Our beautiful new front door is in! Now I have to find some new hardware for it. The custom window for above it goes in next week - finally!



I've got to take more photos of the finished bathrooms. Digging has started on the lower level bathroom too so now there's a big pile of dirt in our laundry room. If we leave the door open, the cat gets into it. As long as he doesn't think it's his new litter box!

I forgot to add: to top off all the fun, I fractured my radius bone (basically broke my wrist) while attempting to roller skate 2 weeks ago.

I got no business rollerskating at my age. :-(

so let's see...

where are we at?

- all windows and sliding doors are now installed. they cannot install the new front door until the *new* custom window is ready. apparently it's being made by hand? i hope it comes in soon otherwise they can't install it until after christmas.

- all the interior and exterior trim should be done next week.

- bathroom #1 was waiting on the window to be trimmed before the wall tile could be completed. it's now trimmed but the tile is still in the works, depending on how much progress the carpenter made today.

- BUT we were also waiting on the custom glass for the shower in bathroom #1, which was supposed to be installed today until they realized that one of the pieces was wrong. :-(

- bathroom #2 is not complete because the plumber had to order additional parts for both the tub and the shower piece. ::whines:: but at least we have 2 working toilets now.

- bathroom #3 gets started tomorrow! but i need to find that tree where money grows, anybody know where that is?

- im farming for bids now on house painters though it's not something i can do until all the window work is done. i just want to get an idea of how much that's going to burn my pocket too.

so it's coming along! but not fast enough. :-\

bathroom #2 almost completed

looking beautiful!


floor detail


shower/bath detail



quartz detail


matching vanity light

Guess what arrived bright and early this cold morning!?!? Windows and doors! Yay! They start Monday - yay! I'm running out of money - not so yay! They only screwed up one window - the most expensive one. The custom arched window for over the front door. It didn't come with the bronze finish, instead it was white. It's going back to the factory.

wow. window update.

The windows are being delivered on Thursday. The actual work finally commences on Monday. What a relief. I watched too many episodes of Holmes on Homes this weekend and was getting a little worried I'd need to give the guy a call. ;-)

bathroom #1 almost done

The master bath renovations are near completion and i couldn't be happier with how it's coming out. It's gorgeous, if I do say so myself. Josh the plumber finished up installing all the new Kohler oil rubbed bronze hardware today as well as hookedup the toilet and sink. We can't finish up tiling the walls until the new window is installed. And it'll be a couple of weeks before the custom glass enclosure is also installed. In the meantime we can toss up a temporary rod and curtain though so we can use it while they get started on bath #2.

By the way, my garage looks like a Kohler warehouse.

The before pictures and inspiration are here: http://myredraisedranch.blogspot.com/2009/09/bath-renos.html

The gorgeous new bath with travertine, river rock, and quartz countertops ...








I made another big purchase today: a new stainless steel Electrolux fridge. I got it from Percy's in Worcester from their 'dinged' aisle. most of the dings and scratches are on the sides where you wont even see them and you can hardly see the slight scratches on the front. So I got a $2800 fridge for $1300. Sweet!

Window replacement work starts in a week or 2. Let's get this sh!t done already! I figured we'd be all done with that by now but it kept getting delayed for some reason. Grrr!

I'll address the portico plans at another time. Let's just say that I've reconsidered it because the numbers I was given were WAY out of wack. Must come up with a new plan.

TTFN!