On the Mat

Back in August, I had my house power washed. And part of having this done meant moving things off the porch and patio. Including the mats.

My patio mat was thin and light and was constantly being blown around. It also had cracks on the rubber backing, so I threw that away.

The front porch had a different issue. The welcome mat was slats of wood. I discovered two things when I lifted it. 1) this thing was heavy and 2) the slats allowed all kinds of debris in between it and I didn't like that.

Thus began the search for new doormats for both the front and the back doors.

I could get by without one on the patio because that thin one was always underneath the patio table anyway, but I wanted something to wipe my shoes off on before coming into the house.

I definitely wanted a new front mat.

It took a little research, but I decided on coir mats. They looked nice, seemed as if they'd be good to wipe off shoes on before going inside, and the brown color would complement the house. There was one note that I found about coir mats. Don't get them wet. ETA: I have since discovered that they are made to dry out after rain, but that they shouldn't be in standing puddles. I stand corrected.

Not a problem, I thought. I have a covered patio. I have a covered porch. It should be fine.

I found two mats I liked ordered them, and when they arrived, I immediately put them out. This was about 10:30 in the morning.

I took pictures. I went grocery shopping. I went about my day.

And then late afternoon came. I heard a rumble of thunder. It's not going to rain, is it? I looked at the radar on the app and a little pop up storm was headed my way. How bad could it be?

Let's try 40 mph wind, rain being blown hard into the house, and gusts driving the rain even harder. It lasted a while, too.

And I went to check on my mats. The ones that aren't supposed to get wet.

The one on the back patio was caught by the wind and crumpled up underneath the patio table like the thin, lightweight mat I had previously. It was also wet because the storm had blown the rain all the way to the back door.

I put my mat back into place and went to check on the one at the front door, fearful it had blown away.

It was there, right where I put it, but the strong winds drove the rain all the way to my front door and this mat was wet, too.

My brand new, didn't-even-have-them-twelve-hours mats, were both drenched by rain.

Here's my mats after I first put them out. The difference in lighting is because the back patio had more sun on it than the front porch. At least I have a picture of them before the storm came.

 

 

 

 

The Juniper Finale

I talked earlier about having the junipers removed and replaced with sod. I also mentioned that the project was not complete. Here is the rest of the story.

They ran out of sod when they were out originally to do my yard project. The owner of the landscaping company promised me they'd be out the following week--the first week in June--to lay down the rest of the sod. Perfect.

Except not so perfect because the first week in June went by. No sod. The second week passed. No sod. And then we reach week three and there is still no sod. And now the bare patch of dirt is loaded with ugly weeds. I contact the landscaping company, Um, hey, I need this project finished.

I was promised they'd be out the following week. The fourth week of June.

Monday passes. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. And then it's Friday and I'm like, damn it. Now I have to contact them again and the only info I have has me talking to an admin, so it's not like I can be irritated with her. It's not her fault. She doesn't do the scheduling, she just answers emails and the phone.

Then, around 3 p.m., I see a truck come up the street. I'm sitting in my home office, swivel my chair, and lean forward. Yes, it is my landscaping company.

They showed up on June 26th, four weeks after the original sod was laid down on Memorial Day.

The good news is that my yard is finally complete. The bad news is that I have to water this new section of grass double the time the sprinkler system is scheduled to run for another month. Water down here? Priced at ridiculous levels. I pay TRIPLE down here for one month than I paid for three months in Minnesota.

At least it's done. Next year, the grass will have to fend for itself.

So Much Revealed in a Few Drawers

I started doing a little clean up on my office. I didn't feel like it, but I remembered the experts saying just do 15 minutes, so I thought, okay, I can do fifteen minutes. I started by going through my desk drawers.

There are eight of them. I made it through...well, let's call it 5.5 because I'm not happy with the job I did on the sixth drawer.

Discoveries were made.

I didn't realize I had a ton of Christmas postage stamps. Hmm.

