Add this to the list

In addition to banana costumes, Duncan also despises the vet.



--------------------------------------------------------------------

In happier news, this little old blog hit a milestone 10,000 visits this week! It may not seem like a lot to some of you, but it's exciting to me!

Stop back by on Monday for a little surprise... happy weekend!

Master of the Bath

Anybody remember our master bathroom?

Let me refresh your memory.

Here it is in all of its peach and flowery glory when we bought our house:


Let's just say it didn't get better right away:



It started to show some signs of improvement though after we'd stripped all the wallpaper and hubs started to build the shower:


And when he put up the walls that now are only awaiting tile:


I fell in love with him all over again though when he came up with the idea to put in a warm floor. Mmmmm that's right, warm tiles under my toes every morning thanks to a timer controlled heating unit underneath the floor.

First step was priming the floor and attaching brackets for the wire. Then we laid out the wire to cover the whole floor surface (and when I say we, I mean my husband and our friend Justin, but I had the totally important job of documenting the whole thing):


I took this next one while standing where the toilet will be so that you can be assured I will have warm toes at all times. (Too bad we didn't spring for the heated toilet seats.)


Once the wires were in we covered them with self-leveling compound...


Since I am inadvertently advertising for Lowe's in that shot, I'd like to point out that when I went to buy the compound (by myself), the guy at Lowe's was a total jerk and treated me like I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. It is besides the point that I actually did have absolutely no clue what I was doing, and I much prefer it at Home Depot where they pretend not to notice that I am reading the name of what I am buying off a piece of paper given to me by my husband thankyouverymuch.

Hubs spread the compound:



Ta-da! All ready for tile:



If you are interested, we used this and this from EZ FloorHeat.

Just in case any of you are worried that I didn't do my fair share of the work today, I offer you this as my evidence to the contrary:



The second bedroom is almost finished.

(SOMETHING IN OUR HOUSE IS ALMOST FINISHED!?!?!)

Sorry for the yelling.

Pics to come soon!

Gorgeous day!

Was it totally beautiful where you are today? After four straight days of gross rain, we welcomed a beautiful (and hot!) November Sunday with open arms.

Hubs headed straight up to our roof first thing this morning to do some patching in hopes of stopping a stubborn leak in the ceiling of our third bedroom. When I married him I totally didn't know that he was this handy. It just amazes me that he knows how to do all of this stuff!

Of course I had to follow him up on the roof to document it all (and provide the Starbucks).

Hard at work:

Quick plumber's crack check. Hubs then made me promise that if I happen to document plumber's crack I am not allowed to post it on the blog. Not even with a little censored mark over the offending crack (I asked). Sorry folks.

Hubs has some helpful hints for you in this little video (mmm, frosting).


Taking a little break to enjoy the view:

We're planning on building a roof deck one level down here on this roof:


Our neighbors have an adorable one:


Up next: My handy hubs installs radiant heating in the master bathroom with a timer switch to insure my tootsies never touch a cold tile. I knew I married him for a reason.

More Gray for the Living Room

We just got the rug we ordered from CSN Rugs in the mail and I am in love.


It's the Jill Rosenwald Fallon Contemporary Rug in Grey and Ivory.

Here's a rough (okay really rough) idea of how it's going to look with a few of the other elements in our living room:

I got the rug in the 8'x11' size, which turns out is REALLYBIG, but I think it will work well in the living room.

I fell in love with this designer after seeing them featured on a blog, and was psyched to find that CSN rugs had it on sale. (I was even more psyched to get another 25% off with coupon code FALLRUG25.)

More fabulous rugs by Jill Rosenwald (who doesn't in fact pay me to glow about her on my blog):



I love all of the colors of the contemporary one, and I actually really even like that pink flowery one. Sadly, my husband is not a pink flowery kind of guy.

Has anyone heard of CSN before? I'd never heard of them, but they have a ton of other stuff as well and I'm definitely going to be looking into their lighting section shortly.

They have a deal right now where they'll give you a $15 credit if you register through a referral- if anyone is interested, you can click here to sign up: CSN Rugs.
(And full disclosure- I'll get fifteen bucks too if you end up buying something- win-win, no?)

Kitchen Updates

Ladies and Gentlemen (Gentlemen? Unlikely. 10 points to any boy reading my blog.), I am proud to announce that my kitchen now (sort of) has a floor!


It also has lighting! Can you see the pretty recessed lights in that last photo there (or at least they will be recessed once we have a ceiling)? Swoon.

Not so swoon-worthy is the time it's taken to get here, but they promise me that it will be cabinet-ready in less than three weeks. So on Monday, we finally bit the bullet and ordered our cabinets:

Painted maple in antique white:

Er, I mean, until late last night when I decided we'd made a huge mistake and must have the white instead:

The cabinet guy gladly made the switch for me this morning. Phew.

Here's what it's going to look like:



After the cabinets will come the flooring, and we're going with cork after hearing many awesome things about it. Here's the type we've chosen:

It comes in 12" square tiles and the website says you can install it yourself "if you're handy".

I take that as a personal challenge.

Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween!

With love from Duncan, the disgruntled banana






A peek at Halloweens past...

Insert Creative Post Title Here

A big thank you to all of you who commented on my sweet husband's first blog post! I hope he's been inspired enough to try it again sometime.

It's been quite the week here... despite getting some great work done on the house I can't help but feel discouraged at the pace of the progress. Our goal at this point is to have the house livable by Christmas, even if it's still a little rough in spots, and I just don't see how we are going to get there! I know this stuff always takes longer than you think (and costs more than you want), but am trying to hang on to the hope that it will be worth it in the end.

To cheer myself up, a review of my recent retail therapy necessary home purchases...

These chairs make me smile everytime I see them. We purchased a pair for the living room.


Duncan loves them too (photo is inside my in-law's house... how I wish I had floors!).


A new vessel sink for the powder room:
And this fun faucet to go with:We're now on the search for a couch for the living room, and after seeing this post yesterday, we tried out the Lounge sofa from Crate and Barrel. It definitely lives up to its reviews as the most comfortable couch ever made.
Here it is in charcoal, but we are actually loving some of the custom fabrics that are available and trying to decide if the added expense is worth it. Anyone have experience with that process?

What other spots should I check out for a fabulous dark gray (ideally Duncan-the-schnauzer-colored) couch?