Bathtub Surround Remodel DIY Project

Our exciting news is that we wrapped up two projects that have been ongoing since before the nonsense started.  I have waited a long time for these projects to be over and I’m loving our beautiful home even more now.  Hmmm, too bad nobody is going to see it.  Oh, well, we enjoy it and I’m going to share it with you right here.

I will separate the projects into two blog posts so you don’t get overload, but we completed the guest bathtub surround and John’s study (I call it a man cave).

Without further ado, here is the bathroom.  We had spiffed up the bathroom a couple of years ago, but left the marbelite surround around the tub.  There was nothing wrong with it except it wasn’t very attractive and it was really quite a bit of money to have replaced.  When we were triaging where our money would be spent, that was pretty low on the list.

This year, John decided he could tile it himself and assigned himself the project.  It was a long project, but it turned out beautifully and I’m proud of his work. 

That was a big DIY project to bite off.  I can safely say it went way over budget and it probably would have been cheaper to have a contractor do it, but John has a lot of satisfaction in a job well done.  Moreover, we chose beautiful materials and the room looks great.  I have a direct view of it from my office, so I keep peeking over to admire it.

Here’s what we did:

• Demolished the marbelite surround
• Installed new cement board and waterproofed it
• Tiled with white subway tile
• Added the decorative niche in browns and grays to tie into both the floor and the vanity countertop
• Installed new brushed nickel hardware
• Repainted in Dunn Edwards Cloud

The Cleanup

Between work and these home projects, I didn’t get a whole lot of other things done this week.  We spent a big chunk of Saturday cleaning all the construction dust and muss out of the garage.  That’s so clean and organized now.  I have to say I just dread entering the garage when it’s such a mess, so it means a lot to me to have it tidy.

Unfortunately our garage cleaning day was the hottest day of the year so far.  Dang!  It cannot reach triple digits in April.  That is so wrong.  And of course, the pool isn’t open.  I had to trade in some of my long walks for either really early morning runs or bike rides.  I haven’t acclimated to exercising in heat yet.

Our barrel cactus bloomed for exactly one day (which is what they do) and I caught a pic of it for my blog heading. I never get tired of cactus flowers.

What I’m Reading

I finished up Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner on audio and I loved it and I loved the ending which I feel like doesn’t happen too often.  The story combines history of the West with a fictional current-day story.  The “current-day” is in the early 1970s, so not contemporary, but in the manner of really good books, it feels like it was written yesterday and the issues are still pertinent today.

I am reading Prague Winter:  A Personal Story of Remembrance and War by Madeleine Albright.  She’s a wonderful writer and I am learning a lot about the Czech Republic, but I really don’t need another blow-by-blow account of Europe in WWII so I’m skipping through a lot.  What does make this fascinating to me is that she was in her 50s when she became Secretary of State and only then found out that her family was Jewish (she was raised Catholic) and many family members had been killed in the holocaust.  I am interested in her journey of discovery.

I have a couple of other books queued up on my Kindle and I’m looking forward to digging into those and reporting back on happier subjects soon!

What I’m Eating

I just hate throwing food away and wasting vegetables.  We are generally good about eating what we buy, but some stuff spoiled before we could eat it and we cut back on our grocery shopping this week.  Now our kitchen got pretty bare before John made a Sprouts produce run.

While I’m on the low fodmap elimination diet, I’m supposed to go lightly on raw vegetables and many vegetables are outright no-nos.  One vegetable that is ok is zucchini, so I’ve been making that a lot.  My favorite way is to slice it lengthwise, season with olive oil spray, salt, pepper and thyme. It’s easy to bake that in the oven for about 15 minutes or I have John throw it on the grill when he’s nearly finished grilling meat.  That coupled with a small piece of steak and a glass of chardonnay makes for the perfect dinner for me.  Oh, and a crusty ciabatta roll, of course!

Hopefully soon I’ll be posting blogs with fun activities instead of projects. God bless you and yours this week.