The Best Shower EVAAAAHHH!

I am not even going to pretend to write about meaningful stuff. I am up to my ears in schoolwork and grading, panicky (and panicking) students are knocking every hour on my office door, and I don't even want to get started on all of the stress that comes with the end of the semester.

Nope.

Better to share a happy thing: last week, the tilers came and tiled our master bath (which is the same room I was gutting in an earlier post), and this weekend, we saw the beautiful--and huge--results (a friend of ours said we'll have Romans lined up at our door.)

Our shower is massive and beautiful, although I will admit that this picture makes it look more cold than anything. Its got white subway tile, a chair-rail, and white marble at the outside edges. The floor is amazing. It's cork mosaic tile that we purchased from New Orleans Bamboo, and it looks like this:We used white grout to highlight the recycled wine corks' natural coloring. It's just beautiful. And since we can no longer afford the concrete kitchen countertops of our dreams (thanks in large part to this shower,) I am so glad that we will have this luxury. Once I add a little ceramic stool (for leg-shaving and luxuriating), some water-loving plants along the half-wall, and a sheet of that ridiculously expensive shower glass, I will be ready to move in to our bathroom.

Too bad the rest of the house isn't done. It is, however, sheetrocked, and our kitchen, cabinet-ed with cabinets that you just can't slam (Simon has been asking every one to try.) The wooden celings have a coat of laquer and are beautiful. The floors are slated to be refinished soon. And this weekend, we purchased a cast iron kitchen sink.

We did, in fact, decide to put the kitchen in the front, and it opens onto the dining room, which opens onto a lovely view of the outdoors. Here's the view from kitchen to dining:Also, we have a radiant barrier in our attic which Simon and a group of volunteers installed recently during the Historic Green event.

This week, Simon sanded and repainted the clawfoot tub we salvaged from the house. In cleaning the rust from the "claws," he uncovered metal appliques that read "2nd"--one on each leg. We have no idea what it means, but like the fact that its new home will be our second bathroom. (You can see the "before" of the tub in the background of the the gutting pic I linked to above. I'll post an after once it's in the house.)

So, word! Hooray for house-progress! Now: must make progress on grading papers...