole design as well...nice and open.

The inside area within the two river rock frames will be smaller squares of tile, turned diagonally.

A closer up look at the frame..

This is the niche in the shower for shampoo (shower has no grout yet).  We'll add a shelf in the middle to hold more stuff.

Here is the floor, with grout.  It feels great to walk on...very substantial and cool. 

You can see new step into the tub too.

Still to come.. toilet installation, installation of new fixtures, painting entire bathroom, hanging mirrors. Installing new light fixtures on dimmers. Putting cabinet drawers back in and placing new apothecary cabinet in between vanities. Placing artwork order, and hanging framed prints on the wall. Hanging curtains back up and adding a plant or two. The glass will take a while to come in, probaby two or more weeks. So we'll have to wait to try out our new digs...


I can't say enough great things about our contractor. Everything has been great - the communication, the work, the skill and talent he has brought to the project...  Not only that, he leaves no mess behind.  This is right off our master bedroom, with double doors leading into it.  He's always very careful to put tarps down so as to not track dust all over the place, and he leaves the bathroom as tidy as possible at the end of the day.

I only wish we could afford to have him do other rooms in the house right now.  But since we can't, we'll just have to spend as much time as possible in the master bath once its done! 

the best grandma and grandpa

Thanks for coming out Saturday, Grandma and Grandpa!  It made me proud to have you at my t-ball game!

the spa, day 11 and 12... we're getting closer!

Craig's been super busy cutting tile and stone the past two days, drawing in the stone design we want on the shower walls, and getting the travertine tile and river rock glued into place.  The grout will come later, towards the end, so it still isn't exactly how it will look at the end. But these photos give a good idea of what is going where so far.

Here's Craig hard at work today.

The granite guys came to measure the vanities today.  The counters and shower thresholds will be installed next Thursday.  Once those are in, the glass company can come measure the shower for the frameless door and glass walls and start working on that for us.  It might take another two weeks once they measure for the glass to come in and be installed.  You can't even believe how expensive frameless glass is.   I'll be cringing when I write that check.  It will be well, well worth it.

I shared my blog with Craig so he can be watching the progress of the fruits of his labor.  He's doing such a fantastic job and there is no question in our minds we chose the right guy for the job.  He's had such great input on ideas, and such talent and skills.  Not only that, he's about the nicest guy you could ever meet.  We're very happy we found him.   We're also happy with Mosaic Tile, in Chantilly (they have other locations in MD and VA as well).  Their designer Anna did a great job showing us tile/stone options and drawing it all up for us.  

Once we knew we wanted river rock in the shower, we talked to her about wanting to extend it to a couple of other places in the bathroom.   Its so pretty, we didn't want it to just be the floor of the shower. So she, together with Craig, brought it up onto the new shower bench seat, onto the deck of our tub, and onto two framed design areas on each shower wall.  You can see the beginnings of the shower wall design Craig started today. That was Anna's idea, and I think its going to add a really nice touch.

He put in a few corner shelves to hold stuff.

Here is the shower floor, all the stones are there but will now need to be grouted and sealed.

here's the bench seat in the shower

In this photo you can see that Craig's got tile on the bathtub step, it all had to be at specific angles.  I'll get a better photo of that soon.

Gosh, when I think back on this project its really taken some brain power and legwork to make it happen.  From getting estimates and meeting with contractors in January, to picking out every single fixture and piece of tile and to go in there... from the big things to the small things... its been a lot of decisions.  Thus far, Andrew and I have agreed on almost every element of what we wanted the bathroom to be and how we wanted it to look.  What can I say, he has exceptional taste.  Ha!

Here's proof.  We've been trying to decide what we'll want to go on the walls once its all done.  We wanted something natural, related to water and rocks.  Check out this artwork by an artist named George Dombek.  He's an artist Andrew used to know in college when he worked in an art shop cutting matte board.

We'll probably go with these, there are a series of them.  I just love the colors and they tie in nicely with the whole natural theme of the bathroom.

You can see more on George Dombek's work here.  Its really beautiful.

So... stay tuned Monday or Tuesday for the next update on the latrine.  Its clearly been exciting for us, and the boys are pretty excited about it too.  Now that we'll have a luxurious bathroom, they'll surely never use their own bathrooms again.