it's not finished, but...

it's getting closer.





we've still got to paint the trim and touch up the paint around the entire bathroom, hang the towel racks and curtains, and have the grout refilled. but it sure looks good.

and it's great to shower in one's own house. that's an understatement. it's fabulous!

though, let me just take a moment to say that one of the major bright sides of this whole ordeal was experiencing the generosity and kindness of our friends in this community. we had many doors (bathroom doors that is) opened to us and for that we are so so grateful!

maybe i won't get typhoid

it's nice to know that there's a boil water advisory for the area around my office and i was drinking tap water all day. ironically, i never drink the tap water from my office. but today i had to because our water is turned off at home* so i filled my water bottle at work instead. mmmm.


*the fun of home ownership is really thrown up in our faces on weekends like those that just past. not only is our bathroom still not finished but we discovered what we think is a broken water pipe in a wall in our kitchen. good times.

i'm not gonna say i told you so,

but in the last post when i said i didn't think he'd be done by wednesday? well, i was right. the tile still hasn't dried 100% yet, so he's not laid the grout. so we're still bathroomless.

this week in bathroom rennovations

they worked all day saturday and finished up the drywall. so all the sheet rock was in and at least mudded once.





they took the day off on sunday while the spackle dried and baldman and i trudged all over columbia in search of the perfect mirror. which we found here, by the way. but it was too big to fit in the space we needed. so we had to settle on one from home depot which is just okay. i think it'll look nice though.

today he sanded and put another layer of spackling on and laid the tile. we can't go in there because if we step on it the tile will set crooked. so we had to rig up this contraption to keep the cats out.



so you will have to settle for a complete surprise when we take more photos later in the week. he says he'll be done by wednesday. i'm thinking most of it will be done by then, but that it'll be more like thursday before all the little things are completed.

of course, whenever he is finished we'll still have to paint and add all the rest of the "fixin's," like the mirror, the towel bars, shelving, etc....

update to the bathroom rennovations update

i came home this afternoon and there is no more sheet rock on the walls than was there yesterday at this time. all that was done today was spackling and taping the sheet rock that was already up there. he also fixed what he broke on our old toilet so we can use it this weekend. so, that's great; we have a toilet. but i'd really like him to move forward with getting the new stuff in, not fixing the old stuff. i'm thinking he wanted to appease the old lady because he knew someone was not going to be a happy camper after seeing the little progress over the past 2 days. and he's right about that, by the way.

they come back tomorrow at 9 AM.

bathroom rennovations update

so i left you hanging a few weeks ago when i showed you what we'd done to our bathroom.

we managed without electricity in part of our bedroom and our bathroom for a few days. our handyman came and took a look, managed to fix the electricity in our bedroom at least, and gave us another estimate to fix the new mess.

he started this past monday and although we are happy with what he has done so far, it is going REEEEAALY SLOOOOWLYYYY. we're completing day 4 of total construction and loss of shower/sink and day 3 of loss of toilet. yea, that's good times. let's just say we're being creative about our use of facilities. we're holding it sometimes, going to friends' houses other times, staying later at work on a few occasions, using gas station restrooms when we can (and when they're clean), and being creative when we have to. yea, like i said, good times.

check out flickr here for the daily progress. as of tonight we have one full wall with sheet rock. the tub and surround are in. the outer walls have insulation (a first for this house!) and there is sheet rock around the door. we still have tile to be taken out and fully replaced, sheet rock to go around the top of the tub and the outer wall around the window, the toilet and sink to be put in, door and window frames, and sheet rock to be mudded and taped. hmmm, me thinks this week-long job is going to take a bit more than we though. d'ya think?

myrtle beach

myrtle beach this weekend was totally awesome! we got into mb in the late afternoon on friday and we had just enough time to check into the hotel, rest for a minute and then head out to medieval times.



we totally geeked it out big time for this one! and i loved it. the place was only about 1/3 full with spectators, so i think we got a little bit of extra treatment. i even got thrown a red carnation from the black and white night, who we were supposed to be cheering for (though he didn't win. loser.). and, by the way, our nights were totally ethnically diverse. is that usual? one was asian, one was latino, a couple were white and the "mean one" had an eastern european (?) accent of some sort. totally cool. the veggie meal was delicious, by the way; i totally suggest you try it when you go.





so we had an all around good time. totally worth the buy one-get one free price that we paid!

saturday we slept in a bit and then headed out to enjoy the beautiful weather. we started the day by stumbling upon a yummy bagel shop that had bagels which were almost as good as a nyc bagel. and the weather was so warm that if we wanted to, we really could've worn bathing suits and swam in the ocean. but we didn't prepare well enough, having left all that at the hotel. so i just rolled up my jeans and walked through the surf.



we walked along the beach, walked around in the town and looked in shops, and then headed out to brookgreen gardens for their fall harvest. we were totally tired by this point, but managed to walk through almost their entire botanical gardens and zoo. and then walk back from the zoo to the car because we waited for, like, ever for their tram which wasn't coming. in actuality, it probably would've been faster to wait for the tram because we ended up taking a wrong turn and walking a million miles longer than was necessary. but it sure was a beautiful place.





that night we rocked it out with mike ness and social distortion.



the concert was amazing! i've been to rough concerts before, where people are moshing and throwing themselves around. but this group was really beating the pulp out of each other. so we stayed up in the middle level where there was less chance of loosing a kidney. despite the roughness of the crowd, i was very intrigued to notice several children in attendance. there was even one couple who had two young boys (3 and 6 years old, maybe) and they both had mohawks. i loved that! there were 2 opening bands and then social d played for like 1 1/2 hours maybe. the time flew by and when they were done baldman and i were both like, wow that was fast. but when we looked at our watch we realized they'd really been on for a while.

sunday we were totally exhausted. cause we're old. and we can't stay up for rock concerts anymore. and we have trouble standing for 3 hours without getting all creaky and stuff. so we slept in until the absolute last minute and then quickly checked out and made it to church. after church we grabbed a quick bite to eat at a fabulous lebanese restaurant, recommended by a coworker of baldman's. if you're ever heading out of myrtle, check out habibi's, right off 501. they have a fantastic veggie plate and a lot of groceries too. we also picked up awesome feta and black olives which i've been enjoying all week!

thus ends our weekend away. we had to head back earlier on sunday to attend roller derby in columbia, but i'll write more about that at a later time.

you can view the whole flickr set of our vacation photos here. (though i mislabeled brookgreen gardens as brookfield gardens and i'm not changing it 'cause i'm tired.)