I’m Just Saying

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.

The One About The Mutual Acquaintance With The *Maybe* Secret Life

/ Ally Bean / 53 Comments

FRIEND, WHO IS NOT A DRAMA QUEEN, is convinced that a mutual acquaintance of ours, let’s call her Maureen, has a secret life.

Friend, who lives closer to Maureen and communicates with her more frequently than I do, thinks that Maureen is up to something.  Something weird, that is.  Something that Maureen doesn’t want us to know about.

Friend, who enjoys ye olde Facebook, tells me that Maureen disappears for days, not responding to any form of contact and then when they do talk in person there are holes in the story– about who was there, when events happened.

EASY AS IT WOULD BE TO DISMISS Friend’s observations about Maureen, I’ve heard this story before, many years ago.  And in that situation, the suspicions turned out to be correct.

Back then, that mutual acquaintance was off doing some things in another town involving a new age-y cult-type group that mutual acquaintance didn’t want anyone to know about.

But eventually we did find out– and that was long before Facebook, a simple nosy way to lurk on the edges of someone’s life.  Which is, of course, what Friend is now doing as she tries to find out the truth about Maureen’s alleged secret life.

AND ME, WHAT AM I DOING ABOUT all of this?  Not one blessed thing except listening to Friend.

I figure that enough people tell me their secrets and concerns without any prompting, that I don’t need to go looking for more things to know about people than what they want to share with me directly.

Case in point… read the first sentence of this post.

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Question of the Day:
Have you ever wondered if a friend or acquaintance has a secret life?  And if so, did they?  Or do you still not know for sure?
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A Remodeling Update: The Mess Continues & Ms. Bean Is Almost Beyond Caring

/ Ally Bean / 60 Comments

The mess continues, but there is progress.  

√  The bathroom is close to being finished.  We’re waiting on the rest of the decorative tile that the tile guy, when he’s available, will use to make a backsplash behind the sinks.

The tile, shipped from California, is apparently coming via pony express, whose riders like to spend a few nights vacation in Las Vegas before heading east with it.

Or maybe it arrives via passenger pigeon.  At this point I’ve lost track of how it gets here, and only know that I want it here because until that decorative tile makes me happy this project won’t be over.  So I wait.

√  The family room is in process.  We had a small set-back when the painters fessed up to painting it the wrong color.  They had used the bathroom wall color in the family room.  While the colors are similar, they aren’t interchangeable… so the painters graciously made things right and re-painted the family room.   

I’ll show you a pic of the finished room, with proper color on its walls when I do my final post about this remodeling wild ride.  Sometime this month? This year? During my lifetime? Who knows?

√  The laundry room is in good shape.  The washer and dryer are here, the counter and tile have been installed, and the walls have been painted the proper color. 🙄

The only difficulty with the laundry room now is that it’s on the way to the garage– that’s still a warehouse for things to come.  I look forward to parking my car where the bathtub is now, and walking from the garage into the laundry room unimpeded.  I dream big, don’t I? 

√  The kitchen remains in a holding pattern.  There’s no sign of the microwave.  It’s MIA.  And conversations about replacing the old caulk that’s between the granite countertop and the tile backsplash have taken a turn for the absurd.

Seems that our grout and our caulk don’t match– and they’re [were] supposed to.  While I’m the first to say the combo looked good to me [for the last 9 years], these particular colors, that I’ve dubbed Dragon Snot and Cat Barf, are no longer available.  Hence, there’s been much discussion about what currently available caulk color to use now;  Antique Dog Tooth seems to be in the lead.  Because, why not?    

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August is a slow month in the blogosphere, and I don’t feel like writing & posting my usual 2 or 3 times per week.
So for this month I’ll be here once a week sharing my flapdoodle and twaddle with those who are around to read it.  See you next week, kids. 

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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*