Master Bath Reveal

I promise this is a different bathroom from the subway tile bathroom. We may have gotten a bit carried away with the subway tile theme in this house. But can you blame us? It looks so clean and fresh and beautiful! 

Especially compared to how the master bath used to look:

Jordan remodeled this bathroom in five days. I left for Florida and the bathroom looked like this:

When I returned, it looked slightly different:

While I was thrilled with the herringbone accent tiles, and the custom made shower bench and wall, my dream for this bathroom always included a chandelier. I scoured the internet daily for the perfect one. It had to be gorgeous, and it had to be less than $100. I knew it wouldn't be easy. But one day, the Home Depot website came through. It had a fun, modern, $40 pendant. The only problem? It was out of stock. I waited weeks for the email saying it was available. And then, when it finally came, I waited two days too long. Everyone else snatched it up before I did.

I'd almost resigned myself to keeping the original bathroom light.

But then, I remembered Amazon, and found a beautiful chandelier for only $85. I will forever be grateful to Lish, who posted in the comments that this chandelier was available for less money at Hobby Lobby. I promptly called my local store, they set aside the last one for me, and I purchased it at 50% off the regular price for $40. Who knew Hobby Lobby had light fixtures!?

A few before and afters:

 Sources:

Floor and wall tile, vanity light, sink vanity, radiator covers: Home Depot

Showerhead, shower base: Restore

Chandelier: Hobby Lobby

A Practical Anniversary

Four years ago, on July 9th, Jordan and I were married. This year,  July 9th felt strangely similar to my wedding day. In a very different way.

*

7-9-2011

8 am: I woke up, ate breakfast, and left to get my hair done.

7-9-2015

8 am: I woke up, ate breakfast, and left to get gravel for our patio.

7-9-11

9 am: My girls came over to help me get ready.

7-9-15

9 am: My girls came over to help me get the yard ready. (One of the girls was very small.)

7-9-11

11 am: Jordan's men met us at the bluff to take pictures.

7-9-15

11 am: Jordan's men (Hernando and Jose from Home Depot) met us at the house to install new carpet in the upstairs bedrooms.

7-9-11

3:30 pm: The ceremony begins!

7-9-15

3:30 pm: The dirty work begins!

7-9-11

5 pm: The hard work of wedding planning is over--we're married!

7-9-15

5 pm: The hard work of weeding, raking, painting, and installing headers is over--for the day!

7-9-11

6 pm: We enjoyed a lovely dinner reception and danced the night away.

7-9-15

6 pm: We enjoyed a lovely dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant, but were too tired to go dancing. Instead, we picked up tiramisu and cherry pie from the grocery store, and ate it in bed while watching our wedding video.

*

Out of necessity, our anniversary this year was a low on romance and high on practicality. But real life is mostly weeding and real love is a cup of ice water offered after a morning spent raking in the hot sun.

There's no one I would have rather married on July 9, 2011. Jordan, you are the best husband. And on our four year anniversary, there's no one I would have rather shot a nail gun with while mariachi music floated down from the bedrooms and the smell of paint lingered in the air.

PB&Js and Tornados

Two things happened last week that made me feel better about our unfinished house. Actually, neither of them really happened, but they almost did. 

1. The tornado— Our friend Chrissy had just dropped her daughter Eva off at our house for the evening and was going to meet her husband, Andy, for a date downtown. It was raining and hailing, but that’s happened almost daily this month, so we were unfazed. Until the tornado sirens went off. 

Andy called saying there were funnel clouds and we needed to go to their house and into the basement. (Our house doesn’t have a room without an exterior wall, much less a basement.) So the four of us jumped in the car and raced seven blocks back to their home. We huddled in the basement and I imagined the roof blowing off. I knew our entire basementless house would be gone by the time it was over. 

After thirty minutes, the tornado warning had been lifted and we emerged to find everything exactly as it was before the storm, save a few fallen tree branches. 

I still had a house. I had much to be grateful for.

2. Feeding the Homeless— My uncle invited me to accompany him downtown to pass out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bottled waters in his red wagon. He ended up having to take his neighbor to the ER that day, so we didn't go, but I still thought about the homeless men and women who wouldn’t have their PB&Js that night.  

I wondered where they had gone during the tornado warning. I imagined they were probably less worried about having a house to sleep in than they were about finding their next meal.

I had a house to sleep in. And as many PB&Js as I wanted. 

***

Jordan has made lots of progress on the house this week, including installing, sanding and staining wood floors, painting everything, putting in new windows, hanging corrugated steel outside, and building a front pergola. We’ve had help from many generous friends. We still don’t know if we’ll finish by next week. But that’s a tiny, little problem. 

I’m grateful for our unfinished house that didn’t fall over in the tornado, in which I can eat piles of PB&Js.