Happy Birthday, Jenni!

Sorry the photo is over two years old. I only had one photo of you from Christmas at Gammaw Yowell's, and there were too many other people in it.

Thanks for the birthday card and especially the old photos of us. I wish I knew how old we were in that birthday photo. And did you notice in the photo of the three of us that Stacey and I have the same haircut? We don't have a scanner at home anymore--not since we bought a digital camera. Maybe I can talk Scott into scanning them at his office one day soon, so everyone can see how adorable we were.

I can't believe I'm 45...that's half way to 50! At least you'll turn 40 before I turn 50. Oh well, better 40-something than teens or 20-something again. (Justin and Lauren may scoff at that remark, but life gets so much better after 30.)

Scott and I are sending all kinds of birthday love your way, Jenni. Hope you had a special one!

Love,
Your OLDER brother, Steven

P.S.: Scott and I were in Vancouver, BC part of last week and took photos of that beautiful city to share with everyone. I hope to get them posted online later this week. And I need to post a basement remodeling update, too.

Our Remodeled Upstairs Bathroom

full view 079
Originally uploaded by steventhemusical.

As promised, I've uploaded photos of our (almost) finished upstairs bathroom to Flickr. The photo posted here is just a tease...you'll have to head over to Flickr to see all 19 photos! But even if you compare the finished photos with the before photos, you really will need to see our remodeled upstairs bathroom in person to truly appreciate it. Who's going to be the first to come see it?

Also as promised, there are photos of the demolition of our basement. We spent most of the day Saturday shopping for materials, and bought almost everything we can haul in either of our cars. BTW, thank you Mom and Dad! The Lowe's gift cards each of you gave us put a dent in the price tag. They helped us pay for hardwood flooring, can light fixtures, bi-fold doors, dimmer switches and electrical outlets, and a kitchen faucet for the basement.

And So It Begins... Again

The remodeling of our basement started today. Yes, that means the upstairs bathroom is done! Well, almost done.

The upstairs bathroom is beautiful. I promise to post photos on Flickr this weekend to prove it. Unfortunately, there's a problem: water is seeping under the glass mosaic tile where it meets the top edge of the tub/shower surround, and this is causing a gray discoloration behind the bottom few rows of the tile in a couple of areas. Because the tiles are transparent glass this discoloration is very noticeable, but it also allowed us to discover the problem in time to insist the contractor fix it. So, as work begins in the basement the contractor is also trying to find a non-porous material to replace the existing concrete wall board behind those bottom rows of tile, to not only repair the existing damage but also prevent it from recurring.

When we first discovered the discoloration I was very disheartened and pretty upset. Here we were, finally, with a bathroom to be proud of, and already something is wrong with it. It felt like we somehow didn't deserve to have a beautiful bathroom in our house. We hadn't spent enough money or bought nice enough materials, so of course something would go wrong. But then you realize you just have to take a deep breath...and insist that the problem be fixed so you're getting the finished job you paid for. It helps our contractor wants to keep us happy, if only because we're spending a nice chunk 'o change with her.

Well, it's time for me to go to bed. In addition to the photos of the (almost) finished upstairs bathroom, I'll also post some of the basement demolition on Flickr.

Upstairs Bathroom Remodeling: Work Day 12

"Although still early in the process, we expect the pace of work to pick up and proceed rather quickly now."

That immortal line is taken from my previous blog post dated Monday, November 13. In the last week there's been very little visible progress, if only because much of the work being done was "behind the wall" stuff like replacing the water pipes all the way down to the basement and rewiring the bathroom so it's on its own two circuits in the breaker box.

Finally, late last week and today there's some 2x4 framing that's starting to give the bathroom some shape, but all of the walls are still bare studs. But the contractor tells me the work will be half way completed by the end of the day this Wednesday. Really? I'll be curious to see what qualifies as "half way." I'll post photos, of course. In the meantime, here's a gratuitously cute photo of Calvin and Abner.

We're not discouraged though. As a matter of fact, I'll be signing another contract with the contractor to redo our powder room and turn our basement into a livable TV room. That work will start as soon as the upstairs bathroom is finished. As much as we'd like to have our house all to ourselves again, we want all of the remodeling projects completed more.