It's Quiet Around Here

This will be the final time you will be reading about the bathroom remodel because we are done! It was on January 22 that I wrote this post that finalized our decision to keep the tub in spite of others imploring us to ditch it.  We are glad we did now that it is looking brand new instead of 35 years old of wear. Now we have at least one tub in the house and to our eyes, it looks just fine. More than fine, really. 

It must be stated that without the work Bruce did, which was more considerable than you might think, the project would never have come to life nearly as quickly. Before I go into the process of having the tub painted, here's a last look as Bruce is preparing to apply the lower window privacy film.

That color is no more and dare I say, you will hardly recognize it? 

After a crazy busy week it is completely quiet in the Peck home, as Bruce is playing pickleball with the gang, while I am sitting at my desk. And you thought my elbow was better, didn't you? Mostly it is, but like a complete dummy, I agreed to have two basal cell moles removed from my back on Wednesday. It should be noted that I played pickleball the night before with the very dermatologist that did the dirty work. The office called Tuesday afternoon with the results and asked if I could come in the morning, say 8:30 or 9? Yes was the answer I gave and oh how I wish I could take it back! As most of you know this type of skin cancer is not fatal, nor will it ever be. What was I thinking??? Walking into the set up room, the sight of five needles lined up gave me a moment of pause.

Wait, that's six! After those were done, it was a piece of cake, although later in the day it was not so much. The following morning Bruce changed the bandaging and OH MY GOSH did it hurt when he took them off.

My poor skin! 

Upon seeing it, Bruce said oh my! as well,  because he was surprised that the top incision was two inches long, thus the admonition from the doctor that I not play pickleball for TWO WEEKS if I cared how it healed. Thus I sit at home while Bruce has fun playing. The last time I went through this, documented here on election day 2016, it became infected and took forever to heal. I will do my best to heed her advice and be careful this time.

With that out of the way, let's get to that bathtub, shall we? We used a company called,  Bathtub Guys that I found online, much as we might have done years ago with the Yellow Pages. Remember them? From my first call I was impressed with not only how they answered all of my questions, they actually answered the phone! Another "remember when" moment when people did that sort of thing. Alex arrived promptly at 9:30 as he promised, immediately going to work with sanding and cleaning the tub, the first step.

He claimed that it was actually refreshing to find a tub in such good shape telling us that many folks have chipped and cracked tubs that need considerable prep work. He covered the floor in the bedroom for his exhaust fan thing,

that he then ran it out into the back yard.

This was after he had covered the room with paper or plastic.

Here's the actual equipment for painting.

It is here that I will pause for a moment to mention that not only was Alex here, but a plumber from Harvey Baker was as well. Are you kidding? 

No, I am not. Lately Bruce noticed a change in our amount of hot water, thus he called them and wouldn't you know it, they came at the same time. Emptying part of my side of the closet to give the plumber access, while that orange thing was heading out the back door, another hose was as well in order to drain the water heater. What exactly am I saying? I'm saying that we have a small water heater, located on a shelf in the closet above my clothes. Now you can picture it better. Well, it turns out that there is excessive amounts of sediment in the tank necessitating a new one which will happen on the 25th. Good timing, right? 

At any rate, our bedroom was a beehive of activity as I sat at the computer amongst the chaos, doing our taxes while Alex donned his protective head gear and went to work. From the time he arrived until he left was about three hours in case you are wondering.

He warned us that the fumes were strong and he was not kidding, but due to having a new handy dandy, extremely quiet exhaust fan in the bathroom, the odor was gone in about a day. 

While I was at the dermatologist, Herbert came by to put on the tub handles and by golly we were nearly done. Seriously, it is shocking how the tub looks now. A word about the tub handles, or maybe a cautionary tale for anyone doing something like this, turns out that one of them barely fit, something I never gave any thought to when making my choice. Previously there were round knob like handles and as pictured below the new ones are anything but round. Although the handles proved to be nearly too long to use, there was just barely enough space.  

A few folks have seen it in person and tell me the pictures do not do it justice, so you will have to take their word for it. I have to admit that I keep looking at it in different light because it is so exciting after having a vanilla bathroom for the last few years.

Back to Bruce....what a husband! After installing the window film, he cleaned the outside of the bathroom window as well as the one for our bedroom. I can see clearly now!

The final piece came yesterday afternoon in the form of glass shelves. Okay, let's go! Or should I say, let me watch while Bruce does the work? 

For the life of me I cannot recall how I ended up with glass shelves, having looked at other materials all along. Walnut, white, black, gold? All were given consideration, however, somehow I came across this company, Dulles Glass and Mirrors, and now that they have arrived and are installed, I can give them a high recommendation for both quick delivery, an excellent product, as well as superior packing. I scoured the house looking for display objects and there are many memories tied up in a bunch of this stuff. The drawing was done by Alissa, the box came from my long lost cousin Joelle, the black vase came from Bruce's mom, and the Baccarat owl was gift from David and Michelle. Perhaps some tweaking will come to this space, but for now I am happy. And oh my, those shelves are nice. Obligatory magnifying mirror for old eyes notwithstanding. Function before form is my motto.

Well, there you go. A bathroom remodel for about half what most folks spend. Then again, most folks don't have a Bruce in their family but still...we love doing this sort of thing, so it is not really work to either of us; Bruce with a tool in his hand, and me either shopping in person, or online. It is what we do.

