snow day

So the title is a little misleading... this post is not about snow even though it is snowing outside. Just thought I'd show off the extent of our Christmas decorating this year:

Yes, that's all.

Here are a couple of photos showing the bathroom's current state:

We actually don't have swine bathing in our tub. That's grout, joint compound, plaster dust - all kinds of icky stuff that's fallen in there during the work. I haven't scrubbed it yet because it's not finished being filthy yet.

The tiles still have haze on them from grouting here - this was just after the grout was finished. We're showing you the current status of the bathroom. It's sort of like reality TV except here you actually get to see reality. The walls need more skimcoat, the baseboards and trim need patching and painting, the overhead lights are not in yet because we need to paint the ceiling first (and can't decide on a paint color.) Reality.

This is our new soap dish embedded in the wall:

It was designed by my Father and Fernando and the nice people at the place where we bought the wall tile (Monumental Marble) made it for us. It's carrara marble and was cut to mimic the shape of the tub. On top, there are two small indentations for soap. It's quite heavy and partially sits on a beam about 2" inside of the wall for stability. If we are lucky, it will never fall out. ;)

Happy snow day!

It is official.

I neglect my blog. I could blame the holidays but I'm going to blame the house. The house is eating into my blogging time but I blog about the house. It's an endless cycle.
Here's the latest photo of our subbasement (sub-basement, sub basement?)

It's currently moonlighting as a wading pool. We must have a crack somewhere down there and that last rainstorm flooded the little room. Fernando tried to bucket it out but gave up after about bucket number 25. I hope it doesn't freeze. It's not a huge deal because we can't really use that room (formerly a coal chute) at the moment for anything. It doesn't have electricity and usually holds the day job of spider farm. It's just another project to get too - hopefully before it freezes and more cracks develop.

Our floors and stairs are finished!

I do love them. The finish is not glossy and just like I expected a satin finish to be, even though it's semi-gloss. This photo was taken at night and the flash penetrated the layers of poly, showing it to be more brown than black. It does read black when you see it in person. I can't wait to paint those baseboards and am actually looking forward to a little time off to get to paintin'.
As for the bedroom paint color - I think the swatch was lost in the clean-up. I know I should remember the name but we debated over two, the other being BM's "Calm" and this other color won. I need to have more mixed for the baseboards so I'll ask the name of the color when I get to the store.
We've also had some exciting (for me) things delivered - more on that later. I promise to add more photos of the refinished floor, painted bedrooms, and yes the forgotten upstairs BATHROOM hopefully soon...

get to fixin' on NY1

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Check it out - that's our house!

We can't go inside.

We have been patiently waiting. The first two coats of poly are down. It shouldn't be this shiny in the end - they first use high gloss poly for a harder surface and then they will finish with either satin or semi-gloss. This is what it all looks like from the front door:

Really makes the unpainted stuff look super crappy huh? I was feeling like this was one of the final steps - but IT'S NEVER GOING TO BE OVER. I keep thinking of all of the things that we still have to do but we can't do anything until the floors dry. Not being able to do anything is making my head want to explode.
Why didn't I take the yard tools out of the basement before they started to put the stain down? And what will we find growing in that coffee cup on the windowsill?