This is what the bathroom looks like today! 

I just signed up for my first knitting class! I am way too excited. Thank you, Mom, for the gift certificate. I went into the shop to get the class schedules and I wanted the class to start RIGHT NOW. All the yarns were so fabulous, I don't know how I'll ever choose what to work on first. It is going to be so fun to learn and meet the other ladies in the group. I hope I make some new friends. My class starts next Wednesday at 5:30. You can be sure that I will post photos of my swatches or whatever we work on first. I'm so excited that I'll probably post photos of everything I make. Get ready, this might just become the knitting newsletter of Jen. Oh, come on, you know I would never commit to just one form of creative expression. This is the newsletter of all the crazy stuff Jeff and I like to make.

Guess what? Lana finished grouting the bathroom tile today! Yipeeeeeee! The slate is so beautiful. That bathroom looks like it came out of the Pottery Barn catalog. I just know everyone that sees the house when its finished is going to want to buy it. John said he will be mudding drywall for the rest of the week. Sounds like fun! Okay that was sarcastic, what do you expect from the girl that lives with the king of sarcasm? I gotta work on being as funny as Jeff.

Our neighbor Mike just put a "for sale by owner" sign in front of his house. I'm sad to see him go, he is the friendliest and most genuine person in this neighborhood. The home-buying season is about to begin, we had better hurry and wrap up our project. Oh, in the photo I posted of Jeff yesterday (where it looks like he & the ladder are suspended in thin air) he put one ladder on the staircase, then a board going from the landing to the ladder and then a secind ladder on top of the board so he could reach the high part of the ceiling. I was so nervous just watching him climb on that contraption that I got a stomach ache. I am such a wimp sometimes.

Hey, Family, you guys should comment sometime. You just click on the "comment" word at the bottom of each post or photo. Then everyone else can read your note and we can answer back.

Peace.
Jen

Fabulous photo by Jeff of the house on a winter day. Brrrrrrrrr. 

This is the closet Dad and Joe built today. There are two setsof doors for "his and hers" closets, ooh-la-la! Jeff found the doors for $20.00! The master bedroom is looking so different. Its so satifying to see drywall going up, it really feels like we're getting somewhere. 

Remember what the master bedroom used to look like? Oh yeah, we've been working hard. Travis and I ripped out that paneling. Jeff, Travis and I ripped out the gross carpet. (That was the absolute sickest thing ever, really). Travis pulled down the ceiling tiles. Jeff ripped out the beaded-board ceiling only to discover the joists above were NOT ATTACHED. He spent a bunch of time getting that all squared away so John could hang the drywall. That is when the unthinkable happened. He hit his index finger with a full swing of the hammer. Ouch. Jeff has really been working harder than ANYONE in the world. He is the best motivation for me. He's never too tired or unfocused. He can go forever and still be silly and fun. Why does the #1 guy have to get hurt? It's the pitts.  

This view shows the two partial studs that were intended to support this ceiling. Hmmmm ... I don't think it works that way. John was trying to hang drywall and he couldn't find any studs, so Jeff ripped out the ceiling, only to discover this mess. Yet another surprise. 

This is how much of the ceiling came down. Again, oops. 

Here we have yet another surprise. We had planned to fix a bad patching job (indicated here by the white box) but the plaster began to crumble and once it gets started, sometimes it doesn't want to stop. So this turned into a much bigger job than we had anticipated. However, in this crazy adventure, every gray cloud has a silver lining. When the plaster came down we discovered two joists that had been damaged in some kind of fire (possibly electrical?). There had also been some water damage, so the supporting boards were warped and/or just not level. So Jeff re-inforced and leveled it and he and my Dad are going to hang drywall tomorrow. 

Here is my ruggedly handsome husband perched precariously on a "scaffolding" of his own creation in the upstairs hallway.  

This is what we planned to repair originally. Hmmmmmm ... then 60% of the ceiling fell down around Jeff. Thank God for respirators, all the formeldahyde had his head aching for the next day. 

Detail of the slate floor (not yet grouted). Isn't it gorgeous?!?! I really love it. I think it turned out so fabulous. 

Detail of the tub-surround. Note: the tile has not yet been grouted. 

This is a view into the bat hole where Jeff was exercising his genius working on the plumbing disaster. 

After we hung the beaded board in the bathroom, we had a small plumbing emergency that caused us to create this wonderful access panel to the attic space behind the linen closet. This allowed Jeff to crawl in there with the dark creatures of the night to work on the plumbing. We figured the access panel would come in handy for the new owners someday. More on the dark creatures of the night: Jeff returned to finish up the plumbing that night and he discovered that he had disturbed a bat! After 15 minutes of bat-wrestling he emerged unscathed, the victor. The bat was very grateful upon it's subsequent release into the great outdoors. Yay Jeff. 

