The outside fiberglass edge looked like someone had been chewing on it – do over.  Since it was a custom sized window they had to make a new one  = 5 more weeks of waiting.

So we took the extra time to research tile.  We hit up a couple of tile shops, read tons of reviews, looked at 1000′s of pictures of other bathrooms on-line – and decided to go for a tumbled travertine for upstairs and a med gray slate for downstairs.  It looks kinda ancient, kinda rough but has a really soft hand feel.  The above photo is of the travertine we picked – its a 2×4 for the walls, and we did filled/honed 12×12′s for the floor.

It also gave me more time to be indecisive about paint colors (and i still haven’t decided about downstairs).  I went through a plethora of grays, taupes, greens…trying to match the best low-lights of the slate tile (this is the powder room test).  All the grays here were too cool – so I did another 5-6 colors on the other wall that had more green in them.  In this room we’re using a slate 2×4 that will go 4′ up the window and back wall – and large 12×24 staggered tiles on the floor.

Also got alot of of our items ordered – like this lamp! It the new entry way light – its hard to tell the scale here but its pretty big – and has a great old industrial feel but still clean and minimal.  We researched and researched and researched and also found the right sinks and toilets for the space – the toilets were much harder than I thought it would be due to the size constraints.  We landed on the Toto Rounded Eco Max (photos to come) since it was a finished 26.25.  Once you see them in the space you’ll see why a 27″ or 29″ toilet was out of the question.

Last weekend we headed out to Glendora to see the cabinet maker and check size, etc.   We brought the sinks along just to make sure they would work – and happily everything is on track.  There were only a few minor changes but we are expecting to see the cabinets here on saturday. The above is the cabinet for the upstairs. Its going to have 2 side cupboards each with an adjustable shelf and 3 center drawers.  Coming from a bathroom with zero storage this is an insane luxury!

This is the little powder room cabinet & sink.  The doors are going to be sunken back and its getting 3″ feet added on – but is nearly done.

And this last shot shows stain options….we wanted “aged oak”…something that looked old and beat to hell – so we’re going with the second from the left (with the catalog picture next to it).  Its not too black and not too red. Fingers crossed the whole pieces look good in this stain – really nervous about how they’re going to turn out.

Back at the house, the guys are finishing up running new electrical and laying a new sub floor today.  They promise the tub will be set on Monday – things are moving along nicely!!

We’ve been planning to update the bathrooms from the minute we first saw the house…the permanent brown stains in the toilets (no, that was not us!), the crack in the floor that went across the entire bathroom, the windows that let water pour in, the gas station sinks that barely worked …how could we not want to remodel??!!

Well, it took us a while – thanks to a lack of funds, time, other more interesting projects, we kept putting it off – but in July (after nearly 3 years of enjoying the glorious dysfunction that was our bathrooms) all that changed.  It was thanks to a simple clog.  We called our pal Efrain to snake the drain and YUCK! the whole drain pipe crumbled into fine rust powder.  A quick, ugly PVC patch did the job, but with the wall open we could see just how dire the situation was.  All the old pipes were as soft as macaroni – the slightest pressure would cause the pipes to disintegrate.

Well Happy Day! We’re interrupting your regularly scheduled remodeling to insist you re-pipe your entire house.

That was late July’s big undertaking.  To be fair, it was fast, clean and they did a beautiful job – aside from our foreman getting shot in the arm and showing up in a cast, on pain killers and trying to use a blow torch – it went off without a hitch.

So August finds us with the walls wide open (where the pipe was replaced) and a light bulb goes off (not literally, the electrical in the house isn’t failing…yet) and J and I decide to jump into the remodeling project rather than patch up the old ugly bathrooms.  Great idea, but our little idea took a lot longer than planned.  We researched the hell out of every faucet, tile and fan, haggled and got bids on all the steps, over-planned, under-prepared and basically threw all our free time into getting this pulled together.

More on this later – but we were ready to dive in around thanksgiving, but a bad window pushed things out – and now, FINALLY, things are in full swing.

In the planning stages I kept buying tile examples and “observing” them at different times of the day to see how the light changed the look of them.

I also taped off where the cabinets would go – since its a really old house with very small bathrooms, we had to get everything built custom.

I really liked the old weathered oak cabinets from Restoration Hardware and we kinda mimicked the look for our little cabinets.

As decisions were made or narrowed down, those images also got taped to the wall – a paint color, a light, a drawer pull – the entire bathroom turned into a work space.

This was the first version of tape lines – i think it changed 3-4 times before we finally committed.

Well, after 6 months of trying to kick off our bathroom remodel, its FINALLY underway!! – and trust me there’s no turning back at this point.

I’m going to try and keep up with the changes & progress – while also sharing some of the months of day dreaming and planning that happened before this stage.  (No kidding, I’ve spent over 120 hours looking at toilets.)

How come it took 6 months for us to go from this chaos, um, planning……to this elegant state of destruction?…….well, stick around, I’m going to show ya!

The yard was leveled & a couple of things got put in the dirt….and then……..nothing.  August and September were insanely hot in the backyard (full afternoon LA sun) and frankly I didn’t have the time or energy to get out there every weekend to weed & dig.

On the house front, we did the entire re-pipe (which was awesome) and then left everything open, thinking we’d be right on the remodeling.  nope.  We’ve spent 3 months now with big holes in several walls and no sink in the downstairs bathroom.

Well, thanks to a really bad case of bronchitis (nothing like being stuck at home) i have managed to get the backyard landscaping back on track and also jump start the bathroom remodel.

We’ve got cabinets being built as I type, a new window will be installed on friday, I’ve found a gardener to pick up where I left off (and he’s already put in proper paths and a drip system) and we should be in full swing on the bathrooms within a week or so! I’ll try to stay on top of the photos/blog and share progress.

