More pictures of Bathroom

 All of this work was done last week, but I just uploaded the pictures off my camera today.  I am really close to taking the final pictures!  I'll try to post them by Monday. 

 Green board and cement board installed. Floor cement board and shower pan also installed.  

 Mudded. 

Primed, painted and water-proofed shower (I have never heard of or used HOMEFLUX, but it seemed to be a really easy and clean way to water-proof).  

Paint. Wainscoting is going on the lower 3 feet of the walls.  

 Corner where the vanity goes. 

Shower is tiled. I am very proud of this- I did most of it myself!  

Again, very proud of my tiling skills!  I have done tiling before, but never a shower.  

Marble floor! Turned out beautiful!  Again, did most of this myself.  

Another shot of the floor.  

 Shower is grouted. Starting to look so nice!

 Glass is installed. At this point we were done using the contractor. The plumber came a couple days later to hook up all the water, put back the radiator, install the toilet and fix all the crazy plumbing downstairs. 

Update on the Bathroom

So we did not end up doing everything ourselves, like we wanted to. We just didn't have the tools or the "know-how" to do it all. We hired a guy to work on it for about 2 1/2 weeks- which cost way too much.  We also hired a plumber to do the plumbing- which also cost way too much. When we were sure we could finish the rest on our own, we sent them on their way.  It looks fantastic, but I am not ready to post the final pictures yet. I am still working on a few things, but I will be 100% done by this weekend! Not bad- just 4 weeks without a shower :-)  Here are some more of the progress pictures. 

 Floor completely removed.

 Floor joists shimmed to make the floor level.

  

 Another shot of the shimming work. 

 We found a lovely brick wall (apparently a fire wall) behind the plaster. 

 Had to frame a new wall over the bricks so we would have something solid to mount the shower to. 

The framing for the wall and shower.  

We had a plumbing stack with a super long crack in it. Glad we found the leak in the middle of construction, and not after we finished everything. We had to tear out and rebuild another wall in the corner. 

 Another shot of the cracked stack. It was replaced and the wall was rebuild around the plumbing.  That white hose is the exhaust pipe for the old fan. 

Plumbing for shower. You can also see that the floor got put on- this is just the 2 layers of plywood. We also did a layer of cement board and then marble. It is really solid!

Bathroom Remodel

Bill and I decided that the downstairs bathroom was in need of a remodel.  From a quick look, it actually was not that bad, but there were just a lot of little details that added up to the need for a major makeover.  Last night and today we finished up demolishing the whole thing.  We found a gaping hole in the floor so had to take all 5 layers of flooring off to basically start from the beginning.  We will be doing most of the work ourselves, even though we don't know how to do it all yet. The most difficult thing will be the shower. It is a glass shower with a pan; two walls will be tiled and the other two are the shower glass. I'll post some more pictures as we get things installed.

Finally Painted Grant's Room

It has been pretty cold and rainy this week so I finally tackled an inside project.  When we first moved into the house Grant's room was a "Superman-Spiderman" theme with yellow, red and blue paint on the walls. I completely disliked it, but other things took priority so I didn't get to it till now. It is a thousand times calmer in that room. Amazing what a gallon of paint can do!  

The Primary Colors are 1, 2, 3...

 ...RED, YELLOW and BLUE!

Calmer place to sleep:

The outside of our house!

I know we don't have a lot of readers, but I wanted to let the few of you see pictures of our house.  It was built in 1890, has 4-5 bedrooms and 2 baths. There are 4 fireplaces, but I doubt any of them work. We have lived here for almost 5 months, and although we have not done any major projects, we feel like the house is beginning to look nicer already.  Here is a list of what we have done to the outside:

Tore down old wood fence
Pulled tons of weeds
Planted grass in backyard
Power-washed garage
Painted garage door and trim
Hired tree guy to cut down 6-7 trees
Cleaned a billion spider webs off the house
Attempted to fix leaking gutters
Successfully patched a hole in the roof of the porch
Started painting the trim on the house

I still want to figure out how to successfully fix our leaking gutters, replace the gutters on one side of the garage and finish painting the trim on the bay windows before it gets too cold. Then it is indoor projects until spring!

After the cleaning, scraping, caulking and painting:

 Before:

 Backyard and garage:

 Side of the house:

 View from the front/side:

 Front porch (obviously an addition that does not match the style of the house):

A couple of weeks ago Steph, Grant and I went to Utah to visit my family.  I am from Ohio, but bit by bit my entire family has migrated to Utah.  Mom is ecstatic.

On Saturday night we decided to climb Timp.  Everyone was invited.  The group who went was: Steph, my sister Catherine, Steph's Sister Kim, Kim's boyfriend (and soon-to-be fiance!)


