Love, empathy, tolerance--also puppies, flowers, and laundry

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Little by Little

An update on the downstairs powder room/laundry room remodel:

We had a plan to inset rectangles of tile with some slices of polished petrified wood (from our stash). The highly polished "wood" set against the matte tiles would have looked wonderful. However, time went on, the pieces were sliced but we had no way to polish them and the threshold stayed unfinished. I got tired of unfinished quickly.

Enter Plan B. Anyone who has remodeled knows you'd better have a Plan B. Ours involved creating a pattern with our leftover tile that would be an interesting focal point yet not fight with the main floor tiles set on point. We also didn't want to have too many small pieces in our heavily used threshold. Yeah, yeah, the porcelain tile is should stand up to just about any abuse but...this threshold sees refrigerators and furniture pass over it.


So, here is one possible pattern.


It seemed a little repetitious, so we settled on this version.



And here it is. Cut, set, caulked and ready for the carpet to be tacked down. Apparently the thinset under the tiles was fragile. So fragile that the carpet had to be taped away from it. Who knew?

Is it just me or does all that tape remind you of a Doberman puppy with his ears "racked"??

We even have running water. The new faucet looks as nice as we hoped with the White River granite. It's wonderful to have the mirror back on the wall instead of sitting half-hidden behind our living room sofa for the past two and a half years.

A gorgeous nickel and brass towel rack should arrive shortly from eBay, patron saint of the cheap. The powder room will then be finished.

Except for the wall re-texturing where the outlet was moved. Also a few paint touchups on the wall. And the ceiling really would look better if I repainted it. (Minor tweaks, but I can't say "done" until they're done!)

Then I get to post before-and-after photos. First, I hafta figure out how to take the photos without showing you my reflection in the mirror. Because after a long winter my reflection needs a little remodeling!

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