Open Letter to My Fellow Drivers

If you approach an intersection and find that without a doubt, you will not be able to fully traverse said intersection, it is not your right, by virtue of the green light shining in your direction, to proceed forward and knowingly block traffic.  Even if all the other drivers before you did this (and really, didn't you spend what felt like an eternity staring through your windshield at them, waiting your turn and cursing their self-centeredness?), that doesn't make it ok.   A lame move undertaken by a mass of people is still a lame move.  Yes, it's snowy.  Yes, it's the week before Christmas.  Common sense/courtesy still applies.

This post brought to you by my hour plus commute home from work today.  My three mile hour plus commute.

He's worth it.

This is what happens in a small house when last year's Christmas tree location is now home to a 3' x 4' dog crate. 

It's ok, though.  We have Billy Idol's Christmas album to keep us in the holiday spirit.  Yes, really.

Nice pipes.

That's where the Hated Sink used to be.  It's also where walls used to be.  Project "Make the Bathroom Less Ugly" has taken a turn for the ambitious.

Our original plan was to get the most aesthetic bang for our buck by doing the following:
- replacing the medicine cabinet, light fixture, and light switch
- tiling the floor
- removing the glossy, speckled wallboard (shudder) from about 60% of the wall space - the rest being passable tile - and painting the drywall underneath
- replacing the Hated Sink with a cute little pedestal number and a retro faucet
- finally putting up the new shower curtain and chrome curtain rings we got as gifts months ago.

And that was supposed to be the extent of it. 

But then... we realized that the wall tiles around the tub were set directly on the glossy, speckled wallboard (shudder), so that by removing the wallboard, we'll also be removing the tiles.  So we added wall tiles to the project.

And then... we realized that one of the bathroom shut off valves had corroded over time (three guesses how that became apparent).  So we added valve replacements to the project.

And then... we took down the glossy, speckled wallboard (shudder) and found that the lurking drywall was in bad condition.  So we added complete demolition and rebuilding of the walls to the project.

And by "we," I pretty much mean "the Best Husband in the Whole Wide World."  I'll help when we get to the priming and painting.

It's Awesome Husband Day!

And that's the birthday cake we'll be eating this evening.

True to his superlative Best Husband Ever moniker, he'll be spending the day traveling between our dismantled bathroom and the aisles of our local Home Depot. Well, he's also buying a tile saw (did I mention that we got more ambitious with this project?), so that's kind of fun and exciting.  But still.  Manual labor on his birthday.  He's an awesome husband.

Happy birthday, honey!

The Hated Sink

Alright, you guys.  I had three requests for pictures reflecting the Before status of Project "Make the Bathroom Less Ugly" and so I present to you The Hated Sink.  The rest of the Befores will be forthcoming, likely when I post the During and After photos.  (Can't wait for those Afters!)

Anyway, I despise this sink.  The back corners slope away from the basin, so water landing there either overflows to the floor (awesome) or simply stagnates (double awesome).  Hate.  And the vanity it sits on doesn't win it any points either.

I kind of want to Office-Space it after we replace it.  But I won't.

There's no turning back now.

Project "Make the Bathroom Less Ugly" is officially on.  We've purchased a sink. And, since we won't be having pieces of a pedestal sink collect dust in the basement, I guess this means we'll be moving from the theoretical to the practical pretty quickly.

Progress. Impressive.

We now apparently have matching pets. For a few minutes each day, anyway.