A Quick Change

Presto change-o, Alakabosset,

Change this faucet...

Into THIS faucet!

Do you likey?

Me likey.

Much prettier. And for $10, well worth having a redundant faucet in the garden shed. I plan to use it in the bunky when the time comes, so it's not entirely going to waste.

The best part about switching out the faucet in the bathroom? NO POO HOLE STINK.

That's right, folks. As of the time the faucet was swapped, our stink woes appear to be.... (wait for it)... behind us.

*snigger snigger*

Finishing touches in the loo...

I have some finishing touches in the loo to show you!

Not actually IN the loo. That'd be icky and something I'd rather not touch, let alone finish touching.

BUT, I have added some krippitycrap™ to finish the room off a bit.

First, a bit of artwork you might recall from Wayyyyyyy back when I first bought them - the seashell prints.

And, I had a shelf that Dad built for me many years ago that was intended to house my collection of Matrioshka dolls, but now there are too many to fit. I painted it grey to match the bench/vanity doors, and it fits perfectly on the wall behind the toilet.

I kinda like it!

Doesn't it all look nice?

Vanity!

Handy Dad is awesome.

If I haven't mentioned it before, let me unequivocally state for the record: He. Is. Awesome.

He recently built some fabulous cabinet doors for the custom vanity we built in the bathroom.


They arrived at the Lodge unpainted, so Mum took a roller and brush to them first. Please note: you cannot see her "painting" shorts. I was threatened with great harm if I showed a photo of her painting shorts.

After the paint dried, Dad took them back to the bathroom to dry fit them in place, to get an idea which style of hinges he ought to use, etc.


Uh Oh. Glitch! The doors fit the space perfectly. Per. Fect. Ly. So well, in fact, that there's no room for hinges. Dangit.

The doors had a date with the skilsaw to trim 1/4" off the sides of two of the doors, which Dad then sanded and filed to make them match the routered edges elsewhere on the doors.

Then, the unfinished edges got a coat of paint. It was pouring rain out so I couldn't use the usual paint station on the porch. I had to improvise a little to prop up the wet edges with whatever was handy. That turned out to be a couple of limes from the fruit bowl beside me. What can I say!? I'm lazy and didn't want to look harder.

The limes didn't seem to mind.

Trimmed and painted, the doors returned to the bathroom to be installed. Dad fiddled and fiddled and fiddled to get them JUST RIGHT. Making cabinet doors appear to be installed straight when the cabinet itself is woopsy is no mean feat.

 

But in the end, it's perfect.

 

Bathroom ceiling!

We finally installed the ceiling tiles in the bathroom! Calloo! Callay! No more staring up at roof trusses, pink insulation, and the odd (very odd) wasps nest.

In retrospect, staples were totally the way to go. I was initially deterred after I saw how badly the staples worked on the ceiling in the Slanty bunky (which was caving in). But I suspect they used an over-powered air stapler, rather than a less forceful manual. The forceful ones blow the staples clear through the brittle tiles.

Anywho. Since we had already installed the furring strips, mapped out our grid, and determined cut measurements the previous weekend (when we realized installing the tiles with adhesive was simply not going to work), it was a quick start to the installation.

Kachunk

Kachunk

Kachunk

Kachunk.

Up the tiles went.

There were some weird cuts that needed to be made to accommodate the sundry corners in the room, but on the whole I'm very pleased with the simplicity and cleanliness of the finished product.

Hooray!

Retail therapy

Because today is April fools, I'm bringing a retail therapy post to you today. (OK. This has nothing to do with April fools. I just had to work that in somehow. Poorly.)

I went out shopping last night (aaaaaaaah) and found some cute treasures to put in the cottage. I really needed to get out of the house and away from my computer. It's been a nutty mental couple of weeks at work. Let us never speak of it again. On to the finds!

Here's what I found:

Some beachy feeling canvas-stretched prints. Ya, they were $10 ea. for 8"x8" prints, but I couldn't make them for less, and I thought the colours/subject were a good match. I'm thinking of putting them in the bathroom. They're shown with the fabric from the shower curtain to give you an idea. I like the pinkish-red in them too. It gives me a tie-in to include some cherry red accents (very few) in the bathroom for pops of fun colour. I was waffling between apple green or cherry red, and this settles it.  Oh, and I love the cast metal starfish. I actually bought three. At least one is going into my bedroom.

Next, I couldn't pass this little guy up. I have a weakness for pears. Most rooms in my house have a pear somewhere. I felt the cottage shouldn't be an exception. I don't know yet where I'll put him though. TBD. At $3.50 and about 4" tall he was too cute to pass up.

That's it for my treasures.

Making stuff

It's Family day, and as usual, I spent much of it with my family; the dance studio family. The princess had another marathon rehearsal session in preparation for their Showcase on March 3.

When we got home, she was very (VERY) crabby. I had two choices:
A. Lose my mind.
B. Hide.

I opted for plan B. I took off to my craft crap room, closed the door, and started measuring, cutting, pinning, pressing, and sewing the shower curtain for the cottage. The sewing is always the easy part. It's everything else that you have to do before you can sew that's tedious and slow.

