It all began last summer when my sister Louisa was talking about doing some remodeling.
Then I bought a mirror from Pier 1 Imports that I thought would be perfect for my bathroom, which was in desperate need of an update too. All Sven had to do was remodel the room so that I could hang it up. Okay, so that he could hang it up.
But curiously that gorgeous mirror just stood in the spare bedroom against the wall for four months straight and my sister Louisa admired it whenever she visited.
Louisa went ahead and hired someone to put new flooring in both of her bathrooms and new carpet in all of their bedrooms and someone to paint the ceilings, leaving her husband to paint the walls and move furniture all over the place. Clearly she should have my mirror that she liked so well, since it looked silly where it was. So I sold it to her.
I had given up hope for my bathroom dreams. But then, on the Sunday following Thanksgiving Hunter changed everything. Apparently it was bothering him too. I took him out for a walk and he got a whiff of something living under a red cedar tree. He tore off so speedily that the leash snapped, thankfully, rather than my arm.
After corralling him into the back seat of my car with my excellent dog training skills and a couple pieces of bacon, the two of us drove to the hardware store to buy a new leash. But once there, I had to go past the paint department to find one, and then, there on the other side of the paint department there was the flooring area.
Okay, truthfully the pet section is on the other side of the store and if Sven ever reads this that will be the first thing he will say. "Millie the pet stuff is on the right side of the aisle." But regardless, I came home with a new leash, a rawhide bone, a gallon of paint and a book of vinyl floor samples
Sven just looked at me when I walked in the door.
“I think I like this one,” I said pointing at a sample.
“Really? I don’t like it that much.”
“But it matches the paint.”
“Let me see the rest of the samples.”
“Don't you like any of them?” I said.
“No. Not really. I think we should go to Menards tomorrow and see what they have.”
HOLY SHIT AND S-H-I-N-O-L-A!!!!!
I calmly answered, “Okay.”
So we had to custom order the vinyl flooring called, Urban Concrete, that we liked and then I picked out some really cool tiles for Sven to make a splash behind the sink with after he makes a new vanity with a bamboo top. And then we were in the toilet aisle for what seemed to be days, where we finally picked out the cutest, water saving, flushing shit can that we could find, for not too much money.
After that, the eighth and ninth wonders of the world occurred when Sven walked into Pier 1 Imports with me and we bought a mirror that we both agreed on.
Yee Hah!!!!
But the next day when I excitedly told Sven that the flooring had shipped and according to the tracking email that I’d checked several times that day, it would be arriving at Menards on Wednesday, Sven said that he wouldn’t be picking it up until the weekend.
“Oh.”
"Well I probably won’t work on it until after Christmas.”
"Oh.”
“You weren’t expecting this bathroom to be done before Christmas, were you?”
Well son of a bitch.
Just for the record, Hunter’s wish came true and so did mine. That sweet little shit can came complete with a slow slamming lid and was all set to flush by Christmas Day.
I love the story and apparently the toilet is something to see too!!! All of these remodeling projects sound great to me. Glad they’re at your houses and not mine!!!
OK, I get the picture now. Holy Toledo, no wonder Pat’s been pretty silent of late! I feel terrible & wish I were a flue oe shelf whisperer.
OH MY DEAR I’m afraid that this appliance whisperer is over her head on this challenge. I would have to take some classes b4 I put in my 2 cents! I wish you a lot off luck….oh I COULD bring over kleenex tho!!
You mean they make toilets with lids that CLOSE?! Ha
ahh… silent sulking… I haven’t thought of that. I do very verbal sulking, Millie. I’ll try the silent kind today and see what that brings. Perhaps the golden shelf project will begin again. In the meantime, I would like to hear from Louisa who had a whole house painted by someone other than herself…
By the way – I love the toilet in your dream bathroom, Millie! I too am a fan of the slow slamming lid:)
Hey, this is Peg on Pat’s account… I hope he reads this bathroom story and gets real excited to complete our golden shelf project – and the number of other painting jobs around the house. Millie, how did you exactly get Sven to see it your way? Any ideas for me, sista?
By the way, I call it the golden shelf project because it’s costing us so much money right now that I suggested we paint it in real gold when it’s finally done – which I will believe it when I see it (no disrespect to Pat). Basically, we (I mean Pat) took out a killer (literally) gas fireplace -and began to make a shelf in the wall where the fireplace was to store table linens, etc – sort of like a buffet. It was going very slowly and just fine (except for it going so slowly) when we realized that there was a leak from the old fireplace flue that was in the chimney through the top of the newly drywalled shelf. We hired a fireplace guy, he told us it would be $600 to put a custom made cap on the top of the chimney — which has been leaking for some time now (which also explains the deathly part of our cracked mortar in the old fireplace). While doing whatever fireplace fellas do on a snowy roof in the middle of winter, they unscrewed a collar of some sort and about 30 feet of heavy flue metal came crashing through the chimney right through the top of the in-the-wall shelf and broke it to bits. Both Pat and I came rushing to the scene expecting to find the mangled body of a fireplace fella. Nope, just the flue and a big mess. Pat actually had a tear in his eye. I was about to scream. Instead we just looked at each other, wordless – just staring at the messed up opening and each other over and over again. The fireplace fellas didn’t know that the flue had crashed through our shelf project, and let us know that the bill would be in the mail, as they were leaving. Pat asked them to give him some ideas for removing the flue – and the fella just said, “you won’t be able to move that – so don’t”. Pat let the fella know that he was indeed moving it and invited him in to see the disaster. They fella looked at it and said, “Yikes… this isn’t good”. He went on to say that we should not try to move it because ‘you can lose a hand if you try to lift it’. He let us know that he would be back on Wednesday to figure it out. Well, they did come over and took about 4 hours removing the dang flue… and another $250, we are now flue-less and have a very expensive golden shelf project to finish.
For some reason, Pat isn’t acting very excited to finish this project. So any advice you can give me Millie to inspire Pat is welcome.
Now that is a complicated situation that you have going on over there. I have never encountered one quite as severe as this one. I’m sorry that I laughed. Hard. You might want to call your sister in law, Louisa. Once I post the BS Club Minutes from January 3rd you will see how valuable she is when it comes to appliances, however, a shelf and a flue are not exactly appliances, but they are in the same family. Bird likes to use his chainsaw quite well. He might be able to do something with it. Hunter could easily knock a candle over with his bushy tail and cause a fire so that you could start fresh. Please keep me posted on your golden shelf project. You know Sven. He can’t stand my silent sulking. That’s how I do it.
Anxious for Vicki’s comment on this – and Amy!
Why? Are they partial to slow slamming lids?
love it!
You love the bathroom or the story? Kidding.
Both of course ( :
Mais non! How sweet our adventures are. Now off to le bathroom and live it up.