Our new bathroom

Our bathroom remodel is finally done. Although, in the past we have done all the home improvement projects ourselves (with a little (or a lot of) help from family) this time we hired a contractor. Since the bathroom had extensive rot in the sub-floor and we wanted to move every fixture in the bathroom we decided that the expense of a contractor was well worth it. One thing we did skimp on was that we did not hire a designer. I know that it sounds simple enough to design a bathroom, but I tell you Hubby and I spent a lot if time with graph paper to get just the right layout and even more time shopping for fixtures. Because we decided not to enlarge the footprint of the bathroom (the room is 8x9, not tiny, but not huge) we could not put in everything that we would have liked. We traded having a tub shower for having a rather large shower and a linen closet. Both Hubby and I were clear that we wanted an uncluttered bathroom so we made sure that we had plenty of storage space. I also knew that I wanted to use glass tile for the shower, which is more expensive so we found other ways to keep our total budget in line. One way to keep cost down was to only use chrome. It was easier to match different pieces and is usually the cheapest option for sink and shower fixtures.

That door is to the linen closet. The door has a full length mirror on both sides. It makes the the room seem even more open and airy.

The sink is nice and high so that you don't have to lean over as much to wash your face, since our kids are no longer small this works for us (actually it was even 2.5 inches taller (39"), but the contractor did not know it and placed the medicine cabinet too low, so had to cut it down; however, as 36 inches is actually on the high-side of standard, it probably is for the best). We also love that the sink has no counter space, I know that, that would bother some people but, we love it. It means that you must put away your stuff when you are done getting ready.

Tomorrow I'll write another post about how I organized the storage in the new bathroom

Day Trip

This weekend hubby and took a day trip up to the north bay to visit our daughter at her camp and pick up our annual supply of beef. We decided a few years ago that we did not want to participate in the industrialize meat food chain. We bought a chest freezer for the garage and started buying beef from Chileno Valley Ranch in Petaluma. We purchase our meat this way because we believe it is safer and healthier for us and we know that it is heather for the cattle. The cattle are born on the ranch and never leave it. This means that they are never fattened up like feed-lot cows this makes the meat leaner and I think tastier. I'm stepping of my soap-bax now and will just show the picture of our trip.

First we picked up Sara from her camp job and took the very greatful girl out to lunch in St. Helena. My girl like to enjoy a good meal and to her "camp food" is not a good meal to her.

Then we walked around St. Helena for a bit. I just had to take a photo of their lovely art deco post office.
and the gazibo in the public park. It is all most too small town USA to be real. After taking Sara to the store and deli for more snacks to take back to camp with her we took the senic route to Cotati to pick up our meat from the butcher who also sells pasta.
See no joke. He is the pasta king!
In case you are wondering, this is what the meat from a half of a cow looks like in the back of our little car. After picking up the meat we enjoyed the ride home.
All that green is vinyards.
And more vineyards.

Over the Golden Gate Bridge, now all that is left is to pay the six dollar bridge toll and go home.



Not to leave it out, all the time in the car, allowed me to get some knitting done more on that later.

Question: How many sodas can a herd of teens drink?

Answer: As many as you have.

When the kids are young the milestones are simple things like first teeth, first step and first sleep-overs. Teenagers have milestones too and last night my oldest, Sara, planned her first party. Of course, she had helped plan birthday party's before, but this time she planned a surprise party for a friend who is going to spend a semester abroad. She planned, shopped and cleaned up for the party and it all went off without a hitch. Her friend was totally surprised and the kids all seem to have a good time. They ate, danced, jumped (on the trampoline in the backyard), talked, and ate some more. Hubby and I just stayed out of the way as much as possible, since we are also in charge of making sure that the food platters stayed full. As an added bonus I have to say that they totally road tested the deck that Hubby added to the deck a few years back. I can say that we have had a whole heard of teeagers jumping up and down on the deck in time to the music, so that means that the deck is definalty structually sound.


My younger daughter also had a big yesterday. It was her stage debut as Tybalt, in Romeo and Juliet. She was wonderfully blood thirsty in the role. My how quickly they grow.


All this activity has lead to a decided lack of craftyness around the house and the bathroom remodel continues to plod along so not pictures on either of those fronts. I really hope to have some bathroom pictures for you soon.

The winner is ....

brianbabymama. She was randomly selected by my totally disinterested teenage daughter. Thank you all for entering. It was a lot of fun to do and I can't wait to do another give away.

In progress

Nothing around here seems to be able to be finished. I think it is the tile guy's fault. Well, at least he started it. The tile on the bathroom remodel is still almost done. It has been almost done since Friday. My project seem to be following suit. I keep working on them but, they don't seem to get any closer to finished. Since I can't seem to finish anything I will show you what I am currently working on.

