Bathroom Renovations- It is looking like a fancy bathroom!

I can't wait for you to see the new bathroom so far! I am combining days 1-3 of them doing work so you can see the progress. They really have done a great job and have been so fast.

 The laundry room has grout and is ready for the washer and dryer to come back in. I love the floor tile and all its swirly pattern.

 The spare bathroom has grout and is done!

 Day 2 was the master shower beginning and I am loving how it turned out so far.

 They put durock cement boards up around the shower and bath tub and will tile over it. 

 They also got the master tile floor ready to be grouted.

 Day 3 was finishing up the master shower. I love the small tiles on the floor of the shower and as the decorative accent.

 I was a bit nervous about all the tile around the tub, but love how they added the same pattern as the shower. It really pulls it all together. I also love the ledge so next to the bath tub.

View from this angle. I can't wait till they put the glass shower doors in and we can hang all the shower fixtures up.

Tada! Doesn't it look great all together. I may end up painting the bathroom since we have to repaint the top wall area above the tile and I hate how things don't match perfectly even with the same paint. Anyone have suggestions of colors? I don't want to make the room look too dark since we have a lot of earthy toned tile. I think the light tile on the floor helps it out. Stay tuned to pictures next week after our weekend getaway of the finished bathroom (keep in mind I prob. won't paint or have new light fixtures, but you'll see the glass and shower fixtures.

Time to Rebuild!

We started Sunday off by ordering our granite counter top for our kitchen and are now in the process of waiting for them to call to come measure and for us to go to the granite place to pick out our slab. Then we came home to a house full of helpers. David and Darrin came over to help get the rest of the bathroom prepped and ready for the workers.

 This is them moving the bathtub and looking at the hookups or discovering something magical, I am not really sure by their facial expressions. Molly wanted to help with everything.

This is what the bathroom looks like with all the walls, shower and bathtub taken out.

 While we had 3 strong guys over I made them move the armoire out of our room. It is just too big, even for our room which I thought was quite large. I am going to sell it since I got such a great deal on it. I still really love it, it just doesn't work in our spaces. It really is meant for a desk area and has a spot for a computer.

 David started framing the new shower.

 Darrin's duty was to do the new shower plumbing. He was soldering and getting the new copper piping to work correctly without leaking. We had a few slight issues, that left us without water one night since home depot was closed. That just reminded me of how much I hate camping, I felt like I was camping in my own house by not being able to flush the toilet and using jugs of water to brush my teeth and wash my hands. 

 David's parents stopped by to see the progress and his Dad even took out our toilets for us! They are stopping by the house during the day for us to check progress and be around. We are so appreciative that they are doing that for us! Thanks again Frank and Cora!

Final work- you can see the 2 smaller knobs that will provide extra jettage for the lower back area. We're also having the rain shower and an adjustable removable shower head that will make it nice to wash the doggie.

The tub has been moved, the plumbing redone and the walls and shower have been framed out. As of Monday morning we were ready for the contractors. Stay tuned to see the progress they have already done and let me tell you, they are fast!

Let the Renovations Begin

Let's start with some before pictures.

 This is our master bathroom that opens with 2 french doors. We will be replacing the flooring with tile.

 We will also be taking out this shower that is way too small, even for me.

 There is a fake wall that is to the left of the tub that we discovered has no purpose so we are knocking it down to move the tub over to make the shower bigger. We were going to go into the closet, but this allowed us to have more room and not have to.

 We are leaving the counter and cabinets, maybe adding some nice knobs to the drawers. It's not worth spending that money for the value of the houses in the neighborhood to change this out. We're going to change the faucets and add a frame around the mirror for phase 2. Oh, we're also getting new lighting, I didn't take a pic, but it has those lovely circle bulb lights that I refuse to replace any more light bulbs.

 We are changing the flooring in the laundry room to the same tile that will be in the master.

 This is the spare bathroom so we will be doing the same tile and maybe switching out the faucets. We already switched the lighting a few years ago.

Toilet area in the spare bathroom.

View from the toilet in the spare bathroom to the vanity sink area. 

Let the demo begin. Since David is busy with work and his new class he demoed at nights and all day Sunday. We got some great pricing for the work so we couldn't refuse to have someone do most of it for us. Here are some pictures from day 1 demolition.

