Concrete floors are still very hard for Larry to walk or stand on for very long, so I will try to pick up what we need and check out ideas and then take him with me on Sunday to see if he likes anything I have found. If he vetoes everything, then I am back to the internet for more research which is exactly what I did before leaving the house.
Larry will talk to Bill on Tuesday about making a hanging wall vanity in the guest bath and topping it with the piece of the butcher block top we just removed from the kitchen. I have several vintage wire swimming pool baskets that I will line with canvas to hold towels and tissue paper and they can sit under the vanity. Larry thinks a backsplash of the same butcher block or glass tiles would look good.
First stop was at a closeout store for home remodeling. Great products but some of the prices were not what I would consider bargains, more like high end showcases. I browsed in and around the fixtures, stopping to look at prices of items that caught my eye and found a round vessel sink that I think Larry might like and one that won’t break the bank. The store is closed on Sundays, so it will have to be Monday afternoon before I can take him to look at it.
Next stop was Lowes. The contractor’s desk was closed when I arrived and the person I needed to talk to won’t be in until Monday. I walked back to the bath section of the store and they no longer carry the vessel sink I thought Larry might like. They do however have a faucet for the bathroom that I think would work if he likes the other sink I found earlier. Toilets: efficient, self closing, short, tall, round, oval, heated….can’t they just put all these features in one toilet and make life easier? I am going to have Larry log into Consumer Reports to figure out the best one to buy for the guest bathroom.
Lighting: I found a four light LED fixture with square glass globes and if I turn it upside down I think it would work in the bathroom. Now I moved onto finding LED lights for under the kitchen counters. Whoa….fluorescent, incandescent, LED, wire, not wired, fifteen dollars to eighty-five dollars…and not a single customer service person around to help. I’m tired and if I leave now I can get home in time for Larry and me to attend the 6:00 PM church service.
We saw Patti and Mike at church and they are just finishing their kitchen remodel…lucky couple. It was a wonderful service, thoughtful, moving, tearful, rejoicing, and thankful.
Since our new temporary kitchen consist of a microwave and George Foreman grill set up on a tea cart and serving table in the garage and our coffee maker ensconced on the washing machine in my studio, Larry took me out to dinner after church. It was a treat not to tip toe out to the cold garage to heat up food from the freezer but having someone else fix a meal for us.
When you can’t sleep because your mind is constantly thinking about not one but two renovations taking place in your home, you research on the internet. Our pendant light for the kitchen island is five vintage looking wire baskets that hang from one center base and will have forty watt Edison bulbs in each fixture. I’ve ordered from Home Decorators before and had to this time because no one else had this fixture and could beat this price. The electrician is coming Monday, and last Thursday our ship date was showing as 2-13-12. Friday I called and the customer service representative said he would call back, which he never did. A second call and I found out our ship date was 2-28-12. We found an alternative three light vintage looking basket we could be happy with if this lighting fixture was unavailable. Settling for second best when you get one shot at creating a dream is not what we wanted.
I have searched, I think, every possible combination of words to try and find this fixture. The problem is everyone is now looking for vintage, wire, industrial, Edison, type everything for decorating. The funny thing is I actually found in a Google search a reference to this fixture on my own blog. This was new. Maybe there was hope of finding this and not willing to give up, Larry went to bed and I searched on. Bingo! About half an hour later I found not only the same fixture but the manufacture’s name (which had been missing on all other websites--I assume so you couldn’t order directly through them) and Amazon had this light one hundred dollars less. Score! I know I have used all these search terms before, but God must have heard my pleas and understood my stress because there it was about the 4th item down on my latest search. About that time, I heard Larry coming downstairs. He couldn’t sleep and I was excited to share the news. I ordered the light fixture with two day shipping, which will still get here after the electrician but he can put the wiring in based on the kitchen layout and attach it later.
I also found a photo of the sink I had thought Larry might like and sent it to his email thinking he would see it in the morning. Open it…now…tell me, what do you think? He likes it so we can go look at it Monday and buy it, if Bill is willing to build the hanging cabinet.
Okay now I can sleep.
Sunday morning I placed a call to cancel the original order for the lighting fixture and when they asked why I would want to cancel the order I told them customer service was lacking and delay of shipment had caused a problem, which I realized had now been bumped back to 3-28-12.
We need to wait to order the Edison bulbs to go with the fixture until it arrives to see what size bulbs we need because each wire basket is uniquely different in size.
So onto the next quest…Amazon here I come. When I bought the light fixture last night, Larry had been asking me if we should just sign up for Amazon Prime which means you pay a low yearly fee and shipping is free for the rest of the year no matter how many orders you place or where you send them. Now I am onto ordering the new red slipcover for the loveseat in the living room because the yellow botanical print will not go well with the new neutral color scheme.
Larry is researching new toilets for the guest bath. We made a decision on the kitchen sink and faucet, ordering a Kraus thirty-two inch single basin, square, sixteen gauge stainless steel sink and a Kraus dual pull-out spray head with a spring tension retractable hose that swivels 180 degrees. The faucet looks like one you would find in a restaurant.
Talking with Kim at small group she asked how the remodel was going. I explained about the plumbing and she nodded and told me when they did their remodel that one thing led to another and they wound up doing more than they originally planned. I wonder what Monday will bring?
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