Christmas 2015

I so enjoy decorating this year!  In sticking with tradition, we got our tree from the front yard again. Tom had planted starts many years ago and they are great Charlie Brown trees now! (I might encourage him to shape them a bit in the summer.)

This may still be 'Charlie Brown'-ish, but at least we can reach the top this year. 

And I even bought my first fake tree for the front window.

Guest bathroom Sheetrock repair

While I can honestly say that I've installed Sheetrock, I don't think I will add that particular skill to my résumé..

Steve the Taper will be coming by this weekend to fix this mess.

Guest bathroom - progress update #2.

Toilet, vanity, door, door HANDLE, and tp holder are all installed. Tom still needs to do the plumbing for the sink, but it is a very cute little bathroom so far!

Guest bath in progress

The tile is set. I decided there wasn't enough pressure so I re-painted the walls, too. Grecian Ivory. It's a lovely shade of 'greige'. :)

Waiting for Tom to put up the last 2 pieces of rock in the former shower stall.

I hope this new wall color works with the countertop:

Guest bathroom tile

So who just tiled her guest bathroom all by herself??  Yep, this girl did! I spent more time procrastinating the start than I did laying the tile. Sheesh..

Now that the layout is decided, I mixed up a tiny little bit of thin-set to start with. Make sure I really want to commit to this. :)

And.... GO!

Everything was going so well until I realized the door was in the way of finishing the last 2 tiles. 

Tom popped home for a few mins and removed the door (even though I totally could have done it myself). :-)

And I got the last tiles laid. Ta-da!

Feeling a wee bit proud of myself. Now to let the thin-set cure and hopefully, I can grout tomorrow!

Guest bathroom

True to form, we have put off doing the guest bath until the last minute. Meaning we will be hosting a homecoming 'after-party' this weekend and would like to have the guest bath done so we they don't have to use the master bath or go upstairs. To be fair, we had planned on putting a custom shower in there but, after much consideration, we have decided to nix the shower. The plumbing is in the wall if we change our mind later. 

Now to get the tile down so the mortar can cure and I can grout before the weekend.

With a little fiddling, I can get the floor done without having to rip any tiles!

I know, I know... Stop yapping ang get back to work... :-)

And there was light...

And it was good. My craft room now has more than 'mood lighting'. This makes me ridiculously happy.

The full effect can't be appreciated until this evening, but all the crafters out there can appreciate how wonderful it is to have good lighting in your workspace. I went with Philips 'natural light' bulbs.

Can't wait for club next month!

Molding. Slowly but surely..

I got a little motivated today. Trying to finish some of the many, many unfinished projects around here. There are a lot of things I don't know how to do, but I can do molding. 

Master bath:

Still not 'finished', but as much as I can do until we tile the bathtub.

Summer heat

Tom teaching Hailey a little about pool maintenance..

And a harsh reminder that the outside of the windows have to be cleaned also...

Re-paint

I knew they would get tired of the polka dots but I was a *little* surprised that it was only a matter of months. Hailey was the first to take the plunge starting with this wall:

Then the rest will be: gray. solid gray.

The fish and the fireplace

Sounds like an interesting tall tale, doesn't it? I'm sure Tom could spin a wonderful yarn about that over a couple glasses of whiskey but, alas, the truth is much less exciting. I hung Tom's fish over the fireplace. :-)

As much as I hate to admit it, it looks pretty good right there.

Craft room bath decor started

I picked up this cute little wall sconce at the Sorticulture event this year. And I found the pussywillow decals in a box in the shop. (Surprise, surprise...)

So Hailey and I went to craft mart and got some silk flowers and greenery. Now that it's all together, I'm not sure I like the flower color with the iris color. No, I definitely don't. :-(

Gone, baby, GONE!

After many issues and delays, the mobile is finally moved to its new home where it will be appreciated and completely overhauled.

That little robo-cat is pretty cool.

We were sad that we had to cut down a large flowering plum tree from in front of the shop to get the mobile out.

Making sure it doesn't bottom out at the end of the driveway. They did break off some plumbing pipes..

And now we will bring in some gravel and have ample parking for the house warming party!

Craftroom storage - AFTER

Still have more work to do, but this is good progress...

Ready for class!