The Joys of Finishing Projects

Ha! Did you think this was a post about finishing the bathroom because it's about damn time?! Well you would be wrong. The bathroom is very much on hold as we're having people come out to quote our shower doors. Thing is the quotes we're getting are way more than we would prefer to shell out, should have been expected, so we're evaluating options right now.

But we did wrap up an unfinished project this past weekend! Remember our shed we revamped? After finishing all the construction, we were left with finishing the ceiling tiles. Since the bathroom has taken priority the last couple of months we never finished the entire shed project. Honestly it's pretty typical with how we do things around here, I mean we renovated our kitchen 2 years ago but still haven't installed the crown molding or quarter round about the base of the cabinets! Oh well, we'll get to it. At least that's what we tell ourselves when we don't feel like doing it, hence it still not finished :o)

So now that the bathroom isn't a priority at this time, we got to the shed! It really does feel good to completely finish a job. I think we're getting the ball rollin' with this one!

Almost done...

Completely done!

 I did kind of work on the bathroom, well more like the mess that we've created with the bathroom renovation. We've wrapped up a majority of the project so a lot of the materials and tools we no longer need upstairs. So after about an hour of working up and down our itty bitty stairs, it's cleaned! Seriously, after I clean anything I ask myself why I don't do it more often or sooner. Some things I just don't understand about myself. It's gotten me excited though about once this whole thing is done and we have all our spaces back in order. Until then, I will definitely take the small piles tucked away.

Seriously don't know how we worked in such a mess

Yay for cleaning!

Honestly, how did we ever find anything?!               Glorious open path to now walk through  

Little bit left to do

Only Turn 30 Once!

This past Saturday I got a year older and have made the leap into the 30's! It was a more low key birthday, especially considering it was a miserably dreary day. Usually on those type of days I'd wrap up in blankets and watch movies all day, but considering we planned to go to a drive-in theater that night I held back my urge to be extremely lazy and just dilly dallied around the house.

There were definitely two highlights. The first being my birthday cake that David made. I requested chocolate on chocolate and he did both the cake and icing from scratch! The crazy part too was that I think he did it all, assembly too, in probably 2 hours. Which if you've ever made a layered cake and icing from scratch you know that is working quick. He also decorated it with my piping tips! I never figured he paid attention when I've made and decorated cakes, but he proved me wrong. And the best part wasn't how good it looked, but it tasted amazing!!! The words "this is the best cake I've ever tasted" definitely came out of my mouth that day. Sooooo deeeliciousssss!!!

The other highlight was the drive-in movie. Like I said it was a dreary day and rained all through the evening and night. We were able to configure the CRV to make a makeshift bed. We backed the car up to the screen and opened the back window so we had a clear view of the movies but still stayed dry. It couldn't have worked out any better.

Death to Subway Tiles!

Tiling done!! Well... more like 98% done since we still have 2 shelves and some tiny pieces to install, but the overwhelming, never ending walls are completed! I also added pictures of the finished wall in our bedroom and the wall where the light switch is when you first walk into the room (those have been finished for awhile now I just haven't updated them on the blog). 

Final items left on the list are grout shower tiles, install shower faucets and spouts, stain and install trim, make transition piece from carpet to tile, shower doors (will need to be custom built), and build a couple of shelves for the cubby whole. That will complete the actual bathroom, we still have the drywall to finish in the loft as well (just waiting to get the truck up and running to pick up the sheets).

BOOM! So many tiles

Can't wait to see how it looks once it's grouted

I used a paint brush to try and blend the texture from the new to the existing walls

The concept of entering the room makes so much more sense this way

I love adding the final finishing touches

Functioning Toilet!!

Toilet is in and we spent no time christening it with the #1 and #2. It also didn't take me long to fill up the drawers will all my junk, especially now that we can actually use the majority of our new master bathroom!! I really am loving it more than I thought and it feels sooooo much bigger than before, for obvious reasons it should feel bigger since the square footage is more but we also added a vanity and shower that are over twice the size of our old ones. But what really makes the difference is having the right layout of all the pieces, and even more so with one of our walls being slanted.

