Four finishing touches that turned out to be harder than they looked

[dreamshark]

With these four final projects, the bathroom renovation project is declared complete. All four turned out to be much more complicated than expected. I'd been trying to find a replacement light for the broken sconce on the right side of the mirror for years, but it turns out they no longer sell the thing I was looking for. I wanted one of those fluorescent fixtures with a built-in outlet, since this old bathroom has NO electrical outlets. However, it turns out you can still by a version of the light I was looking for, but intended for under-counter use. I bought the thing, but I hate messing with the electricity, so Richard manfully installed it while I was at work.  He also installed the "toilet topper" that we picked up at Menard's, which turned out to be way more trouble than it looked like for reasons too mundane to go into. He completed the hat trick by finishing the installation of the Gaudi tile in the shower - a project that had languished half finished for 7 years.

My lone contribution to all of this was to rehang The Cow, a lovely piece of ceramic art that hangs by the door to serve as a clothes hook. This would have been trivially easy if the kids had not, in an excess of plastering enthusiasm, carefully filled in and plastered over the large holes that I had drilled years ago for the molly bolts. Drilling new molly bolt holes in an old-fashioned lath and plaster wall is harder than you'd expect. I had to recharge the cordless drill 3 times to get through the lath. But I finished this morning and took the final set of pictures.

	New light, shelves and the return of the cow We replaced the broken sconce light with something completely different - thus giving us an outlet to plug the electric toothbrush into. The "toilet topper" was an impulse purchase at Menard's, providing much-needed storage space. The cow isn't new but had to be rehung.
	Closeup of the Cow I really missed old Bossie in the weeks she's been missing. There was no place to hang my robe when I took a shower.
	Gaudi tile While vacationing in Spain back in 2003 we bought this lovely ceramic tile (based on a Gaudi design) with the intent of using it to replace a missing tile in the shower. I started filling out the hole with layers of tile mastic almost immediately, but it took a lot of layers and I never finished it. Richard finally installed the tile. Looks great!

Comments

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Very nice!

I clicked all the way through to see the Gaudi title as large as possible. It's the perfect artistic finishing touch. I love the shower rings, too.

Congratulations on finishing the bathroom renovation project. It looks very fine, indeed!

(LJ weirdness note: I wrote and posted a version of this reply about 30 minutes ago. I saw a "successfully posted" screen, then went on to reply to a post by huladavid. It said I was logged out, and there's no sign of my reply to you in my email (where I have copies sent). It may be in your screening box; if so, feel free to dump it.)

[ambertatge.livejournal.com]

Yay! It's beautiful. What is the project next summer? Going to Scottland?

[pameladean]

That's just gorgeous. And I am glad you have your cow back.

P.

[ssussminh.livejournal.com]

Wow, i'm really fond of that cow! Wish I had one.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Everybody envies that cow. One of my best garage sale finds EVER. I was really afraid it would get dropped and broken during the course of this project, but amazingly it has survived.