We Get Our Bathroom Back (and Lose the Basement)!

Our 8-week upstairs bathroom remodeling is finally done! We are very pleased with how it came out, and it's especially nice not to have to navigate the stairs in the middle of the night when nature calls (or, to have to use the basement shower as we've been doing during the remodeling). There are some minor problems with the tile that our contractor said she will fix, and we haven't yet decided what artwork to put up or where to put the towel bars, but otherwise it's wonderful. We went from having no storage at all to having lots (in-wall medicine cabinet, large vanity, three deep shelves in a corner that was previously just drywalled closed, and a deep shelf in the shower). And little splurges like the whirlpool tub (which we didn't think would fit) and the toilet lid that lowers itself slowly (no banging) are great.

For all of you home improvement obsessives (like us), you can see many pictures of the bathroom, posted by Steven, on Flickr at http://flickr.com/photos/steventhemusical/sets/72157594479803434/.

But as soon as they finished the bathroom, they started on the basement! At least this is out of sight and out of mind (except when we do laundry). No big surprises yet - hopefully it will be a pretty straightforward job. They are removing the tacky wood paneling and doing new drywall on all the walls and ceiling, rebuilding the stairs, putting in a hardwood floor all the way to the back, and making some slight changes (like a new countertop) to the basement kitchen. Since this will ultimately be the "TV room," the only thing we are doing special is putting speaker wires/jacks in the walls. We hope this will be finished mid-February.