It probably took me 3 hours to finish this, including a pit-stop for dinner and a break for some bedtime kisses. I've hung it in my bathroom at home so you can get a feel for how it will look. When I actually get it hung in the cottage, I'll be sure to take another photo to share.  (for now, click on it for a close up.) If you're thinking about making a curtain of your own, I discovered that a typical shower curtain is 6' in length (finished dimensions) and has 12 holes for curtain rings. Widths will vary depending on the size of your shower opening.

It's a good thing we installed a light in the shower. This curtain is  weighty and the shower would be cave-like without a light!

---

On an unrelated note, I've had a bee in my bonnet lately about jewellery. I was recently invited to a jewellery home party.  I've spent a lot of time perusing the company's website. (The party has been post-poned until March so I have nothing better to do). They have such nice jewellery but holy smokes some of it is pricey! Of course, I took one look at some of it and said...

"$40!? I could MAKE that!"

And, so... I did. The name of the company in question looks very similar to:

$+e||a and |)o+

if you feel like googling, but since I don't want to be sued for copyright infringement, that's all I'm going to say. Forgive me.

Here are their versions:

Bracelet 1

Bracelet 2 (these look so nice stacked together).

And here are my versions, made with supplies found at Michael's. (Forgive the franken-arm. I'm no hand model.) Their bracelets were $40 ea. Mine cost me about $5 ea.. And, I branched out and extended the theme and added a shell version. And then I made some earrings to match. Whee, I was having such fun! Who knew that bead-loom I had when I was 7 would prove to be so useful?!

Thank heavens Michael's was having a crazy sale this week: bead strands were 2/$8, and then I had a "25% off your whole purchase" coupon.

I. Cleaned. Up.

I also really liked this bracelet from their site, but try as I might, I couldn't find the wooden beads or sparkly gold round ones at the craft store. Again, this is about $35.

So I deviated a little. I found some silver round beads, then set about to find bead-friends that would complement them. I'm pretty pleased with the results, even though they bear little-to-no resemblance to the originals. I guess it just goes to show you can find inspiration almost anywhere. Each bracelet cost about $5.

And then, because I already had the elastic cord, I made a few more bracelets in this vein. Like these ones. I can't wait to wear these in summer. The beads remind me of water. How cute are the earrings?!

And these ones, again with coordinating earrings. It's hard to tell in the photo, but the beads are a  translucent fuchsia/purple colour.

And this set. I've had these beads for a couple of years now, always intending to make some jewellery out of them, but never got around to it until now. I'm not loving these earrings though. I might need to head back to the drawing board with these.

I can't tell you how good it felt to be creating something again. I definitely need productive, creative outlets or I wither.

Thanks for perusing my handicrafts!

(p.s. POTD is on hold because I've had a craptacular week, got fed up with the daily demand of lugging my camera around and uploading photos, and decided it wasn't feeling fun anymore. I'll still take pictures and upload semi-regularly, perhaps just not daily. There are only so many photos of hockey practice and dance that I can upload before you'll start to claw your eyes out.)

Baskets

I finally found some baskets that were the correct dimensions for the shelf I built for the cottage bathroom. Remember? It has little cubbies underneath:

I had hoped to find rectangular wicker baskets, but the cubbies are 6" x 11 5/8" for no particular reason other than that's the shape they ended up being after I made my arbitrary bench measurements and cuts.

That's a pain in the butt shape, let me tell you. Most baskets are a solid 12" wide. Arg. Had I known when I was cutting, I would've allowed for that extra little bit.

Eventually I found these at Michaels, 40% off:

They're not bad!

I'm not super crazy about the angled sides, and I think they might be a little short, but they're not bad. We'll have to see how they look when I slide them into the bench.

I'm not even sure what I'll keep in them yet. I just know I like to have lots of places to store stuff.

$10 of stupid?

We went to the Despot yesterday to buy clear storage bins to house all of our Christmas crap. Early in December I had started to develop a nervous tick rummaging through countless cardboard boxes trying to find certain decorations.

Clear boxes = I can see all my junk.

This is one of the reasons my desk and craft room are always a disaster; when something is out in the open, I know exactly where it is. Hide it away in a cupboard or box and I either forget that I own it, or simply can't find it. * There's a fine line that I tread between organized chaos and impenetrable disaster.

Where was I? Oh right. Home Depot.

So we were out shopping for boxes. We didn't buy any because they were flimsy junk. BUT, while trolling the aisles, I spotted a lovely faucet for the cottage bathroom! AND IT WAS ONLY $10!!

Captain: But we already bought a faucet.
Me: I know, but this one is way nicer and it's only $10.
Captain: But the other one is perfectly good.
Me: And perfectly ugly. This one is nice and it's only $10. We can use the ugly one when we put a bar sink into Peaky.
Captain: We're putting a bar sink into Peaky!? Why can't we just use the old old one that was originally in the bathroom for that?
Me: [Look of death] Are you kidding me? Listen. You're just going to have to trust me, o.k. And besides, it's only $10.
Captain: OK, but you're installing it.
Me: [inside: "Yay!!"]. Sure, no problem.
Captain: And what if it doesn't work?!
Me: Then I'll ask my Daddy to help me fix it, because he loves me.