Wow. All the pens. So many pens. And markers. And highlighters. Oh, look, more pens. And erasable pens. And midliners. Pencils, too. So many colored pencils. Disposable fountain pens. They even still work.

And then I hit the paper. There were letter size notepads with the perforated pages in every color they make. I'd forgotten about those, but I used to make all my book notes on those and I color coded them by paper color. It's been a long, long time since I used notepads.

Because I switched to steno pads. Which I also found. Two were blank, but four of them were filled with notes and different color Post-it flags because I color coded each project. I didn't look, but I'm assuming they're for ideas/books/series I've started, but never finished. At some point, I need to scan those into PDF and file those electronically so I can toss the books.

I also found two Junque Journals still in their wrappers. This was one of my brilliant ideas that didn't pan out. I was going to use stickers to label a journal for each series and put my notes there. It would be awesome! I was sure of it!

The only problem was these journals were created more for artists or for scrapbooking. I made notes, but it was hard to read what I wrote and I would have needed to use Sharpies or something in order to read it. This idea withered quickly.

Really, the spiral notebooks with the perforated pages are my current favorites for writing notes. I bought a couple of Poppin notebooks which had awesome paper quality and lots of pages, but they stopped making that notebook. I'm using Erin Condren now. That paper is nice and thick, almost too thick, but I've become a paper snob.

And then I hit the index cards. So many index cards. But I was positive--positive--that this time they would work for me and I wouldn't hate every minute of trying to plot with them. Spoiler alert: I did hate every minute of the index cards. It's why I have a drawer full of them.

What's sort of interesting going through the drawers was the revelation of how my note taking process continues to...not really change since it still involves jotting down thoughts on paper, but that the paper I like to use for this keeps changing. Notepads to steno pads to notebooks. I just wish I could ditch the little slips of paper. When I cleaned off the top of my desk, more than 50% of the mess was Post-it notes and mini notepad pages with book notes.

Best Practices Versus Nope

I mentioned that my office is a complete disaster zone. It is. This is literally the worst it's ever been.

So I decided that this time when I got to work on it, I would follow the guidance of the experts. There must be videos on YouTube or blog posts out there somewhere explaining what the best way is to forever organize a space is, right?

On a Saturday, after all the errands were run, I set out to find the best way to organize this mess.

The one thing most organizing experts seemed to agree on was to empty everything out of the space. Everything out of the space? Everything out of the space!

They must be joking.

It would take half the day just to move everything out. As for going through it before moving it back in? That would take me weeks because I would get bored and wander off to do other things.

No, I need a different plan of attack.

Right now, I'm kind of thinking if I could get rid of my old computers and laptops, that would clear out space--especially my huge iMac. I simply need to work my way to the corner where the box is stored, get the iMac out, run the wipe on the hard drive (or destroy the hard drive), and then get the label for pick up from Apple.

The laptops might be easier. Destroy the hard drive and bring them over to Best Buy. I looked up the recycling information on their website, and if IIRC I can bring in three electronic items a day. It might take a couple of trips because I have old Kindles, old cords, old printers, and some other assorted electronics, but it isn't too horrible because I got rid of my old computers before I left Minneapolis to move to Atlanta.

With the old computer equipment and electronics gone, then I guess I'd move on to...drawers? It's a plan I'm still mulling over.

Samples

Last year, before I had my bathroom remodeled, I requested all kinds of tile samples. I went to the home improvement stores and bought full-size tiles as I tried to make a decision on what I wanted.

It was tough! Finally, the contractor had me meet him and we walked through it together.

I knew I wanted the tile that looks like wood. I knew I wanted it light and not rustic. I found the tile for the shower first, but I needed a decorative tile and a floor tile. The contractor pulled the floor tile (his second pick. The first was rustic and I don't do rustic) and I was like that's it!

I had an idea for the shower floor tile, but I wasn't sure it was right. It was. That left the decorative border tile. The contractor pulled a variety of choices, put them with the three we'd already picked, and it was easy to eliminate the ones that wouldn't work.

