In The Dog House

Yesterday afternoon Daniel went by the Home Depot Design Center to see if there were any good deals as it is closing and everything is supposedly on sale.

While there he found the shower door that we have been planning to buy for 15% off. He called me to make sure we wanted to go ahead and buy it and then proceeded with the purchase. This took a little while since the cashier had to look it up in the computer and confirm that it was in stock. During this time, something along the lines of the following discussion occurred between Daniel and the cashier (as it was relayed to me later).

Cashier: What day would you like to pick this up?

Daniel: Tomorrow.

Cashier (as keys in the date): Hmm... February 14th. Valentine's Day. Are you sure about that?

Daniel: Absolutely. She'll be thrilled. There's nothing she'd like more.

Cashier (with a smile): Well, okay then.....

(Insert long pause here)

Daniel (only half way joking): So if your significant other brought you home a shower door for Valentine's day, you wouldn't be thrilled?

Cashier (laughing): Um no. You have GOT to buy her something besides a shower door.

Daniel: Why? How bad is it to buy a shower door for Valentines? Does that fall into the same category as getting her a toaster?

Cashier: Worse. Much worse. A toaster could be kind of cool. Bringing home a shower door is more like bringing home a vacuum cleaner. Actually, it may be even worse than a vacuum cleaner for Valentine's day, if that is even possible.

Daniel (smiling at this point): So I'm hearing then that tomorrow while I'm out running errands picking this up I should stop and pick up something else for Valentine's day in addition to the expensive shower door that she wants?

Cashier(still trying to figure out if Daniel is joking or serious): At least buy her flowers and a card.

Daniel: Oh. Gotcha.

What the cashier does not understand, and that Daniel did not waste time explaining, is that we don't really participate in the commercialism of Valentine's Day (or any other holiday for that matter). Granted, he did surprise me with dinner of 131 Main last night. But we do not generally buy cards, flowers or gifts and we are fine with that. Also finishing our house is an extremely HUGE present that we have been working on giving ourselves for the past 3 years and it is almost done. The shower door actually contributes to this and we managed to get it on sale... so even though the cashier at the Hope Depot thinks Daniel will be in the dog house today, I can assure you he isn't.

Tiling in Wintertime

For some reason our major tiling projects have fallen during the coldest times in the year. Not that Charlotte is a very cold place, it just seems to be extra cold when we tackle a tiling project.

Two years ago, right before Thanksgiving, we tiled our kitchen. Tiling when it is cold outside is actually a plus because while you are working inside you aren't sweating profusely. However the clean up is a real pain, especially because it is normally late in the day and you are dead tired and having to clean tools outside in frigid temps with little light (thank goodness for headlamps).

So here we are, the first day in 2009 and we are tiling our master bathroom. Today feels like one of the coldest days we have had this winter. This morning the water in the hose was frozen and we had to mix thin set in our bathroom. Then tonight, after ten hours of working, we found ourselves outside cleaning tools and hoping we wouldn't get frost bite or pneumonia.

The good news is that we have made really good progress on our bathroom project. The bad news is we still have a lot of work to do.

When we tiled our kitchen I remember that we had the discussion that tiling must be similar to giving birth... the process is extremely hard on your body (painful) but when you finish and get to enjoy the final result, you forget all of the pain you endured.

As soon as the bathroom is complete, I will post more pics... it will probably be a while though.

 

Shower progress so far...

Remodelling...

Well, we are back at it. Sort of. We are finally starting to make some progress on the master bathroom. I think the last time that we worked on it was when my parents were here in August.

This weekend the goal is to get the backer board installed in the shower and the cement for the custom shower tub poured (with the drain installed).

If all goes well this weekend, next weekend we will install the liner that will go over the concrete. Then we have a weekend off to take a gun safety class (this is Daniel's idea)... Then the following weekend I will be in Chicago... And then maybe the last weekend in April we will actually have the bathroom tiled...

Generally things RARELY turn out as planned, but that is the tentative schedule for the master bathroom renovation. I am ready for it to be done already. We will see if we are able to stick to this schedule or not.