So, for good or for ill, we bought another bathroom faucet. And it was only $10!!
(Yay!!)


*that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

UPDATE: Boxes were purchased from Crappy Tire, 50% off! (nice sturdy rubbermaid ones, too). I also bought yards and yards of Christmas gift wrap.

Vanity, part III: the vanity strikes back

While the captain was losing his mind trying to bore a hole into a shower tile, I decided to be productive and get a bit more trim installed in the bathroom.

Here's the half-wall by the sink:

I put the trim around the cap at the top of the wall and filled the crevices with my secret weapon (ALEX caulk). It's ready now for a coat of white paint.

I also installed the trim along the floor in front of the vanity. As always, it's good from far, but far from good. At least it looks better than exposed 2x4s.

I put some trim around the door frames, too.

I did manage to get grout on a few tiles this weekend and ran some silicone caulk to seal it up.
(thanks to Nicole the cat herder for her donated grout. I think we used a whole tablespoonful. I'm very pleased I didn't have to buy a whole box for that.)

I still need to put some trim on the walls surrounding the toity, and around the window. That one will require some creativity as the window casing isn't flush with the wall.

Another project for next year.

Water closet

Because I promised no more posts about the bathroom... this is a post about our water closet.

*ahem*

When you were updated last, we had started the shower tiling and were about 1/3 of the way done the walls. This weekend we pushed through and finished the walls.

Day one had us starting the top half of the third wall, where all the knobs and spigots live. The captain managed to successfully bore a hole into a tile using our little tile boring bit. Boring tile bit. Bit boring tile.

He made a hole where the shower head will attach.

Then we started the lower tiles on the previously tiled walls, after which it looked something like this. Oddly, following the recommendation of The Book, the tiles are all suspended using masking tape. This works quite well. We used up quite a bit of tape, though.

Fast forward a day, once these walls have set, and we started work on the lower half of the final wall. What an exercise in frustration that one was. The captain started cutting the holes for the taps around 10 a.m.

By 1 p.m., he had partially cut a hole through a tile before he killed all battery-powered drills in the facility. He ended up mooching a corded drill from a neighbour. We are going to branded such terrible mooches on this island. MOOCHES.

And then.... distaster.

He said things like "Oh my goodness gracious, would you look at that!" and "Fiddle dee dee, that's disappointing."*

*No. Not really.

And then he got another tile.

It cracked at 3:30. I know this because a primal wail erupted outside the cottage and the red-headed kid turned to me and said, "I think dad broke another tile".

Awash in frustration, we decided the next-best plan would be to cut the tiles lengthwise with the tile cutter, bisecting the location of the hole, and use the tile nippers to notch out each half of the cut to form a circle. It wouldn't look as nice when all was said and done, but at this point we were out of options. The captain had completely given up and left me to the job of making holes in the tiles. I still have blisters on my left hand from the danged nippers.

So... full steam ahead, if a day behind schedule. We got the tiles on the bottom half of the wall after Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. Again, they were held in place with tape. I think the mortar this time was a bit runnier than on previous walls because the tape attaching the first row of tiles to the top half of the wall kept getting pulled loose, and the tiles would start a slow descent to the bottom of the shower.

After repairing the world's slowest landslide several times, we gave up and used a lot more tape. A ridiculous amount of tape. But at least the tiles weren't shifting anymore.

With the wall tiles staying put, we started on the shower floor. I thought this would be a snap: smaller tiles would be easy to cut in the tile cutter, and the 12x12 sheets of tiles would make laying them fast.

This was only partly true. The tile cutter didn't work worth beans again, so we had to resort to cutting them all down to size with the tile nippers.

Here's an idea of how much cutting the captain got to do. These are the off-cut ceramic shards.

Had I known about this beforehand, I definitely would've spent the $50 for a wet saw. It's making me a little choked up knowing how much grief we endured because of those stupid tiles. Learn from me! Stick with the cheap little 4x4 or 3x6 tiles: they're WAY easier to cut and apply.

OK. So back to the floor. Things were going swimmingly with the first row of tiles, however once the floor started to slope because of the pitch we had engineered into it to allow the water to drain, things got gummy. The spacing of the tile sheets wasn't lining up, and we ended up having to cut apart the sheets and lay the tiles individually for almost half the shower. *sigh*. By this point it was well past midnight.

And we still needed to work on the curb. Here's the curb with the tiles set on it. I'm not super happy with how it turned out. I think it would've been better with a marble plate across the top, but that would've cost some big bucks. It's not perfect, but it will do. By the time this was wrapped up and we cleaned up the bathroom, it was 3 a.m. Yes, there's a 3 o'clock that happens in the morning. I was not pleased to become acquainted with it.

Because Monday was dedicated to packing up and closing the cottage, we weren't able to apply the grout as I had hoped. This makes me sad.

Here's the shower as we left it on Monday. It's not pretty. I'm hoping some like-coloured grout will make the slight irregularities in tile placement recede. (Isn't that a pleasant way of saying "hide my mistakes"?)

It's frustrating to be this close to finished and have to walk away from it for six months.

Arg.