That brought us to the final version. Final with shower door.

Now, a year later, I have tile samples...it seems like everywhere, although it really isn't.

This big hexagon tile I can make into a trivet. I just need to buy a glue gun and some supplies. And maybe watch a few YouTube videos, but what do I do with the other tiles?

I have a full size floor tile that ended up being far too light for the bathroom. I also have the little samples in the picture at the top of the post. I don't need coasters, which is the only thing I can think to do with the small square ones, but the accent tile samples? The shower floor tile samples? What do I do with them?

I don't do mosaics and really don't want to start, but tossing them away seems wasteful. Does Home Depot and Lowes take the samples back? I don't even need to get a refund, I just want the tiles out of my house.

Whimsy and Decor

I talked about this in my March newsletter, so if you've read that, apologies for the sort of repeat. I say sort of because now I have three prints picked out and framed, ready to be hung up.

With that said, I have a lot of open wall space that needs art. I haven't been able to commit to anything and the last thing I wanted to do was pay a lot of money for something and not want to keep it long term. But then I had an idea. I could print my own images and stick them in frames with mats.

It didn't take long to discover I'd probably have to send the images out to a professional service to print out. And again, I couldn't commit. Did I want flowers? Something bright? Something fun?

I'm still debating most of the house, but I did figure out the guest powder room. That came to me when I found the shop on Etsy selling prints. Lots of cool mid century modern pieces including mid century kitty. I bought three prints in shades of aqua/green.

The colors are a lot more vibrant than in these photos. I'm not a great photographer:

 

I actually could use one more maybe. The powder room has a lot of odd angles and so there are lots of short walls and one normally short wall. The kitty with the daisies is for the longer wall. The vertical prints are for the weird walls.

I might have my master bathroom figured out, too. I'm still mulling that one a little bit.

Bathroom: After

It took nine days of work, but the bathroom is finished. Well, mostly. I don't have the shower door/glass yet and that will take another two weeks and I wanted to share my new bathroom.

Or mostly new. I did keep a few things.

If you want to see the before pictures, check out this blog post. 

 

Bye, bye brown bathroom! I like light, airy colors and my new bathroom is all that.

Bathroom In Progress: Home Stretch

I'm writing this on July 7th. The bathroom renovation is scheduled to be done tomorrow. That will be two weeks worth of work with weekends off and the no-show on the July 4th.

Today, they painted the walls. The ceiling and trim still needs to be painted and there is still a lot of clean up to be done.

There are also some things with issues. Like the toilet was reconnected and now the water doesn't fill the bowl. There are a few sharp edges on the tile/trim that concern me because if someone is going to hurt themselves, it will be me. Also, the door to the water closet will not close. The floor must be higher now than the old floor.

Overall, though, the space is beautiful! The paint color is awesome and I am totally in love with it. My photography skills do not do it justice. Maybe when I do the after pictures, I can try a different time of day, and the lighting will be better. Or I might just be a bad photographer with my iPhone. :-)

Also, the right-hand mirror in my bathroom has been crooked since I bought the house. It made me crazy! I asked a handyman to fix it, but he told me it would take hours and at what he charged per hour, it wasn't worth the money. The guy who fixed it said it took about thirty seconds. Thirty seconds! I've been losing my mind with that crooked mirror and it was a quick, easy fix.

The shower door guy did show up today--while I was at my doctor's appointment. Grr. Luckily, I anticipated that my luck would be bad on this score. What I did was go online and look at shower door handles. I found one I really liked, did a screen capture, and then created a Word document with what I wanted: Clear glass, brushed nickel hinges/handles/whatever, and the picture of the door handles I loved. I printed it out and gave it to my dad last night. Just in case I'm not home, I told him.

And (of course) I wasn't.

My luck wasn't all bad, though. The contractor said the glass guy reported that in three weeks, the cost of the glass will go up 40%. FORTY PERCENT! OMG! That would have made me reconsider using the old glass door.

