Check out the before and after pictures below.

If you’re looking for someone to help you with your home improvement projects, I highly recommend our general contractor, Goran Veseli of Veseli Design and Build. Goran is also an architect, so he can handle projects from the idea stage through completion. Goran worked with us to remodel our bathroom and we didn’t hesitate to call him when it was time to do this current project. So far, on both projects, he has made everything super easy on our end!

The sub-contractors who did all of the concrete and masonry work are A Kats Construction (at least, that’s what the side of the truck said). These guys are quick and efficient and they seem to do great work.

Before… note the lovely color of the floor tile. To top it off, the plumbing was done incorrectly, so the toilet backed up into the tub. And, the tub was cracked on the bottom layer (porcelain over fiberglass).

Then, After!

I don’t think I’d mind it all so much if I wasn’t also working full-time, in addition to the daily responsibilities at home. Thank goodness I don’t also have kids to factor into the equation!

Yes, I’m dreading tonight’s homework, but procrastinating by posting here isn’t really helping. So, I will do what I always do: suck it up and keep on plugging away.

The radiant heating mat for under the tile arrived today, along with our lights. I looked at quite a few light options, and most were a lot more expensive than these, so I was worried that these would look or feel cheap. I made sure to open the box right away to check that nothing had broken during shipping, and found that the lights are actually of good quality.

I’m getting pretty excited because I can see the finished product in my head. I hope the mix of traditional and modern come together the way I see them in my mind. I’m especially excited to see the gorgeous carrara marble countertop for the vanity once that is complete. I’ll be sure to post a picture.

On the recommendation of our contractor, we went to Advantage Kitchen and Bath in Niles to look at vanities. Our bathroom is kind of narrow –  we need a 19″ vanity rather than the standard 21″ – so we’ve had trouble finding vanities that we like in the shallow depth required.  Thankfully, Advantage had some options that could be custom ordered in the depth that we need.

We decided on a vanity in the color of the kitchen cabinets shown below (cherry wood with brindle stain), and the styling of the vanity is similar to the vanity shown below. The main difference is the vanity will have a straight front, rather than the profile shown below. And, we went with a 36″ wide vanity, which is the size that we currently have.

We’re thinking about a carrera marble counter top with undermount sink, white subway tile in the shower, white hexagon tile on the floor, and gray or blue glass mosaic border in the shower with the back wall of shower as accent in gray or blue glass mosaic.

Ripe tomatoes

Green and almost ripe tomatoes

Boiling water for 15s to loosen skin

Ice water bath to stop cooking process

Skin and seeds removed

Chop chop

Making into sauce

Now, what to do with all of the jalapeno peppers that I picked?

Cliff at work with heat gun & scraper

We’ve been talking, for a while now, about starting to scrape the paint off the window trim in one room as an experiment to see how easily it would come off. The other day, while I was working on homework in the dining room, Cliff decided to do some home: work of his own. He pulled out his heat gun and went to work on the window trim in the back bedroom. An hour or so later, and he had uncovered some really beautiful wood underneath all of that paint.

Small portion of window trim

Most of the trim is done

Window sill

Window trim & base board

As you can see from this last picture, the room also has wood base boards that have been painted. This is as far as Cliff has gotten so far, with just a little bit of work, but this is a MAJOR project for the future. This house has a ton of wood trim (windows, door frames, base boards, crown molding…), but I think the hard work will totally pay off in the future.

Now, we just need to find some free time so we can make some real progress. Free time seems to be in short supply these days.

I can hardly wait to plan my first crock pot meal, and I expect that we’ll use it quite often now that my free time is almost all devoted to homework.

Unfortunately, that also means that I won’t be taking pictures at the ChiCrossCup races. Hopefully other teammates will be able to step up and fulfill that role for the Pony Shop Cross Team. I just don’t have the time anymore.

Our jalapeno pepper plant has been steadily producing peppers all season.  It started in a pot so it had a bit of a head start on our other veggies.  Now, the yellow squash has started producing and we’ve already eaten two squash from that plant.  We have three more that are almost ready to be picked.  Soon, our tomato plants will be ready.  We have three different types of tomato plans and they all have green fruit on them.  Just a little bit longer until those are ripe and ready for picking. Lastly, we have four yellow pepper plants.  These plants still seem quite small and, until now, haven’t produced anything.  I was beginning to think they were a failure, but yesterday I noticed one very small but cute green pepper. I am assuming that it will turn a bright yellow when ripe and I can hardly wait.  Hopefully, more will follow!

When I was growing up, my family never had a garden.  In fact, we ate very few vegetables and those that we did eat came from a can. Now that I’ve developed my own tastes and preferences, I just can’t bring myself to eat canned vegetables anymore. I prefer fresh veggies (though can sometimes be persuaded to eat something that has been frozen).  As Cliff said to me this morning, it’s amazing to think that humans have been growing vegetables for years, but we’re just now experiencing the joy and satisfaction that comes from growing your own food and knowing exactly where those vegetables came from (and what has or hasn’t been sprayed on them)!