Here’s a miscellaneous round of stuff from over a week ago.  I took a break from the yard this past weekend – because its been so dang hot here.Avocado in its new home (it looks better in this hole, than I did)Jesse and the newly planted citrus.Another look at the citrus – all dwarves – and on the very end is the apple tree.Mighty wall of Podacarpus – one day.And the slope with the daisy’s in place.  The view from the far corner…….And the yard on the 4th.  We laid out the paths with mulch so people wouldn’t have to kick through all the dusty dirt….it worked okay.And this was Saturday’s fun (or was it sunday?) – Carlos and the guys lowered our BBQ off the deck and down to the lower level.  We built it on the deck – so there was no way to get it back through the house without taking the whole thing apart.And down she comes!And because I’ve neglected posting anything about my tomatoes – here is what the harvest is looking like!  I’ve been pulling in WAY TOO MANY tomatoes nearly every day.  I had tomatoes for lunch and dinner for 2 days straight (can that be a bad thing? I wonder)The over zealous Sun GoldOn the vine – neato.Another day’s pick….And its so hard to do this justice – but this is the small plot of dirt in the front – with 3 cherry tomato plants that have absolutely taken over.  Its like a tomato jungle and i had to hack a path into the back area here to get to all the ripe tomatoes…Another shot…These are the sungolds and the pink ping-pongs.

Long story short

• curve was wrong
• they fixed it
• sand going in next
• the end

The patio with the old (wrong) circumference.And today – with it shortened up.  Here are the guys with the wet saw.The cutting!And the edge almost complete.Ta-da! Apart from the sand the patio is DONE!Check out the piecing.Julio even put in teeny-tiny slivers of paver to make the geometry and cuts work.Snake and Shirley inspecting the patio – Inca was more interested in eating dirt.Shirley showing me her tongue.And the very first thing to be planted in the yard!  These are 2 cuttings off a plant from my Mom’s yard.  We brought them back from SF a few weeks ago. And our little shade garden spot  – the plants are still in their pots (ferns, hostas) – but hoping to get them dug in this weekend.  The big fern is an Australian Tree Fern.  I’ve always loved them from the first time I saw them in Golden Gate Park – where they’re like 18′ tall – so cool looking.The new smooth cement wall.And one last look at the patio.  Happiness.And the planters showed up!  We have to return one because it got totally crumpled by fed-ex – but thats okay, because I grossly underestimated the amount of dirt I needed so I couldn’t plant them all tonight anyway.  Grow bamboo, grow!

So, the electrician showed up on thursday to run everything – so Julio could get moving on the pavers.  We’ve got 3 sockets around the patio – so we can run string lights, a projector, karaoke machine, whatever is needed….The boxes are brown, which blends in a nicely, but i’m going to see if the pipe can be painted a brown to disappear a bit better.  Overall, really happy with the outcome.This is the middle plug – pre-wiring.The outside edge plug – this was a last minute add – but i’m sure it’ll come in handy.  I’m also researching simple solar step lights to put in key places – only problem with the solar options are, many don’t have off/on switches and on cloudy winter days, they just can’t get enough juice to illuminate at night.  We have 2 giant spot lights hanging off the back of the deck, which when on, give off more than enough light – but aren’t very pretty and ambient looking.Showing the height of the pavers in relation to the cement wall – before proceeding.  J has been so fantastic about texting me photos each day when he gets home from work, because he knows how excited (and controlling) I am with the project!Here’s a new J-box (?) for the plugs – all the lines are tucked out of the way, so it shouldn’t interfere with planting.Friday – Julio and his brother laying the first stones once the electrical was all done.And what it looks like at the end of today.  Which is the perfect opportunity to explain why we headed down to gardena in the first place.  Last night when I got home from work I saw the guys had 50% of the pavers installed and had used up all the special sand creating the base so they had dumped regular sand on top and were hosing it into the joints – this is EXACTLY what we didn’t want to see.  We had ordered special polymeric sand that is meant to fix the pavers in place once they’re all in.  You activate it with water but all the pavers have to be set.  I freaked out a bit – J and I talked to Julio – and he said this is the sand you’re supposed to use.  What do I know…?  I had printed out 12 pages of installation guidelines for Julio the day he started that specifically said use should use polymeric sand, I had told him he had to use that type of sand and the guys that sold us the pavers said the same thing. – but I still doubted myself, and rather than insisting then and there, went back upstairs to research if there was in fact a difference.  There was.

Jesse and I found ourselves at Home Depot at 10pm last night looking to buy the right sand but the one in Hollywood didn’t carry it.  We slept on it – but come morning it became a mission….  Jesse talked with Julio, explained the situation and at the end of it, Julio agreed to either blow, suck or blast the existing sand out between the pavers, and we agreed to go buy more special sand for him to finish the job.  Good. Simple. No.

We called so many building suppliers, diy centers, sand & cement wholesalers – and nothing was closer than 50 miles away.  Most places just had Silica sand – but after almost giving up, I found a place only 17 miles away that had bags of the right stuff and were super helpful.  So everything is back on track.Fun part of the scavenger hunt this morning was driving through Compton and spotting one of the 3 giant doughnuts in the area.  I couldn’t get the photo before we drove past, so you just get the side view mirror shot.  And no, taking photos and driving is not the same as texting and driving.Last bit of running around today, involved buying 8 pots of golden goddess bamboo that i’m planting in galvanized 31″ long planters – to create some privacy on the middle deck.  It’s been a pet peeve of mine, that I can be kicking back on the deck in my pj’s having a cup of coffee and see the neighbors walk in their front door…..soon, no longer.  Heck, i might not even need pjs anymore (kidding)