So one of the things the contractor did was take the shower out a few more inches, so it's slightly bigger now. He also went higher with the tile and lower with the sill. If I'd gone with the old shower door, I wouldn't have gotten that extra space and the wall between the tub and shower would have had to be cut down. I'm glad the price increase is at the end of the month and that I got my order in on time to avoid it.

The other great piece of news is I am now able to park in my garage again. This will make life so much easier, especially in the mornings. I was driving with my wipers on for about twenty minutes even though it wasn't raining because of how much the windshield was sweating after being left outside all night.

Here are the not quite finished, but we're close pictures:

Bathroom In Progress: Part Seven

When I posted Part Six of this renovation story, I didn't think there was any chance they'd be done this week. I was wrong. It looks as if they will be done this week. Today, they grouted.

It makes the bathroom look much more finished. They're not done yet. There's lots and lots and lots of cleanup to do. They also need to paint and put in the kickboards to hide the edges of the tile. This is all on the agenda for tomorrow.

The shower door guy, who was supposed to come out today, didn't show up to measure. He is (allegedly) coming tomorrow morning. This will be the third time he's scheduled. Maybe we'll get lucky? Because the shower can't be used without the glass.

I'm tired. Tired of not having my bathroom. Tired of men walking through my bedroom multiple times a day. Tired of sharing my dad's bathroom. I'm sure he's tired of it, too.

Even if I can't use the shower for a little bit while we wait for the door, at least I'd like to be able to use the other parts of my bathroom. Soon. I hope.

Pictures from today. With grout!

Bathroom In Progress: Part Six

On Day 5 of the renovation, the contractor said he wanted to come and work on July 4th. I was like, the holiday? Really?

He's British, so he doesn't celebrate, he said.

I was going to say no, but then I figured if they work on the holiday, it will be one day closer to done, so I agreed, but asked him to come at noon so I could sleep in a little longer. He agreed.

And noon came and went. No contractor. One o'clock. Two o'clock. No phone call, no text. That's right, after cajoling me to work on the holiday, he was a no-show.

The crew did arrive on Tuesday morning, but they were gone before I got home. I also learned that the guy who is supposed to measure for the shower glass was rescheduled from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning. Despite the fact that I was supposed to make decisions about hinges and handles and such. The contractor told my dad that he knew what I wanted.

I immediately hooked up my laptop and put in to work from home. I'm not living with someone else's decisions on my shower door for years on end. I hate having my schedule disrupted, but the door is important.

Here are pictures of what my bathroom looked like at the end of Day Six:

 

Bathroom In Progress: Part Five

End of week one of renovations. This was the day the bathroom was supposed to be finished, but I knew it was an ambitious schedule and the odds were small that they'd actually be finished in five days.

The contractor wanted to come on July 4th to work. I was going to tell him no because I didn't want to deal with the work and the guys in my house, but then I thought it will be done sooner if I say yes. So we settled on noon so I can at least sleep a little longer on the holiday.

The color of the floor tiles is nice, but I didn't realize how long they were. I have accent tile in my niche, which I really like. And it looks as if the shower floor tile will be on the shower seat. I'm not 100% on this since it might just be lying there while they're working on the shower floor. I think I'm okay if it is going to be on the seat or isn't. I use the seat for my shampoo bottle, not for sitting.

When I was house hunting in 2016/2017, I spotted this one house before the listing went live. It was just like the house I currently had, but it was on a level lot. The hill I had at my previous house is why we were looking for somewhere else. Anyway, the house was priced below market value, but I didn't like it.

My Realtor was like I could buy it, and with the deal I'm getting, use the extra money to make renovations. I gotta tell you guys, after one week of renovation, I'm tired of it. I don't think I would have survived a whole house makeover.

Pictures from Day five:

Bathroom In Progress: Part Four

Day four got the shower tiled. If you remember from the part three post, the shower was only partially tiled. That's because the accent tile was on some netted backing and it kept wanting to collapse when the main tile was put above it. They had to stop work and let the accent set overnight.

