Update June 20

Yesterday was "murder the gorgeous hardwoods" day, in the name of expanding the guest bath. Had to carve out the existing hardwood floors adjacent to the bathroom, so that eventually we can tie in and have a flat, even surface to tile for the bathroom floor. Barely injured any of the attached hardwoods, so by the time we have new trim in the hallway, it won't even be noticeable. It really felt like a sin tearing them up, though. We work our entire lives to get hardwoods and boom, they're gone! There is an area that is the "entrance" to the old hallway that we had to patch the floor where there was no floor before, but other than that, things went great yesterday.

We have a plumber coming on Tuesday and dinner with reno-crazy friends tomorrow night, so this weekend was crunch time to get the "new" part of the guest bath framed and ready for the plumber to come in and rough in the plumbing for the vanity. We found this cool, old chest of drawers that we're turning into a vanity. The bathroom originally had the sink in the way when you walked into the bathroom--you literally had to shimmy around the sink to get to the toilet. So we're moving the wall of the bath and making an "alcove" for the vanity, making space in the bathroom. Now when you open the door you'll actually be able to step in and shut it, instead of shimmying around the sink or stepping into the tub to close the door. I can't imagine how this guy lived this way for 47 years when a simple solution was RIGHT THERE the whole time!

So today we started framing the alcove. We put studs in, headers, and sill plates. Then started to frame the walls. Turns out, we didn't buy quite enough wood, but at least got enough done so it won't stop the plumber on Tuesday. Perhaps the "I guess this is enough wood" approach isn't really the way to do it. :o) Honestly, we thought 16 2x4s would be enough!

To inspire ourselves, we slid the chest into place before we left, to make sure the framing was the correct size. It's going to look SO cool when we're done. We're also planning niches next to the toilet for toiletries, toilet paper, and magazines, maybe even a radio and snack bar or beer tap, to make our guests comfortable.

The walls will end up being like the walls at the guest bath in Bedford, with beadboard up the walls, a cap with hooks on that, and a rail cap on that. The upper walls will probably be blue again.

I'm planning on taking out the tile in the shower and putting in subway tile with an iridescent/glass accent strip about a foot from the top, in shades of blue, purple and green. We'll also use that tile as the threshold between hardwood and the tile floor. And Rich is getting excited about the idea of the mosaic tile on top of the vanity as well. It's really wild to think that we're NOT decorating for re-sale for a change. I don't know that I've ever decorated exclusively for us. It's kinda wild and a little bit overwhelming. There are so many CHOICES when you don't have to care about what other people think!

After putting the chest in the alcove, we're trying to decide which type of lighting will be best . . . sconces to the side, sconces on the mirror wall on either side of a mirror, or a simple vanity light over the mirror. It's really going to have great atmosphere, so we want to take a little time (but not much money) to see if we can come up with a good solution that honors the other choices we're making.

The vanity itself will be all drawers, with a "drop-in" bowl that looks like you took a chamber pot with rim and placed it into the top. And the tap will be a single lever chrome piece (Kohler, Fairfax model if you want to look it up) that "spills" into the bowl. We're still trying to decide whether to paint the vanity or leave it dark wood. It would be only piece with dark wood there, and it's pretty beat up, but we kinda like it like that . . .

We won't be back at the house tomorrow (unless I go for a stud run and drop off) and then I'll be there all day on Tuesday for the plumber, with no running water. Should be interesting :o) Maybe I should limit my fluid intake, starting now.

Tomorrow I will probably be ordering cabinets. If you look at rtastore.com and look up chocolate mahogany ready-to-assemble cabinets, that's probably what we're going to get. We just have to double check all the measurements and make sure we're happy with the type of cabinet we've chosen, and then get it ordered.

Just got home, gotta shower and eat. Just wanted to give the latest update.