Sunday, December 4, 2011
Yawn...
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Bathroom Project -- Done!!
I don't know what the deal is with bathrooms. There seems to be two schools of thought: First, that bathrooms are a place of business...you enter the bathroom for a specific purpose and then get out, or, second, that bathrooms are some sort of recreational venue...a destination in itself where one spends a great deal of time. I didn't get the memo on the recreational uses of bathrooms and I'm always amazed by people who want to load up bathrooms with all sorts of toys and amenities. My idea of a bathroom is a place that is simple and one where you are in and out and on your way as easily as possible. I don't want to have to mop up the place when I'm finished taking a shower because it is cool or fashionable not to have the shower enclosed. I know from experience that a bench in the shower is a good thing -- not everyone is healthy or steady enough to stand in a shower. Tubs should be big enough for one person to comfortably take a bath if they want...I'm a shower person but tubs are nice sometimes. My experience with a two person tub is that it is mostly a slippery experience made up mostly of elbows and knees. His and her sinks are nice if you have the room and important if you have only one bathroom or too few bathrooms for the number of people trying to use the sinks at the same time.
The HGTV crowd has pushed the recreational bathroom idea for so long that many, maybe most, home buyers think they should have a bathing arena equipped with fog machines and rain forest showers and sound systems attached to strobe lights. Years ago we took a vacation to Wisconsin and visited the Kohler plumbing factory where they have a huge showroom of bathrooms...dozens of bathrooms that they redesign periodically to keep up with the trends. They are showing off their products and they have all kinds of fixtures but they show a wide variety of bathrooms. Not all of their bathrooms are huge or look like they are playing host to a rock concert or part of the Star Wars set.
So, my project this spring was to modestly redo my two upstairs bathrooms in my 25-year old house. These actually are the last rooms, along with the laundry room, to have some sort of a recent make-over and getting these areas fixed up is part of my strategy to sell the house.
The hall bathroom was bright pink - very bright pink. Joanne had a vision for that bathroom and, while a little skeptical at the time, I liked it and thought she did a great job and I really didn't want to change the room much. The problem was that most people didn't "get" the room....all they saw was pink paint. After a struggle I decided that it was time to change the room but not her design. I wanted to keep most of what her vision was because this is pretty much the last big project that she did and it reminds me so much of her. This bathroom has the only tub in the house.
The master bath is really small and is integrated into the master bedroom. The toilet and shower are enclosed in a small room but the sink and vanity are actually in an alcove of the master bedroom and without an enclosure but the space is defined by a half-wall that resembles the half-wall in the foyer and in the family room. The master bath area is painted a different color from the master bedroom which also helps define the space. It is small but it gets the job done and fits nicely as part of the master bedroom.
The HGTV crowd has pushed the recreational bathroom idea for so long that many, maybe most, home buyers think they should have a bathing arena equipped with fog machines and rain forest showers and sound systems attached to strobe lights. Years ago we took a vacation to Wisconsin and visited the Kohler plumbing factory where they have a huge showroom of bathrooms...dozens of bathrooms that they redesign periodically to keep up with the trends. They are showing off their products and they have all kinds of fixtures but they show a wide variety of bathrooms. Not all of their bathrooms are huge or look like they are playing host to a rock concert or part of the Star Wars set.
So, my project this spring was to modestly redo my two upstairs bathrooms in my 25-year old house. These actually are the last rooms, along with the laundry room, to have some sort of a recent make-over and getting these areas fixed up is part of my strategy to sell the house.
The hall bathroom was bright pink - very bright pink. Joanne had a vision for that bathroom and, while a little skeptical at the time, I liked it and thought she did a great job and I really didn't want to change the room much. The problem was that most people didn't "get" the room....all they saw was pink paint. After a struggle I decided that it was time to change the room but not her design. I wanted to keep most of what her vision was because this is pretty much the last big project that she did and it reminds me so much of her. This bathroom has the only tub in the house.
The master bath is really small and is integrated into the master bedroom. The toilet and shower are enclosed in a small room but the sink and vanity are actually in an alcove of the master bedroom and without an enclosure but the space is defined by a half-wall that resembles the half-wall in the foyer and in the family room. The master bath area is painted a different color from the master bedroom which also helps define the space. It is small but it gets the job done and fits nicely as part of the master bedroom.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Spring Projects
Well, it's mid-April....baseball is back and so am I.
We are having typical Missouri springtime weather. I think the whole city was up at 4:30 this morning when we got two serious hail storms. I've never seen hailstones as big as these -- easily golf ball size -- but luckily there weren't too many really big ones and we didn't get any real damage...just minor stuff. I lost a flower pot and two old deck chairs.
I had a guy come out to trim my hickory tree this morning to remove three small branches that were broken during the ice storm we had a couple years ago. I kept waiting for the limbs to come down but they obviously had no intention of falling. He went up the tree like a monkey and had the limbs down in about 15 minutes. They were a lot bigger than I thought once they were down but the tree looks great. It only cost me $30 so I should have done this a long time ago. He scared the resident squirrel out of the tree...it took a flying leap of about 25 feet and got up and ran off so I guess he was OK.
The next visitor was a guy from Lowe's who will install my new flooring in the two upstairs bathrooms and in the laundry room. These are the last rooms with original flooring. He was measuring the rooms so he can make me an estimate on the cost. He says he can also cure some of the squeaky floors I have in the bathrooms. I asked if he had any ideas on my crackling hardwood floor in the hall. He says that the installer didn't nail it right and the only way to fix it would be to pull it all up and reinstall the wood floor...that would cost a bunch.