Today is also the day the guy from the foundation company finally got around to calling. It's a good thing it we didn't need them because, boy, was he late to the party.

Another interesting thing happened today. After the guys left, my dad went to get the mail and our neighbor was outside with her girls. She was curious about what was going on over here and my dad told her about the cracks in the bathroom and that we were fixing it/renovating it.

That's when she told my dad they had the same problem at their house. They'd gotten their bathroom fixed earlier. Maybe the end of last year? I can't remember.

I also asked the contractor about the seat for my shower. I didn't see anything and it was tiled and wouldn't they build the seat first? I discovered they had that covered and that they don't have to build seats any longer. The same company that made the orange stuff for the shower walls also made seats that just needed to be set in.

Oh, and instead of a shelf, I got a niche. Also the niches are pre-made by that company and simply slid into position.

The original finish date for the bathroom was supposed to be July 1st. I knew we weren't making that date, and as it turned out, I was right.

And even after everything is put together, I'll still be waiting for the door guys to install that. They came out and measured the second week of upheaval.

Pictures from Day Four:

Stay tuned for Day Five!

Bathroom In Progress: Part Three

Day three of bathroom renovations saw tile start to go up, mostly around the bathtub.

Three days without my bathroom.

It was inconvenient from the very start, but now it's like getting old and inconvenient. My dad lives with me and we have never shared a bathroom. He and my mom had their own and we each had our own here, too. But now I've invaded his bathroom.

I didn't think I had much counter space in my master bathroom. I always felt as if I could use a little more, but moving my things to my dad's vanity showed me just how much space I really do have. Instead of moving everything over, I ended up only pulling out the items I really needed.

My dad volunteered to move his things to the powder room, so he's shaving there and using it more than his own bathroom. Also, my dad had a wooden toilet seat and I discovered that the paint has been scrubbed off of it in a variety of locations. There's nothing else wrong with it, but it looks horrible. He never complained. I ordered a new seat--a plastic one so we won't have to worry about the paint being scrubbed off of it.

My closet is on the other side of my bathroom and I moved the clothes and other things I needed out of there and into the closet under the stairs. Everything is hanging on and over-the-door hook. I can't tell you how many mornings I've taken a shower, gone back to my room, and realized I forgot to grab clothes from the hall closet.

The other inconvenience is the tile has been in my garage since the first day, and because of where it was positioned, I couldn't pull the car all the way into the garage. This didn't seem like a big deal until the first morning I had to drive to work and my windows had all this condensation on them. They also continually fogged up as I drove and I had my wiper blades going to keep the windows clear.

And let's not forget the afternoon storms. As I'm writing this, we're under a severe thunderstorm warning. I'm just hoping it doesn't involve hail because my car is parked in the driveway and there's nowhere to shelter it.

Day three pictures:

 The pink/red stuff in the shower is sealant.

Bathroom In Progress: Part Two

Day two of the renovation began the process of putting things back together again. This is when the contractor made an interesting discovery.

My shower drain hadn't been installed properly.

I'd been worried about the way the grout was separating in the corner of the shower and water getting behind the walls and making mold. I didn't need to worry about that. There was no moisture back there. My problem was the drain.

Instead of putting it in with one part, they'd used three of them, jury-rigged them together. Apparently, they were seated any which way. And instead of my water draining, it was pooling under the shower floor. This was a big problem and could have led to a mold issue.

Wouldn't you think the housing inspector would catch this before signing off the plumbing?

They also discovered grout and other gross things in the drain. Looks like the guys who built the house didn't clean up right. Anyway, it's fixed and cleaned up now and they installed this Schluter system in the walls and floor of the shower. I'd heard about it when a guy I worked with had his bathroom renovated and it's supposed to be top of the line stuff.

They also installed the new green board thing around the tub. Sorry, I can't do better than this, but you know, I was maxed out with the orange shower liner. :-)

Here are the day two pictures I know you're waiting for: