SO CLOSE!

Lots of things are happening and they're happening fast.

These's at least a zillion things to report,

but I'll just highlight some of the bigger items.

We're still cozy and comfortable in the basement.

I have to mention that our sweet friends, Wayne and Jane,

made basement dwelling a little bit easier for us.

Yep.

They had three large, rooms size pieces of carpeting rolled up

in their garage that they gave us to use while we waited to have our carpet installed.
We are very grateful to them.

We put off having our carpet installed until the painting was done.

Last Saturday was one of those long, exhausting days we've become accustomed to - 

we put nine gallons of paint on the walls upstairs.

And so...

we had the carpet installed on Thursday!

It's been nearly two years since we've felt carpet beneath our bare feet

and it is nothing less that DELICIOUS.

Our order for basement window coverings took about two weeks to get here,

but Lloyd's delivered and installed our 2 1/2 inch route-less

blinds without a hitch and we are pleased.

As much as possible, we like to go with small, local, family owned businesses

and that's exactly what Lloyd's is.

Don't have a picture, but...ya know...they're blinds.

And here's a sampling of the finished wall and trim paint...

Dean installed our upstairs doorknobs...

I LOVE 'EM.

The door above is the little half privy off the kitchen and "service porch".

The "service porch" is what Grandma Zarucchi used to call the back entrance

of their little home in Cloverdale. 

It's where the washer and dryer were.

And that's where our little laundry room is here at 

Retro Bungalow...

 We laid the tile in this little laundry room on Friday night

and grouted it last night.

We put the same tile in our master bath on Tuesday night, 

grouting it Wednesday night.

I thought I had a picture of that too, but looks like I don't.

And I'm not up to fixing that at the moment,

because I've got an appointment with my pillow for

one of those Sunday afternoon naps and I'd really like to 

wrap this up real quick-like.

We got a good start on putting down the wood flooring.

We've got the kitchen done enough so Matt can install cabinets tomorrow.

WAH-HOOOOO!

The gypcrete has to be primed twice before putting flooring down

and I've got to finish doing the rest of the priming for the other rooms tomorrow.

We narrowed our wood flooring choices down to three, 

which was hard, and ended up choosing a darker Acacia wood.

I was perfectly fine with that choice until Dean

took a plank from one of the boxes and set it out

in the middle of the gypcrete by itself.

I freaked out a little because it looked so much darker

than the sample board I'd brought home.

We pressed forward with faith and hope and once

we got a good portion of it down,

I fell in love with it.

Dean was visibly relieved.

We'll get the rest of the wood down this week.

Have I shown you our porch lights yet?

I don't think so.

They've been installed about a month now.

One of these days I'm gonna remember to get the proper bulbs for them.

I thought I'd posted pictures of the basement bath,

but I can't seem to find any evidence of that, so here are a few.

The vanity turned out just how I'd envisioned it would.

Matt does fantastic work.

The granite is "Steel Grey"; same as our little basement kitchenette.

The back splash is a glass and granite mosaic that I loved at first sight.

When I told Matt (tile store Matt) that's what I wanted for the accent

in our basement tub surround and back splash, he apologized and 

informed me it'd been discontinued.

I asked him to look a little harder and he actually was able to scrounge up

just enough for what we needed. 

He called me tenacious.

He called it right.

One insignificant detail that's hardly noteworthy -

I do not, do not, do not like those little towel rings for hand towels,

thus the regular towel bar that's been cut down to size for hand towels.

I had Matt (cabinet maker Matt) create an old-time medicine cabinet

for the basement bath.

He'd never had a customer ask him to make one before, so this is his first.

My friend and neighbor, Karen, was over just a couple of evenings ago

and I was showing her around.

When she saw this little gem she said,

"That looks just like the medicine cabinet in my grandma's old house."

I was SO happy to hear that!

That's exactly the look I wanted.

After showering in our teeny, tiny trailer shower for 15 months,

THIS is FIVE STAR!

We ended up hiring a couple of guys,

a father-in-law, son-in-law duo,

to do our tile.

I got their business card from the tile store we've purchased 

materials from.

They did an ok job.

Just ok.

And sometimes, if I let myself, I get a little steamed about it if I

focus on the details of their work.

It's just gonna have to be what it is.

For good.

They were nice men, but if I could go back for a re-do,

I would.

It's just like the old saying goes...

If ya want somethin' done right, ya gotta do it yourself.

But, we were desperate to

1) move into the basement

2) keep up with everything else we needed to get done

Doing the tile for this tub surround would have likely set us back

almost two weeks.

Oh, well.

That's it.

Now...

about that nap.

Thanks for stoppin' by Our Retro Bungalow.

We are grateful for your encouragement and support.