The last guy was from the Eco Water office coming to look at my water softener that has been on the fritz since last July. I was figuring that I'd need to replace it but he found a valve that wasn't working and fixed the valve and thinks that that was all it needed. This is a 25 year old unit that they stopped making in 1990 so parts will be getting scarce soon. I'm hoping he fixed it because replacement would be around $1,200.
Watson is exhausted. First, he was up watching the hailstorm and worrying about that and then the three strangers showed up messing around with his house. Then we had another thunderstorm in the late afternoon and he was really worried that we would get hail again. He is sound asleep now and the Cardinals are on TV. Gotta go.
I had a guy come out to trim my hickory tree this morning to remove three small branches that were broken during the ice storm we had a couple years ago. I kept waiting for the limbs to come down but they obviously had no intention of falling. He went up the tree like a monkey and had the limbs down in about 15 minutes. They were a lot bigger than I thought once they were down but the tree looks great. It only cost me $30 so I should have done this a long time ago. He scared the resident squirrel out of the tree...it took a flying leap of about 25 feet and got up and ran off so I guess he was OK.
The next visitor was a guy from Lowe's who will install my new flooring in the two upstairs bathrooms and in the laundry room. These are the last rooms with original flooring. He was measuring the rooms so he can make me an estimate on the cost. He says he can also cure some of the squeaky floors I have in the bathrooms. I asked if he had any ideas on my crackling hardwood floor in the hall. He says that the installer didn't nail it right and the only way to fix it would be to pull it all up and reinstall the wood floor...that would cost a bunch.
The last guy was from the Eco Water office coming to look at my water softener that has been on the fritz since last July. I was figuring that I'd need to replace it but he found a valve that wasn't working and fixed the valve and thinks that that was all it needed. This is a 25 year old unit that they stopped making in 1990 so parts will be getting scarce soon. I'm hoping he fixed it because replacement would be around $1,200.
Watson is exhausted. First, he was up watching the hailstorm and worrying about that and then the three strangers showed up messing around with his house. Then we had another thunderstorm in the late afternoon and he was really worried that we would get hail again. He is sound asleep now and the Cardinals are on TV. Gotta go.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Winter blahs
We have had a remarkable winter. It started out normal enough....first got cold in mid December and we had a white Christmas (not very common here and it was barely white). We had a good Christmas and did our traditional stuff. Jill and Iris came and stayed several days so we had lots to do and enjoyed the time together. We made our annual trek to St. Louis for Sheryl's party and later went up to Columbia for Donna's open house. We made our Christmas homebrew back in October so we shared some with people at the two parties. 
We had another snow after Christmas and in early January -- maybe 5-6 inches. Then we had a blizzard in early February. This was the first blizzard I can remember and I'm old enough to have had a few. They say that this was the first blizzard in about 25 years and the last one wasn't much. This one was. It hit on a Monday and I didn't get the driveway clear until the next Sunday when a guy showed up with a bobcat and bulldozed my driveway. We had snow out the wazoo and it was the heavy stuff. I think we had about 18 inches more or less....hard to tell because of the wind. We also had below zero temps. I had about four feet of snow blown on my deck. I woke up the morning after it stopped snowing and I was hearing odd noises coming from the deck...ominous popping sounds. I noticed that some of the screws holding the balustrade to the railing had popped out and I was seeing daylight where there shouldn't be any. So I shovelled my way out to the street first (so the paramedics and get to the house -- just a precaution, you know) and then started shovelling snow off the deck. Needless to say I was a little freaked out about adding my own weight on the deck since it was already stressed out but it held and I managed to get about a third of it cleared before I pooped out. It took me another two days to get it totally cleared off.
Watson had never seen so much snow and he was upset that he couldn't go outside. When I cleared part of the deck he went out but ran back in again. He has a water dish out there that was frozen solid and he was worrying about it. He was stuck in the house after that. I threw a little bird seed out so he watched the birds occasionally. The street crews finally got the streets clear enough to allow the mailman to deliver mail on Monday but trash collection didn't start for almost a week. After a week of extra cold weather and a few days with some more lighter snowfall things started to warm up. We began to see temperatures above freezing. Then we got warmer weather and eventually got several sunny days with temperatures in the 60s and 70s. The snow melted pretty fast....we figured it would stay until April but it is pretty much gone except for the places the snowplows dumped it. The warm weather is much appreciated. Everyone was out enjoying the sunny days and it is still fairly warm on sunny days but not in the 60s any longer. It should reach the mid 50s tomorrow.
I have been suffering from a prolonged period of the blahs. I can't seem to commit to anything or make plans and stick to them. I amaze myself at how I can undermine my own plans and become distracted from what I am trying to do. I can start a project and then walk to a different room to get something and be totally distracted so that I end up not getting anything done. I want to paint the hall bathroom and probably change the vanity top and the faucets. This seems like an insurmountable task the way things are going. First I couldn't decide on a color and had to get people to suggest colors from a few that I picked out. This was in mid January. Finally I bought the paint yesterday - in late February. I decided that if I can get the bathroom painted and make progress on the other improvements I will reward myself with a trip to New Mexico in March. That seems to be working as a motivator. I got the trim taped up yesterday and I'm going to start painting tomorrow.
I also started a class with the Learning in Retirement program (Lincoln U.). This is on the Czars of Russia. I decided I needed to get out and have some social interaction instead of being reclusive and only interacting on the Internet. The class is interesting but the teacher is basing the lessons on family trees of the various Romanovs. There are four classes and we have been pretty confused but we are making progress. Dr. Phil should have met the Romanovs -- he would think he died and went to heaven. I don't think any of them were normal. Next week is the last class and we will talk about Nick II - the last Czar - and Rasputin. The teacher has a knack for dwelling on the gossipy side of history.
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