It's coming together and I love it and now we just need to finish the tile in the shower! They are small pieces and take forever but we just need to buckle down and do it.

Doors will be reinstalled shortly

Mirror is hung! I decided to keep the essentials easily accessible on the counter top

Working toilet and one wall tiled

All the paneling is complete, just need a couple of trim pieces

Just keep tiling, just keep tiling...

Big Kid Toys

I can't remember if I've mentioned this but about 3 months ago our truck's transmission blew. Out here in PA, and especially being on a hill, we need a plow for the winter time to clear our lane and driveway. Also living rurally a truck really comes in handy hauling stuff, and as you know we frequently tend to get our hands in renovations so large hardware store runs happen more often than not. Essentially after a couple months looking at new and used trucks David found one on Craigslist. It definitely needs some work but it looks like it will be a good addition to the family.

The next addition to the family was this beauty. The main reason for it is a ditch we need to dig at the bend of our driveway so the rain and melted snow stops accumulating under it and cracking our driveway when it freezes. Then I'm sure David will find endless tasks around the house to get to play with this behemoth.

It's That Time

Yep, it's that time with the garden when my interest level seriously declines. Obviously it's not great timing considering we actually have produce now! But oh well, we'll do our thang and eat veggies and can and give veggies away and all that jazz. I was actually talking with Beth the other day and we both are having the same thoughts (I'll chalk it up to being a twin thing). Basically we're tuning out of this seasons gardening, yep, the one that is still very much in progress, and we're thinking to next years garden and what we want to do differently. It's at least consistent with me always having a hard time seeing things through completely to the end and with the same enthusiasm in which I started.

A few bummers of the season are first, the adorable bunny won't stop eating our pepper plants. Please stop, I really don't want David to have to shoot you (that's right, I've put him on that mission if it comes to that). We set the trap but I think he's so light we won't trip it to close the door. Second, our corn is red, apparently due to a phosphorus deficiency (that's what google said). Most likely because of the buckets of rain that were dropped on us the entire month of June. There really is a lot to learn about gardening, especially understanding the nutrients each plant needs and the symptoms of too much or not enough of any particular nutrient. Third, our tomato plants are getting hit with blight, most likely another symptom of the excess rainfall. I dumped probably 2 dozen already before I was able to pick some good ones.

There are weeds, and at this point I tell myself what's the point when the garden is this far along. Ha! Not the best logic, they really should be pulled, but there's other things right now that are taking priority over that... like finishing our bathroom!!! Spoiler - I'll post soon but we started tiling the shower Monday night and we're super pumped how it's turning out. Takes forever since we're using small subway tiles but it'll be worth it for sure in the end.

For now we'll keep truckin' along crossing projects off the list.

Small days harvest

Pumpkins are getting big!

Sunflowers are so tall and finally blooming!

Hello hot pepper plants

Our deficient corn, sorry we've failed you yet another year

One of our few healthy pepper plants

Beautiful dahlia blooms

Potted pepper plants doing well other than they constantly need watered

UPDATE: So what I originally thought was the bunny eating all our peppers plants was actually green horn worms that usually eat my tomato plants! I cringe every time I find them, they’re disgusting. I had no idea they like pepper plants too or else I would have been on the lookout for them in the first place. Since they blend in so much with the plant an easier way to find them is to look at the bottom of the plant and you’ll see a bunch of terd pellets. Looks like they were the death of about 5 plants, lesson learned.

Harvest time

Finally Looking Like a Bathroom!

Things have been a bit hectic around here but we're getting closer to the finish line with this bathroom. The big step made was getting the vanity in place! We had to put up some paneling (stuff we saved from the bathroom) and trim before we could get the get the vanity in or else we wouldn't have space to secure the boards. The paneling made the room pretty dark before but I love the warmth it brings, so we decided to just put it back up on one wall and the ceiling. We're waiting to finish the rest of the paneling until we have the tile up in the shower. We also grouted the tile on the floor, installed the light fixture and finished the outlets.

Yay for a vanity!!

Half of the paneling done

Grout finished! Don't mind the door on the vanity, I'll fix that later.