#27 - Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Thanks For Being CHEAP!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!  (<---WOW.  That was a fast week.  Happy Valentine's day 1.5 weeks late now!)

We're 30 posts into this grand adventure!

I'm not guessing on the timeline anymore.  I'm clearly naive at the guesstimation of construction completion.  Like the restaurant hostesses that give you a chipper smile and tell you it'll be 15 minutes and you end up waiting 65 for your nasty germ-laden black square buzzer to buzz.
I had zero basis for my guess of Christmas 2017, and when that wasn't the case, I arbitrarily thought "Okay! How 'bout Valentie's Day?"  I guess holidays are fun benchmarks!  Maybe 3rd time's a charm and I'll aim for New Year's Eve now.

We broke ground in July, and I won't be too terribly surprised if we don't get to move into the new house until the one year mark. However, that's not to say we aren't making progress.  Something is still happening every day.  It seems that a big major event happens about once a week. This past Saturday it was the plumber installing the new water heater! He has about 4-6 hours of work left to switch over the water service from the old tank/softener/location to the new tank/softener/location, and on the other 6 days a small baby step is completed.  Matt has been chipping away at doorknobs, doors, and trim.  The stairwell window is trimmed and it's totally charming with it's cute little windowsill.  I'm going to snap a ton of updated pictures this evening and share all the updated pictures tomorrow!

I told you about our vanity adventures in a creepy alley warehouse yellow flood light areas.  We purchased the cinnamon vanity with plans to paint it.  However, every time I walked by that vanity, the color felt so warm and nice (gold medal on that, Product Namers!  "Warm Cinnamon" is fitting!), and the thought of painting over it hurt my heart.  So we're leaving it as is.  I think it goes nicely wih the tile color.  And Superhero Matt was able to mostly camouflage the damaged area of the door.

I was in the car with the kids and Matt was in there, on a dark and stormy night, buying 2 toilets.

During my search for a vanity, there were so many variables. There were vanities available with mirrors, without mirrors, with tops, without tops.  As I mentioned before, we quickly learned that many styles of vanity would not work, and that really narrowed our options.  In the back of my mind, I also knew we would need to make decisions on what mirror to purchase.  (SO MANY DECISIONS!  This is the moment I've been dreaming of my entire adult life...the moment where I get to choose all the things for my house at one time.  And while it is a dream, it is a very intense one where sometimes you freak out and wake up in a cold sweat because you're Cinderella and Rambo is chasing you.)



Before.  The knobs are flipped backwards during transport.  The strings are there to help open and close the drawers and doors. 

But on the other hand, once upon a time, I was sitting in my living room one Friday evening many many years ago.  And I thought to myself, "Self, you really need a mirror in your living room.  Find a good deal on a mirror."

 

I had plans the following day to go garage sale-ing with a friend.  I can't tell you how many times I've had a specific item in mind and the very next day, I find that exact item at a sale.  It's a garage sale miracle.  (I'll skip the part about how I also often buy the most ridiculous junk that I do not need and end up regretting spending my quarters on.)  We walked into a sale, and across the room I saw a big wooden mirror with a decorative frame that I loved.  I asked about the price and when the lady told me it was $10, I swept that mirror up faster than Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir analyze a triple flip!



The bathroom vanity with the blemish repaired and the knobs turned around.

AND THAT MIRROR is the perfect match to the warm cinnamon vanity!  It's a unique shape, it's a nice hefty, good quality mirror. And the measurements are PERFECT.  It just needs a good cleaning and polishing and it'll fit into our master bath like it was always meant to be.  I love that it adds more movement and femininity than a basic square mirror would.  We opted for white walls in the bathroom, which I'll admit I'm a little nervous about.  But, I'm hopeful that the tile, vanity and mirrors will be the superstars and the walls be fresh while still allowing the other elements to take center stage.

The bathroom tile & the bathroom mirror.  The blue room is the master bedroom and the white is the bathroom.  The blue tape on the walls shows where the vanity will be located.  That's where the water service comes in for the double sinks.

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Moving right along.  I started that post last week a couple days before we traveled to Illinois to meet my new baby nephew.  What a sweet, sweet time to welcome a new family member.  My heart could just burst.

While the kids and I were in Illinois, Matt was at home having a grand adventure of his own.  It involves his chainsaw, a large walnut tree that my Uncle Chris wanted to remove from his property, a wood kiln in need of repair at my Uncle Dan's house, a newly built house in need of stair treads, and about seven adult men and just as many spectators.

But, that is another story for another day.
Stay tuned for photo overload tomorrow!