Bathrooms!

I’m happy to say that we have a few more things checked off our reno list!

First – our ensuite bathroom is ready to use! The last thing holding us up was Dan’s worry that the grout sealant hadn’t fully worked its magic in a few spots (and my corresponding procrastination on the matter), so I thoroughly applied a new coat yesterday. I’m going to test it out with a shower tomorrow morning, but I’m optimistic!  I picked up a few accessories, as well, so I present to you our new ensuite bath!

The new swivel mirror and built-in shelving.

The new space-saving vanity, toilet paper stand, and hurricane-lamp garbage. And new tile, of course.

The shower with the no-longer-see-through shower doors.

We also got an unexpected start on the main bathroom renos over the weekend. Our home depot light fixture finally arrived, and Dan planned to surprise me on Friday while I was away. Due to shoddy original installation, one thing led to another, and now we have a beautiful new light, as well as some bare new drywall. Of course, once it’s mudded, it will be just begging to be painted, which means I might as well do the whole bathroom in some new and exciting colour. Woot! We’ll probably stop there, although I would love to do something about the generic laminate counter, as well.

Yes, I’m aware only 3 of the 4 lights are on. It’s not a light defect, but a user defect – with the freezing rain today, I couldn’t be bothered to go pick up another lightbulb, and we only had 3 matching-wattage ones left in the house. A nice bonus of this fixture is that there’s maybe a 20-second delay as light starts at about 75% brightness and warms up to full strength. Love it in the mornings!

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User error

I have a confession to make, to all of you who think we’re great at all of our renovation projects. Well, we’re not. 🙂 In particular, the ensuite reno project has been full of lessons recent.

Lesson the first: you already own a respirator – why not use it when using wood stain inside a small box of a bathroom? The first coat I did with the door open – well, actually, the door was open in the sense that there was no door. Dan put that in just as I finished the first coat. The second coat, however, was a doozie – I was definitely feeling the side effects of the woozy and nauseous variety afterwards.

Lesson the second: apparently shaking the can of said stain is not enough. No – you need to dig to the bottom and dredge up the actual paint so it can mix with the… rest of the liquid. I don’t know if that stain had just been sitting on the shelf at Home Depot for a while or what, but that stuff was pretty well settled. The epiphany came when, unsatisfied with the cabinet still looking more like cedar than walnut after two coats of walnut stain, I decided to put on a third one and was getting to the bottom of the can. And somewhere along the way, on the next brush stroke I ended up with black goo on my shelf instead of the nice, easy-to-apply liquid I’d had before. Well, now it makes sense! Some panic-filled (imagining having to tell Dan that after all his hard work, he needs to completely redo the cabinet because I screwed up the colour) brushing and rag-rubbing filled the next 20 minutes, but I’m actually very happy with how it turned out. A coat or two of clear-coat, and I may be ready to finally show off our ensuite in all its glory!

Hopefully, my next experiment will not be nearly as complicated as wood stain. Anna has loaned me her food dehydrator to use in preparation for our canoe trip, and (despite the first batch not even being ready yet) I have to say I may be hooked. For now, I’m starting with fruit leather (you know, the real fruit roll-ups) and dried apples and mango. Don’t they look delicious?

What’s that, dear mango? You want me to eat you right now?? Oh, how I wish… but I must resist your charms! You will taste so much better on the 3rd day of our canoe trip than now, when I’ve already eaten at least another cup of your brethren, who were not uniform enough to be put in the dehydrator.

I’ll update you on the progress tomorrow!

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