Decorating

Regarding The Holiday Season: Cluttering, Muttering, & Buttering

/ Ally Bean / 89 Comments

CLUTTERING:  Here’s a true confession.  While I’m too frugal to ever overdo Christmas decorations around Chez Bean, I do, deep down, consider all of them, ours and yours, to be a sophisticated form of clutter.

I mean, we just get a room decorated in a pleasing and soothing way, then *WHAM* there I am putting red and green stuff, willy-nilly, around a beautifully color-coordinated room that is not visually enhanced by said stuff.

Is that not the very definition of clutter? Hmmm…?

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MUTTERING:  I realize that sending holiday cards is no longer the done thing.  Most of the cards that we get are from companies we do business with.  Only a few friends and family still exchange cards with us.

I like cards, I like newsletters, and I appreciate receiving them.  But… [and this is the muttering part]… if you send a Christmas | Hanukkah | New Years card that is a photo of your family, then please include the names of the people on the card.

Kids grow.  Kids marry.  Kids have kids.  And I’ll be doggone if I can figure out who is who on these multi-generational family photo cards.  I need a cheat sheet to identify your progeny.

Please include one. For me. 

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BUTTERING:  I’m not all that enamored of butter.  It has nothing to do with how healthy it is.  No, it’s a taste issue.  I eat it, but not often and always in small dabs.

So you can imagine how oddly difficult it is for me to become excited about Christmas cookies, that are everywhere this time of year.  Cookies that seem to me to be 98% butter– with some flour and sugar thrown in for the fun of it.

My point here is that if I don’t eat any of your homemade cookies made from Great Aunt Maude Winifred’s heirloom recipe that’s been in your family since Great Uncle Jeremiah “Pappy” Alexander decided that the family should move to the New World, I’m not dissing you or Great Aunt Maude Winifred– or Great Uncle Jeremiah “Pappy” Alexander’s decision to emigrate here.

No, I just don’t like butter. Ok?

173 Days Later, The Remodeling Wild Ride Ends

/ Ally Bean / 78 Comments

Surprised?

Yep, that’s how long it took from our first meeting in early March with the remodeling company planner guy to the last day in late August with the finisher guys making it all look perfect.

Kind of makes you think that HGTV shows might not be telling you the truth about how remodeling projects in the real world get done, doesn’t it?

But I digress…

Here are some photos* of how everything [finally] looks now that we have a new master bathroom, laundry room, and updated TV room fireplace.  We love the results, and couldn’t be happier that we took this wild ride– despite all the difficulties and absurdities along the way.

[Click HERE for the whole story.]

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Fancy decorative tile, lost then found in route from California, here at last.

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Double vanity with lots of drawers, meaning no more storing towels in buckets in the tub for us.

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New tub, very sleek, and no longer in my parking place in the garage where it’s spent the last two months.

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Shower doors installed on second custom frame, because why do things right the first time?

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In the laundry room, pretty decorative tiles + a small granite counter created from a slab found on the remnant pile.

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Stackable washer and dryer, effective, but seem large after years of using small side-by-side ones.

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Shiny natural granite with a simple white mantle against a wall painted the correct neutral color. 

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* I warned you, my gentle readers, in my first post about this remodeling wild ride that I’ve never learned how to take good interior design photos. These pics don’t do our projects justice, but they’re the best I can do.

A Remodeling Update: My Kingdom For Some Tile

/ Ally Bean / 48 Comments

Decorative tile, laying on the floor, that’ll be the accent in the shower and by the sinks.

Well, kids, not everything runs smoothly during a remodel.  You see, there’s been a kerfuffle here about the wall tile that goes in the shower stall.  Not the little decorative stuff*, but the large tiles that cover the walls.

The problem, quite simply, has been that the tile company sent the correct decorative and floor tiles over to the house– but filled our wall tile order incorrectly.  They sent packages of tile with the same name + code number, but these packages of tile weren’t from the same “dye lots” so they weren’t the exact same color.

Which they are supposed to be.

Example of the tile in question.

Thus began what turned out to be 3 weeks of discussions among unhappy me, lawyerly Zen-Den, our patient project manager, the perturbed remodeling company design staff, the conscientious tile installer– and the confused [sneaky?] tile company.

Much was said, politely— but with a great deal of emphasis on MAKE THIS RIGHT.

No pithy conclusion to this post.  I’m just happy to report that the correct wall tile finally arrived on Tuesday and that each package has the same batch number.

Even more exciting than getting the tile is knowing that the tile guy is now in the process of installing the tile on the walls in the shower– and that the walls coordinate beautifully with the shower floor.

As planned.

Tile on the floor of the shower stall, installed and looking lovely.

* I wrote this post yesterday mid-afternoon. As the tile guy left late yesterday afternoon he told me that the tile company had shorted us on the decorative tile that is to go on the wall behind the sinks.  This is not as big of a problem as the wall tile kerfuffle, but it’s a problem that will have to be solved nonetheless.  *le sigh*

A Remodeling Update: 7 Holes In The Ceiling + A Few Details About Each Room

/ Ally Bean / 70 Comments

We’re in the middle of the remodel now.  It has been four weeks since we began.  

In that time 7 holes have been cut in ceilings to either accommodate new lights and fans that will be placed overhead– or to double-check second floor water pipes from below in the kitchen.  

What I’ve learned about myself during these past weeks is that I find holes in the ceiling a bit unnerving.  Walls torn out don’t concern me so much, but those… holes… up… there… bother… me.

Go figure.

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•  The LAUNDRY ROOM has new cabinets in it and the water pipes + dryer duct have been re-routed to accommodate the new washer and dryer– which are to be delivered here later this week.

Last Friday I picked the tile for the backsplash and the wall color with the interior designer, so all that’s left for me to do is to go to the granite store on the day that they cut the counter to decide what part of the slab will be our counter.

•  The MASTER BATHROOM wiring and plumbing have been reconfigured, the dry wall crew has been here and gone– meaning that we’re all about tile now.  We decided on the tile weeks ago and are currently sitting back, watching some of the tile come together, while the rest of it seems to be lost somewhere. Somehow.

•  The FAMILY ROOM is changing from tile around the fireplace to granite– and there’s to be a new mantle.  None of this is anywhere to be seen yet, but the crew has prepped the wall and floor for what is to come. Hence, we wait.

I have no idea what color the walls will be in there, other than to say “good-bye purple.”  The granite, once installed, will show us how it looks with our furniture so that we’ll have a better idea about wall color, but ultimately I’m leaving that decision up to the interior designer.

•  The KITCHEN tweaks are seemingly a forgotten part of this remodel.  I have delegated the whole microwave kerfuffle to Zen-Den because I don’t care what the solution to the problem is… as long as I get a microwave.

As for the other little details in the kitchen they are: 1) a new door and handle on the trash bin cabinet;  and 2) re-doing the juncture where the counter meets the tile.  I’m on top of these details because I want them done before all of this remodeling is over.  Which is to say sometime this month, “God willing and the creek don’t rise.” 

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