What a mess!

Molly says wtf guys.

 We are co-owners of this lovely trailer that we are using for debris and we all know how Davids mind works so it didn't take long for him to build a slide as I call it for us to get our scraps down to the trailer without just throwing it out the window in hopes of it not damaging things.

He used the vinyl flooring as the shoot and just some wood he nailed together. 

The finished product. Stay tuned tomorrow for more demo and rebuilding work.

Happy 2nd Anniversary!

Happy 2nd Anniversary to my wonderful husband! We will be celebrating this weekend by going to Asheville, NC. We are staying close to the Biltmore and will be going there to tour around and enjoy the weekend. Wait till you see what was going on at our house this weekend. We started the bathroom renovations and boy, what a mess it has been. It will be worth it soon though. Pictures to come tomorrow.

Summer Zucchini Pasta Salad

A few weeks ago we had a lunch picnic with the product development girls and Amanda brought this yummy pasta salad. She gave us the recipe and I loved it since I could use fresh basil from the garden. I did use a few tomatoes from the garden, but I didn't grow the small grape tomatoes.

Ingredients
5 qt. salted water in a 6-quart pot     
1 lb. small zucchini (about 4 or 5)     
1 lb. penne pasta    
4 Tbsp  extra-virgin olive oil     
 ¼  tsp. red-pepper flakes, plus more to taste     
 4  large garlic cloves, coarsely chopped      
 2 cups grape tomatoes, halved       
 1 to 1½ cup (6 ounces) feta cheese, crumbled     
  ⅓ tight-packed cup fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped

Juice from ½ a lemon

Directions

1. Bring the salted water to a boil.
2. Trim off the ends of the zucchini. Cut into sticks about the size of the penne.
3. Drop the pasta into the boiling water. In the last 3-5 minutes of boiling (check pasta package for timing), drop the zucchini into the pot. Boil, stirring often, until the penne are tender but still have a little bite. Scoop out 1 cup of the pasta water and reserve it. Immediately drain the pasta and zucchini in a colander.
4. Return the pasta pot to the heat, turning it down to low. Film the bottom of the pot with the olive oil. Add the red-pepper flakes and garlic, and gently sauté just until the garlic is fragrant, 30 seconds to 1 minute.
5. Remove the pot from the heat, and add the drained pasta and zucchini, the tomatoes, feta, basil, lemon juice and as much of the reserved pasta water as necessary to lightly coat the pasta. Toss gently, taste for seasoning, serve or put in refrigerator for a few hours before serving. Enjoy!

 The colors are great for summer time pot luck

Garden Update & Porch Flowers

The garden is flourishing. Although I am still having a grass problem, I am just going to embrace it because its out of control.

 Roma tomatoes are everywhere, he is the visual of my grassy situation. It makes me so mad, but you live and learn.

 Some tomatoes are just about ready while others are still growing, its a fun time.

 I swear the tomato plants are 4-5 feet tall at least.

 Check out my basil. This is by far my favorite herb, cilantro comes in a close second. I think I might make pesto this weekend.

My peppers are also doing very well. I used 2 of them this weekend and you can see more in the background.

Here are the green peppers I used from the garden.

 I also decided to get some porch plants since I was lacking color. I now feel that I need another door mat, although the party does always start here, I think I want a more elegant monogram one.

 I got these pretty yellow pots and these Dianthus flowers.

 What is growing in your yard and garden?

Bye Bye Ipad2

We took back the Ipad2. Unfortunately it did not live up to what I needed it for. My goal was to replace my current computer and use the Ipad2. Soon after starting to use it we learned that I couldn't use blogger. You can use it on the HTML tab, but not the Compose tab. Apparently something uses flash on this page. The second thing was printing. I like to print recipes and would like the option to print anything and you have to have an eprinter and although our laser printer is a bit old, its awesome and we have a ton of ink supply so I had no desire to spend more money trying to accommodate the new ipad. The 3rd thing that bothered me right away was chatting. My family all lives in different spots and occasionally we do group chat through AIM and the app doesn't allow for group chat. Basically the day-to-day things I did I couldn't do with the Ipad2. So we said goodbye and packed it all back up and took it back. I am now in search of a lightweight computer.