The 80s were a fantastic decade for a host of reasons other than big hair, questionable fashion, and a seemingly endless supply of brat pack movies.  Home decor included a superflurity of floral Waverly wallpaper patterns seen over and over and over and over and over again.  And again.   Even into the 90s.  And whatever you call "now". 

After a while, as beautiful as the swirling, colorful petals and leaves were, they got tired.  Or maybe I just got tired of them.

When we moved to Tennessee I-cannot-believe-it’s-been-this-long four years ago, the house that eventually evolved into our home was dated.   Every wall was a non-descript white, or everything was woodsy and masculine, or everything was tired wallpaper.  I guess I’m not using the word "everything" properly, but because I’m plum tuckered out from all that florid wallpaper, I’m not reaching very deeply into the vocabulary word bank, plus I’m going for effect here.  I want you to be tired, too.

Redecorating our home to look more like "us" came slowly.  We just weren’t sure we were gonna stay in Tennessee:  1) the people sure talked funny (they all turned "riiiight" at the "liiiight" wearin’ "whiiiiite" all "niiiiiight"…I bet you Southern bigots think "we" all sound alike;) ) and 2) we sure did miss God’s Country South Carolina, where a) everything we needed was within a three-mile radius, and b) every place we LOVED (beach, mountains, beach, family, beach, friends, beach, college games, beach) was within a few hours’ driving distance.

Fast forward four l  o  n  g  years and we’re spiffing the place up a bit.  Y’all already know about our bathroom renovation because I mentioned it over SEVEN months ago and then again when we had a slight malfunction.  And, honestly, I’m beginning to wonder if writing this danged post is gonna take as long as the actual renovation because I started it a month ago!   Loading this many photos is a pain when you’re anal about positioning pictures…and get easily distracted…and you’re in contention for the Queen of Procrastination…and unlike a lot of bloggers who worry they’ll run out of things to say, well, that doesn’t creep into the tiniest crevices of my cortex. 

So without FURTHER ado, I’m just gonna post ’em, before and after, and I’ll arrange them more nicely later.  Maybe. 

Oh, yeah…..if I totally inserted my OPI-polished and toe ring-adorned foot in my mouth because you have BEAUTIFUL 1980 Waverly wallpaper hanging from your every room…PUH-LEASE forgive me…I do that sometimes, and I’m sure in your home it’s simply gawgeous :).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Since my blog IS a journal after all, and I sometimes write things here I don’t wanna forget, it seemed like it might be a good idea to record all the things that … slowed us down along the way.  Hmmmm, let’s see if I can remember them all:

1)   Our tile guy, K, is a perfectionist.  He used three times the amount of tile others would have used to make sure all the seams matched perfectly. 

2)  Due to 1 above, we had to re-order tile.  Twice.

3)  K is also a very nice guy and likes to talk…a lot a good conversationalist.  I discovered it best for me to lock myself in a closet, or scrub my toilets, or the neighbor’s toilets, or the neighbor’s neighbor’s toilets, or immerse myself in blogging reading or writing so as not to slow him down. 

4)  When the cabinets came in, one of them did not have holes drilled for the shelves.  Tad could’ve fixed that, but there was no margin for error–the holes that needed to be drilled were on the side of the cabinet facing my sink (shown above); one sneeze, one slip, and…we would’ve had a view finder.  We don’t need no stinkin’ viewfinder peering into my cabinet.  They sent someone out to fix it and it actually took about two hours.  I figured it would’ve taken five minutes.

5)   The holes drilled through my granite counter top for the faucets (again, my sink, not Tad’s :/) were slightly off the mark; the base of the faucet couldn’t lie flush with the counter; the granite people had to come back to fix it. 

6)  The valve for the shower had a factory defect.  Of course, we didn’t know that when it was installed.  It leaked.  The back wall had to be cut out to fix it.

7)  After #6, Tad and I were out a dinner one night with some friends.  The kids called us.  They were watching television when all of a sudden, water started dripping through the light.  Tad calmly explained TO MY TEN YEAR OLD where to go cut off the water.  I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO CUT OFF THE WATER!!  It’s under the house I think.  If I’m not mistaken, they’ve found dead rodents and snakeskins under there. 

8)  After the SECOND leak, we tried to schedule K to come back and fix it.  He’s a one-man show, so it was "gonna take a few days" to get back to us.  After a week, I called him, only to find out his stepfather had just died.  I ended up calling another plumber to fix it.  I lucked out, he was a made-for-tv plumbing stud. 

9)  Oh, yeah, before ANY of the above.  We had to choose the tile, the design, accents and hardware, and for heaven’s sake, grout!  Do you know how many colors of grout there are?!  Do you understand I CANNOT MAKE A DECISION???

10)  Tad painted the walls above the tile.  Up until that point, we loved every choice we had made. 

11)  Because we didn’t love or barely like 10 above, we decided to wallpaper.  By this point my design friend Jennifer had entered the picture.  It’s nice having help with these decisions.

12)  Because of the leak in the shower, as you’ve seen before, the floor had to be ripped out :(.   Then, we had to order more tile.  By this point, K was feeling reeeaaalll sorry for us and scheduled us quickly. 

12a)  Which reminds me, the first time he tiled the threshold, he didn’t bank it enough towards the shower for the water to run into it; he fixed that the second time around. 

13)  Finally, it was time to hang the wallpaper.  I decided to use the person recommended to us by our painter (who died the day he finished our house).  This was NOT a good decision :(.  There are gaps in the seams in places and I’m STILL waiting on her to return to fix it >:(.   I THINK he recommended her to score brownie points–she told me he had asked her out twice in the past (she never accepted).  She hadn’t even heard about his death til I told her…

Okay…I know you’re just here for the pictures.  That’s fine, lol, the rest really IS for me :).  There is no test to prove you read beyond the first sentence ;).