Our First Snow & Our Master Bathroom

                                 Saturday 10/17/15

On October 17 , we woke up to our first snowfall.

After about a half hour, it started to snow some more, and look, the boat is still in the water. Yikes!

I have dreamed of waking up to snow. You know since we had been on the road for 6 1/2 years, I had not seen snowfall in all that time. We had drove to the mountains where there was snow on the ground, but no actual fresh fallen snow.

I have always loved the beauty of fresh fallen snow, the crisp air and quietness it brings.

I have missed it and so enjoyed this morning.

But by afternoon it had stopped snowing, and the sun tried to come out.

It had been so long, that even Mallery seemed to have forgot what the stuff was. By the end of the day, it had all melted away, which made Joe happy! He is not a snow lover like me.

OK, I finally remembered to do some before and after pictures of our master bathroom. Before........... Toilet very tight against the vanity.

Very small and tight bathroom.

Shower was on top of the toilet. Plus the shower door leaked.

Clean, but ugly and outdated.

Our new, and much bigger master bath.

The style is cottage, with a bead-board ceiling. I really like the look of the all one level counter tops, though it is not as functional as a counter top that is lower in the center for the vanity area. Love, love, love my chandelier. Every girl wants one sometime in her life!

I wasn't crazy about the accent tile as it was a very soft muted color before it was installed. Because the tiles were glass, light made it muted and soft. Once installed, surrounded in white grout, it did not allow the light into the sides and back of the tiles, making them much darker. Unfortunately, we arrived a day after it was installed and the tile shop didn't tell me the installed tile would have a darker look. The guest bath had the same tile but a different color. The guest bath is worst then the master. We were going to go for a shower door, but we wanted the European style doors, like we put in the guest bath. The European shower doors don't work well on tubs, so we decided to stick with a shower curtain until we find something we really like. Maybe in a year or two they will come out with a style that works for tubs.

I do like our cubbies, but again, I was not happy with the tile work of the white subway tile. Because we were coming that week and we told our contractor we needed water and a bathroom to be functional, the job was rushed. (he was suppose to be done May 1st, and like all contractors he was way behind- it was June 1st). He had someone come in, that he had never worked with, and told him to have both baths tiled in a week. It just didn't have the professional look we paid for.

The window had to be moved to a different spot, to the new center of the room. Our contractor put in a smaller window then I liked. It had to be changed out to a larger size This is the larger replaced window. Our contractor took the smaller one so we didn't have to buy two windows, but it cost us  money to put in two windows instead of one, including tearing the outside of the house off to fit the larger window in;  making it a costly $500 mistake.

We love the crown molding or mantel above the door and window. (For anyone new, and you notice the bed rails on our bed, they are for our little Mallery, so she won't fall out of bed, since she is pretty much blind these days).

I love my cabinet door knobs and Kraft Maid cabinets from Lowes.

We both just adore our Carrera Marble counter tops, though you have to be very careful with them, as they are easily stained,  etched, or chipped. All the electrical and plumbing was changed out since it was old, mismatched or hodgepodge together by previous do it your self owners.

I love the small vertical bead-board on the lower 2/3's and then the wider horizontal bead-board on the upper 1/3. It took many hours of looking at Cottage Style pictures to decide on this look. We love our ceramic wood looking floors also.

Just love the old fashioned facet handles and recessed medicine cabinets too.

The only negative is the spout swivels all the way to the wall, so we will have to watch the grand kids when they come. Also because the spout sticks out so far forward, it is easy to get water on the floor. I turn the spout toward the side when washing my face to avoid this issue. Things you just don't visualize until they are installed.

The laundry room use to have a hallway to the back of the house. We never used this door and it was a waste of space that was much needed to enlarge the bathroom.

Our new smaller laundry/utility room.

In the utility part of the room behind a sliding door closet, we have our water softener units. There was about a foot of space to the right that the wall was moved toward the softener to accommodate for the toilet and tub, or our bathroom would have been much narrower.

Also in the closet is the furnace which stayed the same as before.

In our bedroom, we also had to take about a foot of the side wall of the third closet, to widen the bathroom. This closet use to have wire shelving. For now, it is just a mess and useless. Next spring Joe and I will paint it and put in shelves and or rods. We are constantly in renovating progress for now. All in all, we love our bathrooms, except for the tile and tile accent, and the total cost, which ended up more then we planned. As with all of life, nothing is perfect, no matter how hard you try to plan it!