Gayle came by the other day and asked "now what can you remodel?" 

Indeed.

your friend,

Gail

Thank God it is Election Day!

Win or lose, I am sure we can all agree on how happy we are the never ending election cycle is over!

What, pray tell, have I been up to? I bet you can answer that question without much thought, right? I have been learning how to make some new things which will remain unphotographed because they might be Christmas gifts! Oh yeah, another thing that goes on forever. Earlier and earlier each year we see Christmas goodies in the stores. At least I do. One thing I did learn though is that craft stores put out Christmas stuff early so crafters can buy what they need. Now you know too.

It was kind of a strange weekend for us on two fronts. Friday night Cheryle asked me to man her studio at FAVO while she was vacationing. How could I say no? It was a heck of a lot easier to do her space than it used to be mine because everything was already neatly hung and did not have to be packed up when it was over at 9PM.

FAVO has greatly expanded since I left in loads of ways, not the least of which is the studio doors are painted very fun colors. Then too, there is air conditioning!!

As the sun was setting (see above sun flare in the photo), I was hoping the crowds would increase and they did. Sort of. Irene came to keep me company for a while which was very nice indeed.

As you can see when folks were not there, I was sewing on some quilt binding. I got a lot of it done. Then too, there were two entertainment acts, one of which were some 16 year old identical twins singers. Covers, of course. I had quite a chat with their respective boyfriends who both went to Full Sail, the same place Bill pleaded with me to attend. Not on your life Mr. Bill--way too expensive!

You may have noticed the wood looking floor in Cheryle's space and my, what a change from the space I occupied and wrote about here! I can hardly believe I stayed for over a year without air conditioning! What I wouldn't do, back in the day. 😲

The artists are better as well. I mean no offense, but once you actually have to start paying for a space, which I did not, you have to be reasonably successful, as it appears some of the new artists are.

Plus, you can now serve wine, which is huge! I'm hoping as the years go by, it continues to grow, because I still very much believe in the concept of an motel being converted into artists's studios.

I'd convinced Bruce to stay home because I knew he would be bored, and he did, staying up until I got home. The bad thing about that idea was that he was leaving at 7 in the morning to join the men's group on a trip to Camp Boggy Creek where they were going to replace something like 200 feet of wooden decking. This was a huge step for Bruce because we are still making our way into the church family. Needless to say I was very proud of him for going. They spent the night in the cabins, learning about each other, and the mission of the camp. Are you familiar with it? I was not. Started by Paul Newman, it is a camp for children with debilitating, or life threatening diseases. The link above tells you more, should you be interested, but after listening to Bruce, and reading the website, it sounds really, really special. While he was working very hard, I was at home sewing away, learning something new from one of the many fantastic people that write sewing blog tutorials, unlike this here blog that is merely for....well, what the heck is it for?

The church service was once again held at Rollins College. Called Founder's Day, the place was packed with not only church members, but it was parent's weekend too! The entire Rollins choir and orchestra performed, and they were absolutely wonderful!

I nearly had to turn around and go home because there was absolutely no place to park! Then, I saw a woman park in what was clearly marked "no parking," and I got the nerve to do the same. We walked into church together, and she turned out to be a delightful person. Only thing is, when we returned to our cars we had parking tickets for $110!!! Yeesh! That afternoon I wrote a respectfully pleading email to the security department, and I am delighted to report they voided the ticket!!

There are two things I've been meaning to write about how much I like this church. One happened earlier this year, and I'm still in shock over it. When VBS rolled around they asked for monetary donations to help with the food costs. So, I wrote a check. Well, hot dog if within about three weeks I received a thank you note from the director. Can you imagine? Over the years we have given gobs of money to various churches and this is the FIRST time ever someone thanked us. That goes a long way in fostering good will, don't you think? Secondly, two weeks ago, about three quarters of the way through the service, a man came in through the open sanctuary doors, screaming and hollering with his hands held high. Pastor Shawn called out to him to come forward, however he just kept shouting. You can imagine the ill ease most folks felt. Well, one of the male parishioners got up from his seat, walked right up to him, and hugged him tight, all the while speaking soothing words. Then Shawn came down from the front, and did likewise. Eventually the convinced him to leave the sanctuary peacefully. It was really something to behold.

My rash is finally disappearing, but one thing I did not tell you is that while he was examining my back, Dr. P. saw a mole he thought was not looking too good. So, this morning, this happened.

Amazingly enough, I was able to get in to see Dr. Chambers within days. She is an old "colleague" that I cannot recommend highly enough should you ever need surgery. The first thing she said when she saw me was, "where are you working now?" I laughed, telling her I was a complete gad about these days. On the phone the scheduler said she would need to do a consultation first, but here's an example of it is not what you know, but who you know. She excised the offending mole, which we both think is squamous cell skin cancer, and at the same time she scraped away a mole that was just plain ugly. I told you if it wasn't one thing, it was another this year! So, I await biopsy results, and lab results, both of which I'm not too concerned about.

Which brings us to election day. I've completely avoided any political discussion in this space, and I will continue that trend, except to say, if history is our guide, we will survive whatever the results are. Keep the faith my friends!

This too shall pass,

Gail