A knitted log cabin throw in picks and greens that is taking forever. I started this in December...I am so over this project
As always I am working on a pair of toe up socks. I always have a pair of these in process, so lac of progress on this project is not really bothering me.


I have this quilt sitting next to my sewing machine....I can't find my walking foot. I am a bit worried that one of my lovely children "put it away" for me if that is the case then I had better go buy a new one because I'll never be able to find it.And last of all a sheep felted bag that I am making for my mother.
Really, all these are taking to long so, I think that I should start a new project.

100th post giveaway

First the bathroom remodel update then on to the giveaway. Tiling continues, it really looks good, I am totally ready for them to be done. You know how the last ten miles before you get home from a long car trip are the longest. That is how I feel right now. So close, yet so far. Now for the pictures. This is the best I could do because the floor tile is still setting as I type. I promise no more bathroom picture on my blog until the bathroom is done.


I have reached the milestone of 100 post to my blog. To celebrate I thought that I would giveaway a small knitting bundle. It consists of the knitting pattern booklet Kindred by Louisa Harding and three different Louisa Harding yarns. I just love her booklets because of the photography and the fact that she writes patterns for children and teens. As the parent of a child and a teen I can tell you that stylish knitting patterns for these age groups are in short supply.
How to win my very modest knitting package, you ask? Just post a comment by July 14th 12pm Pacific time. That is it, that is all. You don't have to list some weird random fact about yourself to win (you can if you want to but, you don' t have to). On July 15th I will enlist the help of one of my children or the dog depending on who is more cooperative and draw a person at random.

Tea Towel

I am a sucker for old embroidered kitchen and bedroom linens. I love the amount of effort that was put into such utilitarian objects. I did happen to inherit some very nice pillow cases (and I actually use them) when my grandparents died, but I never received any kitchen linens. I am sure that this towel won't survive to be passed down because I will defiantly be using and enjoying it. Hubby and I would both love to have one of these vintage travel trailer so, I really enjoyed stitching these. Unfortunately, this is a close as we are likely to get to owning one of these trailers for a while.



The embroidery patterns is from Sublime Stitching. She has a lot of great patterns that you can buy from her site. The towel came from towel yardage that I bought at the Bobbin's Nest last month. All you have to do is trim it the the length that you want and hem the end such a quick way to make your own towels.

It is about to get exciting....

in our bathroom. Now that is a sentence that you don't hear everyday and probably don't want to hear. Tomorrow the tiling starts and that will make the biggest difference. The pictures are not much to look at now but, the remodel should really be taking shape by the end of the week.
Here is the bathroom when we left for the July 4th weekend.
And here is is today. That large space on the right hand side of the picture is going to be a linen closet. I may be more excited about this that any other feature of the bathroom. Well placed storage is really lacking in our house and I am so excited about having a closet in the bathroom.

Just so you don't think that all I've been up to lately is drooling over my new linen closet. Here is a picture from a hike to Chillkoot Lake that Hubby and I took with my dad's senior hiking group. The lake was cool and calm so my hiking buddy Jess got to go for a long swim.


Doesn't Jess look like he enjoyed his swim.

a little birthday present to myself

It is amazing how the littlest things can improve life so much. I had been using painters tape stuck to the needle plate of my Singer 15-91 sewing machine to measure my seam allowances. I poking around I found that you could buy a replacement needle plate for my machine that had seam allowances already marked on it. I promptly bought one for cheap off the internet and took at the results. I think it looks so much better.

Before:

After:



Happy 4th of July !

Fabric covered bullentin board

As my bathroom remodel continues to chug along and is not currently providing many interesting picture I thought that I would share another project that I finished a couple of weeks ago. My oldest daughter has a lovely bulletin board set in her bedroom. It was on the pricey side and DD#2 did not like any of the covering options that it came in. I am not really into spending money on things that you don't really like so, with two yards of Amy
Butler fabric and a trip to the office supply store here is what we came up with for her room.

These are just 12 x 12 cork tiles but they are a bit thinner than I wanted so I just used Elmer's Glue to glue them together.

About this much glue to be precise.
Set a heavy book on them and let is sit for about 10-12 hours. When the glue was dry I used pinking shears to cut a square of fabric about an two inches bigger than the tile. Using my regular desk stapler (I was too lazy to find the big stapler in the garage) I liberally stapled the edges down and then used nine of the adhesive squares per tile that the tile package to stick them to the wall. I might regret this last part in the future when I have to get that stick stuff off the wall, but for now I am livin' dangerously.
This really was a fun and easy project to do.