Friday, May 8, 2009

Bad, Bad, Bath! Take 4

One late night after the tiling was complete and we were at a standstill because we were waiting for the shower doors to be shipped, we found...you guessed it...another water problem.

Jason's closet is just outside the bathroom door.  We discovered that the carpet inside was sopping wet.  So Jason takes yet another trip down to the crawl space to check things out.  He finds a steady drip that appears to be coming from one of the pipes that leads up through the wall to either the shower head or the body sprays.  PANIC!

Why is the pipe behind the newly tiled wall leaking??  Why is the water spreading under the tile, across the floor, and into Jason's closet??  At 11pm, one doesn't expect to find answers to these questions easily.  Jason immediately called the contractor and left a message, and then turned off the water main to the house for the night to try to prevent further damage.

Problem solved...the contractor came back first thing in the morning and discovered that the water problem in Jason's closet was likely due to the amount of water he used to clean the tile the previous day.  Sounds like quite a bit of water to me, but that's what he said it was.  The dripping was caused by one of the body sprays.  None of the fittings were back on yet, and there was a small steady drip from the pipe directly down into the crawl space.  Easy fix, put the fitting on, and no more water leakage.

We ended the day feeling good that there were no major problems (our worst fear being that the shower would need to be torn apart to find the leak) but a little more frazzled and worse for wear.

Then I began to do the walls... 

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Bad, Bad, Bath! Take 3

So here we are living with the knowledge that even though we budgeted time and money to redo 1 bathroom, we now had to do 2 bathrooms.  At least we don't have to rush to complete the guest bathroom.  It gets used rarely.

We had chosen a beautiful travertine tile that we are absolutely love.  We also wanted to install radiant heat under the tile because we have some heating issues on that side of the house.  Our tile guy laid out the wire mesh mats and things seemed to be working out well.  However, after a few hours of trying to figure out how to set the thermostat with my husband's assistance, he realized that he wasn't supposed to cut the mat.  He had trimmed off the excess mat and now the wires couldn't complete their loop (whatever that means).  In turn, he needed to buy a special patch kit so that he could fix it.

So this puts a delay on completing the floor.  He is able to do the walls in the meantime, and they turned out beautifully.  We redesigned the shower and added half walls to give it a more closed in feeling.  With the detailed tile work and our design, things were moving along and turning out even better than we had hoped.  The shower pan was now installed properly and our water problems should be at an end.

SHOULD have been at an end...

Bad, Bad, Bath! Take2


WARNING: THE FOLLOWING SCENES MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ...ANYONE!

When our construction worker,
who is absolutely wonderful 
by the way, tore up all the old 
tile, he found our worst nightmare lying beneath.  There was so much water damage that
 the flooring looked like it should be what you'd find in a house about 100 years older!  Had we gone on much longer, we likely would have fallen straight through the subfloor and
 down into our crawl space.  The water damage was also so bad that we needed to have part of a load bearing beam replaced.  So our wall could have come down too!  

So here we are, happy that we decided to have this done when we did,  and reassuring ourselves that it wasn't out of vanity or that we didn't like it, there were going to be serious problems had it stayed that way.

But, our little vacation away from home, within our home, is disrupted, because now there is evidence that the other shower pan was installed the same as the first INCORRECTLY.  So in order to avoid further damage in that shower, we moved into our son's bathroom.  A dire inconvenience for all of us because now his bathroom is just full of mommy's and daddy's no touches, and we don't have anywhere to put anything that he won't get into.  

So you got it!  Some things stay in the guest bathroom and some have gone to his bathroom.  The GBr is in between the 2 bathrooms so we feel like we have some sort of refugee camp set up with all of our worldly belongings strewn through 3 rooms.  Opps!  4 if you count that we are now just leaving our clothing stored in the washer and dryer rather than taking all the way back to the bedroom time has seemingly forgot.

And the beat goes on..stay tuned for part 3

Fabulous Fabric Designer now carried by Greenhouse Fabrics!

I was very excited to learn that Greenhouse Fabrics will now be carrying Annie Selke fabrics.  Selke's fabrics can be found throughout the decorating and designing world today and her styles speak fresh.  Bright colors and bold, yet classic patterns make her work easy to identify.  
Visit her link to learn more about her.  Read the article from Traditional Home in order to find out what Annie has been doing with her own fabulous home.
Annie Selke                                                                                             Article        

Here are a few of her collections:


Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Bad, Bad, Bath!

So in the midst of opening 2 new Etsy shops, ByEveryWord and Fabric Flair, we have had a major bathroom renovation project going on.  Let's just say, some things just never quite work out like you plan.

Months ago, maybe in the beginning of February, we decided we were going to redo our bathroom.  When we moved in we weren't very fond of the previous owners choices and we suspected that there might be a leak or something causing water damage in the shower pan.  So we decided to change all the tile.

Once we decided, I began taking down the ugly pink wall paper, which I wish I still had a photo of but lost on our last computer.  I decided I hated having to look at the bright walls through all the glass of the shower, and moved to our guest bathroom.  It was nice having my own bathroom, not sharing with my husband.  It was warm, it was pretty, it was great...for a while.

At the end of March the tile guy came to begin tearing out the old tile.  Well, low and behold it turns out that there was serious water damage occurring under the tile and that our subfloor was rotting away.  Mind you this is a 6 year old house.  Well, that was problem number one.

Here are some photos while I keep you in suspense. (keep your screen wide to see them matched up with the captions.

ugly lights and cabinets     bottom of ugly cabinets               weird tile floor pattern    shower with stupid
                                         & part of ugly tile and pattern      & no tub                         shelf and seat, boring
      

Opening New Etsy Shop

My plan is to carry a broader range of fabrics when I move to Fabric Flair.  I want to carry products that inspire you to create and encourage you to get out there and do it yourself.

In the meantime I will continue to run a MOVING SALE in my Simplicity Interiors Etsy shop.  I will be doing some reconstruction on this blog: updating, redesigning, redecorating it so that if better follows the theme of Fabric Flair.

Stay tuned for big changes!

Monday, May 4, 2009

MOVING SALE!

   Joel Dewberry - Aviary            Amy Butler - Daisy Chain
     

I am going to be dividing up my Simplicity Interiors Etsy shop so that fabrics are in a different shop.  I am still working on my grand opening of FabricFlair. There's nothing there yet and I just registered the shop name.

In the meantime I am having a store moving sale.  Instead of relisting all the fabrics in a new store, I want to clear out my inventory.  I have reduced prices on almost 70 items. 

Stop by and take advantage of pricing that is far below retail!

Pear                                           Multi Floral