David was about to come, but this happened:

We started climbing too early, or we climbed too fast.  We got to the top of the mountain at four in the morning.  It was freezing cold when we got there, so we huddled in the tiny shack on top of the mountain and waited for the sun to rise.

Good times!

Got up this morning and went for a bike ride at five.  It was dark until about ten to six.  Good clean fun.

Yesterday Steph and I cut down some branches from a tree that was brushing up against the eaves of our house.  What we should have done was rent a chainsaw for a couple of hours and chop the tree down that way.  Instead, we bought a handsaw and climbed the tree and cut the limbs down that way.  More exercise.

Here is what our porch looked like afterwards.  The gaping hole in the roof was there before, and was caused by someone trying to patch the metal roof by laying a piece of plywood on top.  (note to self)

Steph and I are planning on fixing this porch area.  We really have no idea how we should do this, but I think the first step will be to clearly find out how extensive the water damage is to the porch.  This will likely involve some deconstruction of the porch, getting the roof off, etc.

This is a side view of our front porch.  You can see I patched this one up as well.  It is really just a patch though, to prevent cats and things from coming into the porch area thorough the gaping crack.  Eventually Steph and I are going to have to fix this porch as well... probably by tearing it down and building a new one in its place.

This is Bill writing.

I woke up this morning at 5:00 to go for a bike ride.  It was waaaay to early, so I went back to bed for an hour.  At six o clock I dressed in spandex and rode to Montrose. It had been raining all night long, and the clouds were low and ragged.  Foggy and cool.  

The Mississippi is pretty slow moving and flat where I ride, and there are acres of lily pads along the shore.

A few leaves have started to change.  Fall is coming.

I am feeling a little frustrated with where I am.  I want to be great at something, instead of tolerably good at a lot of things.  In order to do something very well, you have to do it intensely.  That is why I woke up at five... to start being intense.  But instead I went back to sleep.

That is ok.  I will be intense tomorrow morning.

We are all moved into our new house! And we have internet! Yeah! Now I can start blogging again.

So far: Bill is loving his new job. I am loving the new house. And Grant is loving swim class, swinging at the park, drawing, reading books, and watermelon!

I have not started any big projects on the house yet, but when I do I will post some pictures of my handy work. For now, here is a picture of James and Grant (the Kannas' visited us in Keokuk a few weeks ago).

We moved to Iowa!

It has been a very busy month. Bill graduated from Law School with honors. He accepted a job in Iowa and started work right away. Steph wrapped up her job in Minneapolis. We packed the house and moved to a small town in southern Iowa called Keokuk.

We have been here for three days and so far we like it. We already bought a house here and are excited to move in next month.

I will try to update this blog more often so you can follow our new adventures in Keokuk.

JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING...

WE DID GO TO FRANCE!

Happy Times!

Grant is such a happy baby!  He squeals and laughs all the time. It is so fun to play with him.

Best Kisses Ever

These were probably the best baby kisses that I have ever got.  Grant is so awesome!

Summer Adventure

We have just embarked on a whole new adventure...but not together.  Bill is spending his summer in Wisconsin doing an internship with Bemis, while I am staying in Minneapolis and trying the "single working mother" life for a while.  It is going to be tough, but hopefully we will still have time for fun stuff...like baby surfing!

I have a great life.

I just got done with a run with li'l Grant.

Then I get home and Steph agrees to cut my hair.

"Are you sure Bill? Your hair is not that long"

I explain that I have supernaturally pouffy hair.

Steph forgets this because she just looks into my sexy blue eyes.

I imagine that scenes like this are happening all across the United States of America everywhere.

But I am living the dream.

"You made a baby hat"

Bill accidentally put my winter wool hat through the washer and dryer. Really it was my fault for letting my hat get mixed in with the dirty laundry. I pulled it out of the dryer and was pretty disappointed that it didn't fit anymore. That is, till I discovered that the hat will work perfectly for Grant! I called Bill up and happily announced that he had made a baby hat!

For Mom

I had to post some pictures for my mom. Grant is just growing too fast! He is turning out to be quite the chunker too! Love you mom!

Bad boys...

We are pulling these bad boys out again! But this time in France!

Yep, that's right, France! This summer we will be riding through France with our friends Randy, Chrissy and James. We are more excited than words can say. Bill and I have been wanting to do this for so long. It is going to be incredible!

Now if only winter would end so we can get in shape and practice hauling a baby around in a bike trailer.

Red hair?

I snapped some pictures of Grant the other day. Noticed two things...

First, he looks way cuter with a mo-hawk.

Second, I think he has red hair.

What do you think?

Visitors from Nuevo Mexico

Bill's parents came to visit this weekend. From the picture you might think we live in The Frozen Tundra! (oh wait...we do!) They were all bundled up so they could walk to the light-rail station (5 blocks away) and go to the airport.

It was so nice having them here for a couple days. Please come again soon!