Oh yeah, I can hang wainscoting, too. We had planned to paint the green bathtub, but we had to replace it. I think it was worth it in terms of timing as well as the finished product. I purchased a tub resurfacing kit for $25.00, then I had to buy a special brush and a certain kind of cleaner and some steel wool. So I might have spent as much as $35-40.00 and it appeared to be a time-consuming process. Compared to the cost of the new tub ($98.00), we dicided to return the paint-stuff and get the new one. This allows for a perfect finish on the tub that will remain durable, and we got the added benefit of eliminating that wierd stand under the tub. We also gained access the the bathtub plumbing (which is a good thing because we removed the drop-ceiling in the kitchen below and replaced it with drywall) so we made sure everything was properly buttoned up and here we are! 

Here's one of the big "surprises". Remember that we knew the plaster was crumbling behind the tub? Well ... that WHOLE WALL on the right kind of crumbled after we jacked up the kitchen ceiling. Oops. Oh well, it afforded us the opportunity to access the electrical and plumbing pretty easily. Lana and I did the drywalling together. Yup, that's right, I can demo, drywall, tile, restore woodwork, paint, measure and cut wood on the chop saw. If this artist thing doesn't work out maybe I'll become a general contractor. 

Here is a shot of the original bathroom that sort of shows the vanity and the medicine cabinet flourescent-tube light combo. You can see here that the ceiling is slanted because of the roofline. The room is a little small anyway, so I think the pedestal sink would work better in this space. P.S. 

This is the bathroom with the chunky vanity removed. I've purchased a pedestal sink to replace it. (It goes on the right.) Travis and I purchased a medicine cabinet and two sconces with "alabaster" glass shades (to replace the old mirror and flourescent light combo). We plan to use beaded board wainscoting to cover the gluey mess that the old tiles left behind.  

Travis and I removed the tiles from the walls with hammers and chisels, while Jeff threw the toilet out the window into the dumpster. You can see the plaster is crumbling off the wall behind the tub (that's just the beginning of that problem). 

When you look at the "before" photo of the bathroom, please note the following: green toilet and matching tub (set on a stand/riser of some kind, who knows why), pearlescent plastic flesh-tone tile on the walls, crusty old linoleum tiles on the floor, warped and water-damaged plywood box that tub faucet is coming out of, and finally the decrepit sink/vanity thing. All-in-all, not much to make you fall in love with the house ... untill now. Please view the following photos of the progress and read the captions to find out just how we arrived at the point we've reached today. This is an illustration of the potential problems that might be lurking under the surface of your very own bathroom (should you decide to renovate it someday). Beware of the dirty work and massive time commitment required to make this kind of magic happen. Behold.

This is the upstairs bathroom before the work began. 

I'd like to say that I really love the team we've assembled to work on the house. My Dad and my brothers have been there a TON. It's so great when I look around and see all the progress. I have warm-fuzzy feelings that they love me enough to work in the dirt and give up their Saturday afternoons. I love them. I really hope they know it. Also, we have hired two people on a "friend-of-a-friend" basis. Little did we know that they would become our friends too! Lana (tiling and general contractor) and John (paint, drywall and plaster) are awesome! We have been soooooo busy working over there. I've got some photos of the progress to post today. Personally, I am so proud of the work Lana and I have done in the upstairs bathroom. Let me know what you think!

Peace.
Jen

Remember way back in January when I got a cold? I STILL have a cold! That is some crazy stuff. My Mom told me today that people have mentioned to her that they have experienced the coughing stage of the cold for 4-5 WEEKS! WHAT?!?! If this doesn't end soon, I'll go nutty. Anyway, feeling like crud for weeks does afford one lots of time to think. (Like when you cough yourself awake at 2:00 a.m. and you can't get back to sleep.) So I've got an idea to generate some funds (which we plan to use to pay the bills, in case you're wondering). Here's the plan:

I'm going to tour the house in search of all the lovely things I've made that are just sitting around without a home. I would like to give those items a home with people who will truely enjoy them. I have made a lot of interesting and beautiful things that I finished and then I didn't know what to do with them. Duh. I'm an artist (soon to be a starving artist) so I should sell them! Then I'll make enough money to live and then I can keep on making cool stuff and live some more! I've put a lot of thought into this plan. I hope it works. So keep your eyes peeled for photos of the cool stuff I made. Tell your friends, Jeff and Jen are putting their art on the market! Look out universe, things are about to get a bit more crazy in this crazy adventure.


Peace.
-Jen


P.S. Remember to use your Neti Pot. You never know, it could save you from this wicked cold.

Bbbbrrrrrrr... its February and its cold. We all thought winter just might be over, but alas, the snow has returned. What were we thinking? When has winter EVER been over in January in Michigan? Today the snow is fresh, which is beautiful. In a week when its all brown and muddy, don't bother to ask me what I think of it then. I have a wedding meeting today with a prospective client. Actually, she's late. I should be having a meeting right now. But if anyone should understand what its like to be late, its me. Especially since she's driving here from a different city. This is a divine opportunity to practice patience. (Lord knows I need plenty of time to practice, I'm so impatient.)

Well, the meeting is over...she paid me a deposit! Yaaayy! So now we've got another Wedding to shoot this summer. The deposit is a beautiful thing because money like that is in short supply right now. When you don't have a guaranteed paycheck, its a little scary to think about how you're going to pay for the big things (like the mortgage). So far, things are going well. We just need to stay creative about bringing in funds. I always love a creative challenge.

Peace.
-Jen