Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Strange Happenings. Part 2.

Hooray for the comment link working again! A couple people have said that although they hadn’t been able to comment for many months, now they’re able to do so again. Whatever glitch we had seems to be unglitchified. (And if that wasn’t a word before, it is now.)

Your guesses as to the strange happenings around here have been quite entertaining and so much fun to read.

Basically they can be summed up by the following three categories:

We’re going from a one-sink bathroom to a two-sink bathroom.
The mirror was too big to get out of the room so we had to break it.
Steve broke the mirror in order to make a mirror mosaic.

You know, I never would have even thought about the whole “making a mirror mosaic” angle; that was an especially interesting concept to contemplate. Unfortunately though, the mosaic angle is not correct and neither is the one-sink bathroom to a two-sink bathroom guess.

However, breaking the mirror in order to remove it? That is the Right Answer! (Ding, ding, ding!)

Steve and a friend of ours had taken down the large mirror from the master bath with the intent of carrying it downstairs and then off to the recycling center. (The orange screwdriver is not a normal part of our decor. However, the overflowing wastebasket and stuff all over the counter is.)

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However, once they got halfway down the stairs, they (and the mirror) got stuck. No matter what they did, no matter how they turned and twisted that mirror, it would not clear the ceiling of the stairwell. (Steve thinks that when the mirror was first brought into the house, it had to have been brought through a window since the stairwell in this house is decidedly unfriendly toward moving large items in and out-- as this old post will illustrate.)

And so my handsome, hardy and handily resourceful husband deduced that if he brought a large paint tarp up to the bedroom, laid the mirror on it (to contain the shards of glass) and then hit the mirror with a hammer, the pieces could be gathered up and put in a large trash receptacle and carried downstairs that way.

And it worked! Hooray for hammers! And husbands!

Unfortunately, we haven’t yet made it to the recycling place and the container full of glass shards is in the back of my mini van. Whenever I turn a corner or step on the brakes, all five bazillion shards rub against each other and create a sound that’s very much akin to fingernails on the black board melded with the scraping sound a hygienist makes when cleaning your teeth.

Yes, it’s that pleasant.

But the important thing is that the mirror has “left the building” (not unlike Elvis), and we can now continue with the project.

And yes, for those of you who guessed that the “project” is a bathroom re-model, you’re right.

Um, not that we need to re-model, or anything. (We have scrubbed these stains with alacrity and believe me when I tell you that they are of the peskily permanent variety.)

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Our goal, of course, is to do the project for the teensiest amount of money possible. When it came time to decide whether or not to get replacement sinks, we found out how much new sinks would cost and made an instant decision not to go there. Since the sinks had to be removed temporarily anyway (for the new counter top) Steve went down to the kitchen and spent over an hour scrubbing years of muck off them; it made an amazing difference. (This is the pre-scrubbed picture.)

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When I got home from an errand and saw those two sinks sitting so happily on the kitchen counter, the sight just struck me funny for some odd reason and I couldn’t resist taking pictures. I mean, how often does one have two bathroom sinks sitting atop the kitchen counter?

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Once the sinks were all clean and shiny, we found faucets on clearance for 60% off. Steve put the new faucets on the old (clean) sinks and, voila!

Loveliness happened!

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Steve had never “set a sink” before, but having not done something in the past has never kept him from trying to do something in the present. He thought and pondered and before I knew it, both sinks had been put into their sink spots. (Not to be confused with their sinkholes.)

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And do you see the lovely countertop? A friend of ours built it for us for a really great price. He just happens to be one of the best tile guys in the area and is especially gifted at making creative, unique designs with tile. We feel like we have a work of art in our bathroom and sometimes we go in there and just stand and stare at it. Like we’re at a museum or something. (Yes, I know we’re pitiful.)

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Last night Steve worked on taking a connection that used to run one bar of lights and dividing it up so it will run three individual lights. How he knows how to do all that stuff, I’ll never understand. We could never afford to do most of the stuff we do around here if he didn’t have the skills to do the work himself; I’m thankful for a multi-talented fella to “play house” with.

(He just hung the medicine cabinet temporarily to help him know where to place the lights. And he’s wearing the mask because he’d been doing a lot of sanding and there was dust everywhere. Just in case you’re wondering.)

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The bigger the mess . . .

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. . . the happier he is. (Of course, in this picture he looks more pensive than happy but you get the idea.)

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So that’s the story of that!

(Incidentally, to those of you who wondered if we were worried about 7 years of bad luck after breaking a mirror, the short answer is: nope! We’re not even one tiny bit superstitious!)

In Other News . . .

I am in the throes of finishing up my work on the singing/speaking presentation I’ll be doing in Charlotte Saturday morning for a group of about 250 lovely ladies. (It’s not too late to attend if you’d like to; e-mail me for info.)

While Sarah and I are at our event, Steve will be playing golf with his dad and then right after lunch, we’ll hit the road for the 6-7 hour trip home--just in time to gear up for arising at 5 am Sunday to get ready for our own service here.

But truthfully? Getting up at 5 am is not the hardship for me that it once was when I was a bit younger. Also, Snowy has recently decided that 4:30 to 5:00 a.m. is way later than any respectable human should be lying abed and has taken to politely scratching on our door every morning between those times. And so in the past few weeks, I’ve been getting up that early all the time and, believe it or not, I have really been enjoying it!

And that’s all the news from here today . . . thanks for stopping by.

6 Had Something To Say (Just click here!):

Leah said...

Unfortunately, those bathroom floor stains look very familiar to me. I hope I'm wrong, but I had similar looking stains on my bathroom floor when water was leaking from the bottom of the toilet. Based on the location of the stains (base of the toilet and just outside the shower) those look like water stains to me. :-(

Lyndsay said...

I was one of those people who read faithfully, but could never comment - so this is GREAT!

You bathroom is going to look fabulous. You're lucky to have such a handy husband!

Anonymous said...

Oh - that's gonna look so great when it's all done! The new vanity is gorgeous!

I'm thinking you won't be able to recycle that mirror, unless your glass recycling containers specifically say you can put mirrors into the recycling stream. Drinking glasses and window glass can't be recycled, either, apparently. :(

Stefanie in STL

LizW said...

That's a big project! How great that Steve can do all these things. I have a husband who is willing and thinks he can do them, but we usually wind up hiring someone to fix his mess and then do the project correctly!
I agree with Leah that the stains in the vinyl look like water stains. If water, even cleaning products seep under the seal, then it gets into the layers of the vinyl and discolors them. Replacing the vinyl is the only way to fix it.

Anonymous said...

Your bathroom is going to be beautiful when it's all done. I love the counter. :)

As for the mirror...I was a little sad when I read it was only a task to remove it from the upstairs. I was thinking it was going to be a sermon illustration for Mr. Steve :)

y'all have fun in Charlotte. Tell everyone I said hey. Love you!

Meagan :)

Judy said...

The bathroom looks absolutely gorgeous. The tile work is truly a work of art, Was it just placed on top of the formica countertop?

I agree with the others about the floor. When our vinyl was removed, there was mold underneath from the trapped water. We replaced it with ceramic tile and have not had a problem since.

I'm just a wee bit jealous that you have such a "HANDY HUBBY".My dad was gifted in that way too.