Finishing Touches

 My best pal Julie is coming to visit me next week. I have been working hard to get the house looking good. Mostly because I want it to look good for myself, but having company come is great motivation to get things done.

The Family Wall in the corner of my living room is all done. I have raised all the pictures that hung on the left side of the drawing of my grandmother and great-aunt, and I also raised the diamond shaped frame on the right. The postcard from my Dad hangs below that, and in the empty space that was left, I hung one of my quilt calendars showing a picture of Millie lying on a quilt Julie made. I also found a picture (a printed one!!!) of my granddaughter, so that is on the bureau as well. What's interesting is that picture is close to a photo of my son and I when he was the same age - and their smiles are alike!

The guest bath is almost complete. The shower door was partly delivered yesterday - the frame and handles were delivered, but the box with the doors themselves were not. I am hoping they arrive on Monday. They won't be installed before Julie's visit, but that's OK with me. Everything else is done except for a couple of finishing touches.

This cat vase Michelle gave me when I adopted Millie over 15 years ago is the only thing from the old bathroom that will be in the new one. I thought the room needed something, so I brought the vase to my favorite florist in town.

The opening for flowers is very small, but they were able to make a lovely arrangement. The mirror reflects the rose and makes it look like the bouquet is larger than it is.

Sometimes your frame of reference can affect the way you see something. I used to hate the big spa tub in my master bath, but when I dressed it up and made it look pretty, I liked it. So I carried on with that idea.

You can see in the little toilet / shower room that I have replaced the ugly round light fixture with a small chandelier. It cost me forty bucks, but now the room has sparkle and pizzazz. I also replaced the towel bar in there, the toilet and the floor, and hung up a framed print. Now the room is something I am proud to show off.

The final improvement to my master bath was a new light fixture over the mirror. The sharp-eyed among you will recognize the light fixture as a duplicate of the one in the guest bath. I had originally chosen a wider version, but the wiring wouldn't allow it. The solution? Two smaller ones side by side. I literally looked at hundreds of light fixtures and came back to these.

To renovate this room would require rebuilding it, and that's not going to happen any time soon, if ever. I like the changes I made and quite frankly I'm done with renovating for a while. I'm eager to get back into the studio, and believe you me - I will! Julie and I have sewing planned.

Julie arrives in four days...

Black & White

I keep telling people that I love the combination of Black & White, and that I love checkerboards. For example, did you know that every cat I have ever had has been black and white? (This photo of Millie was taken back in 2009.) But I digress...

You should go back and read this post about the bathrooms in my house from last Christmas. In that post I showed you the tiny shower in my main bathroom. It and the toilet live in a small L shaped room. One leg of the room is the shower and the toilet, and the other is a sort of closet of shelves that hides behind the bathroom door.

So now that you have "the lay of the land" as they say, this is what you see when you enter that little room. The shower is on the left, the toilet is on the right. This is the curtain I made. Look closely.

Yes, these are black and white bras and panties. What else is more perfect for a lady's bathroom?

This is an African mask I bought at Pier One a million years ago. I got it for my son's room back when he was in his last year of high school. He went to work with my brother in Colorado for the summer and asked me to spruce up his room when I was gone. So I did. When he moved out, he left the mask. Thank you son. Now it hangs in my bathroom.

You've seen this before. It's Seminole Patchwork and for the life of me I don't understand why it isn't more popular than it is because I think it is absolutely spectacular. Then again we all know I love the graphic (abstract) quality of quilts. The black and white are solids and the turquoise is like a batik. The color combination was inspired by the colors Danika Patrick wore one Indianapolis 500 race way back when. There are some very good books on Seminole Patchwork out there (I know, I own most of them), but they are likely out of print. Still you ought to be able to Google something if you want to know more.

This is a woodcut by Barry Moser. Go ahead, look him up. He's awesome and his work is fabulous. You can see more images here. This print is the Mad Hatter from his illustrated version of Alice.

I was cleaning out my closet to get to the Fontaine Sisters when I found the print. I had forgotten I owned the books. 

 

I thought the Mad Hatter's delightfully horrified expression would be perfect for the bathroom wall. I'd have placed him directly ABOVE the toilet if the quilt fit on the wall on the right, because I thought it would be hilarious to have him looking down at a man urinating in the toilet, except that there are no men living in this house and male visitors tend to use the guest bathroom. And besides, there is a nice symmetry to having the quilt in the middle.

I do plan to revamp this bathroom, but with the spa tub taking up so much space, and the skylight directly above it, I have some major rearranging and work, to do it. Since I am a big believer of not getting started until you know where you are going, this bathroom will wait. I will, however, be giving the guest bathroom a total revamp that should be done by summer. Part of that was replacing the toilets in both bathrooms. 

Honestly, never in a thousand years did I expect a post about TOILETS would generate more comments than a post about a quilt, but there you go. Proves once again the world is indeed a funny place.

I'll show you something EVEN MORE SPECTACULAR that I found that I didn't even know I had later.

It's the Little Things

 

Although it's warm underfoot, carpeting in the bathroom, particularly around the toilet, is kinda gross. I had been planning to fix that in 2020, but Covid got in the way. I had planned to do it in January, but again, Covid got in the way. 

This past weekend, nothing got in the way.

Yes, that's a new toilet. It's TALL, and it's low water use, and most importantly, it works. (The other one was a little sluggish) Count me a very happy camper indeed.

Coverup

The master bath in the new house is my least favorite room.  It's got a big jacuzzi tub in the middle, surrounded by fake marble and carpet, and is open to the bedroom itself. If that's not bad enough, there is no traditional medicine cabinet and storage in the so-called vanity is meager at best. Instead there is a wall with built-in shelves, and they are equally homely.

I hate having all that stuff on display, and wondered what I could do about it. I need the shelves, so I couldn't get rid of them.

The solution came to me as soon as I asked myself the right question.

"Can I cover it up?"

Hell yeah!!! The quilt is hanging on a curtain rod that's well secured. I can lift the quilt to access the shelves and stuff behind it, yet not have to worry about the quilt falling down or into the tub in case I ever decide to use the thing.

Heh!