Construction results

This is just a gratuitously cute picture of both kids in diaper boxes saying, "cheese." Those diaper boxes somehow hold a special appeal to these guys.

The finished kids' bath. I love theirs almost more than ours. So pretty! Bjorn bought some eggshell white paint and went ahead and put it on the walls behind the toilets after I got the wallpaper remnants off. He'll get the rest of the walls eventually.

Our bath mid-grout. See the cool tiles we have as a border. Love it!

New tiles in our bathroom pre-grout. Also pretty! We had them put them in diagonally, which is very nice. And far nicer than we could have done ourselves.

New tiles before grout. So pretty!

Our bathroom floor after the tiles and subfloor were up (and toilet removed). They then put down backer board before putting down the new tiles. Note the awesome wallpaper that was behind the toilet. That used to be on all the walls. I got it all off a few years ago, but couldn't get behind the toilet. I got it this time.

What we've been living with in the hallway. They did a great job keeping everything clean, but it's still been a mess.

The kids' bathroom floor before. They have already taken off the border tiles and covered it with something to help get the tiles up. Note, this pattern isn't a tile, rather it's lots of little bitty tiles that make up the pattern and thus, lots of grout lines to get dirty.

The leak that started it all. The workers cut out some drywall above the sink in the kitchen to access the pipes under the shower upstairs.

Construction

We are replacing the tiles in our two upstairs bathrooms. We had a random leak the precipitated the replacement in our bathroom. And while we had the guy in, it was just another few hundred to replace the tiles in the kids' bathroom. All fine, right?

Well, it never occurred to either of us that they would remove the toilets to put the tiles down. Or that it would take more than one day. So we're down to only the half-bath off the kitchen. Not great for me with my small bladder and a kid that often needs to be walked to the toilet at 3 a.m. As Mary would say, this is suboptimal.

As the work began, they naturally discovered that the problem with our bathroom tile is not the source of the leak, but something in our shower. So we're spending $1,000+ to replace something that wasn't broken. Oh sure, the tile was old and yucky and in definite need of replacement, but we didn't have to do it. We still would have had to cut open the ceiling in the kitchen, but that would have been a far cheaper project at a time where it appears we're hemorrhaging money. Personal property taxes are due, yearly insurance rates are here, Mark needs a lot more money for college and Jennifer has decided life on the outside is too expensive and is moving in. Bjorn's got a few deals in the works that, if they work out, would ease our pain quite a bit. Fingers and toes [or legs, as Armando prefers to say] crossed.

Home improvement

Before with the old aluminum, sliding windows.

During when they removed all the old aluminum frames.

Installing the new windows.

Viola! All shiny, new and pretty!