Restoration Hardware

Huzzah! The major restoration work at the house is done. However, I have no photos of the final product yet since I want to get a few more minor things taken care of.

You should know, however, that I’m very much in love with our new powder room. As soon as the walls were painted, I knew it was going to be just as beautiful as I envisioned it – and then the tile went in and my opinion was confirmed further. Then the sink and mirror. Excitement! Then the toilet. Joy!

The laundry room floor is also beautiful – it’s just a larger version of the bathroom tile, which works nicely since the two rooms are next to each other (even though the laundry room door mostly remains shut.)

Everyone has had good things to say about the kitchen, too. I was a little nervous about that before the tile when down, after the tile went down and definitely after they grouted it, but after the grout dried and it was much lighter, so was my mood! It looks really good, but will still take a bit of getting used, too. It’s pretty cool that it goes so well with the tile on the backsplash – almost like a reverse image. Obviously I brought in a number of tile samples to test out to match with the countertops, cabinets and wall color since those were all coordinated by the previous owner not long before we moved in, so it’s not exactly in the cards to remodel the entire kitchen – plus I like it and we already got the fridge to match the other stuff just two years ago.

There were multiple small obstacles throughout the process and one or two remain, but I couldn’t have asked for much better.  The team even finished the major work early.  And after the work began, I really only had one minor emotional meltdown (really that was the only real one through the whole thing – am I maturing? Not likely.) and that was when it was really hot and the A/C unit wasn’t working and Libby was sick and it seemed like what had been going so smoothly… suddenly wasn’t. But we had a cool night. We opened the windows, switched on the attic fan and cooled the house right off. Then our awesome A/C guy came to our rescue again and it turned out it was a little electrical issue.

We definitely turned a pipe leak into lemonade… or something.

Libby was away for the first part of the week again (with Commissioner) while the major floor work was going on. I hated not being with her for the second week in a row but knew she’d have a much better time with her grandparents than being relegated to the upstairs- with no access to the kitchen (fridge, milk, you know- necessary baby things). So it was going well except that she came down with a virus starting on Monday – very tired. Then Tuesday, slept in until 10 AM! And was still tired and lethargic after that and feeling warm, weepy and clingy.

On Wednesday, she threw up.  She’s NEVER thrown up in her life. So I went into a bit of panic mode when I heard. But I was getting her that evening anyway. Oh I was so glad to get to her. She’d been very well taken care of and I couldn’t have done any better myself, but dang – that’s tough on a Mommy not to be with her baby when she’s sick. With everything going on at home that next day (A/C out with guy coming, people coming to finish the plumbing work and then the final cleaning and needing to get Libby to the doctor – oh and a potentially crazy work day for me from home), Michael stayed home with us and got her to the doctor. We got some medicine for her nausea and they tested her for various stuff. She just had a virus, so we needed to keep doing what we were doing. It’s a relief to hear it from a doctor, though!

By Friday morning she had a slight temperature so we medicated her once more, she had a low-key day with Aunt Toni and Millie at our house while Michael and I were at work (he came home early) and was pretty much fine by Saturday morning.

Things are looking up all around, even if we’re a little warm here in the South!

Anyway, that’s my update on that for now.