All Shower, All The Time.

After too many mishaps to tell of in this modest blog, we are finally DONE with the last big remodelling project chez nous!

The shower in the kids' bathroom was looking shabby, so we decided that after the guest room and bathroom were done, we'd "freshen up" their shower.

We decided to increase it from  90cm x  90cm to  120 x 120 .  This didn't sound like much on paper, or even look that much bigger when we traced it out on the floor....

But it turned out to be...quite substantial once the walls started to go up.

This is a very, very fancy drain of super-fancy fanciness.
However, it is NOT as fancy as the REALLY  TRULY fancy
drain that I reallywanted,
(which turned out to cost 360 EUROS!!!!!!!).
But it is still pretty nice. 

My idea to use glass brick was pretty brilliant *breaks arm patting self on back. Ouch!*
The bricks work nicely, keeping the shower
 from blocking the light from the window.

The curtain hides  shelves full of towels and sheets.
The plaster bust on top is some random Roman dude, found at the thrift shop.

Please to note the extra-fanciness of the various retro chrome fittings.
I ordered them from Hudson Reed, a place with all sorts of astounding faucets and fixtures.

Another clever feature I dreamed up was the recessed, tiled shelves built into the back wall.
 I have three daughters with long, long hair, and those people use a LOT of product!
(NB: Severin also has long hair, but is not so keen on  hygenie as his lovely sisters)
At any rate, these shelves finally give the kids a place for all their shower stuff.
 I HATE those stupid metal shelves that rust and/or fall down constantly!

If you would like to come over and try this amazing shower out, please contact me and I'll see what I can set up for you.

The Lion, the Witch and the Guest Bedroom with Full Bath.

The door on the left?
It used to be a closet. 
But now when you open it, instead of finding assorted winter coats and snowboots, you end up in a magical land where it is winter all year round because of the terrible Snow Queen.

Well......it would be nice if that were true, because last time I checked, having an imaginary country located  in one's home did NOT involve a month of unholy messes and daily numerous trips to the DIY shop....not to mention actual  painting, tiling, and general hard work.

As you may have gathered from the above, our project is NOT done yet.  Still at least a week to go. 

The stairs have been temporarily put in, making it a lot easier to get in and out.
And  fitting a staircase of any kind into a closet was no mean feat. We had to get special, rather steep ones.

 The room is finally painted and the stratified  flooring ("Celtic Oak") is in.

The light fixtures we chose at Ikea are also up.
There are two, though you can't see the second one in this pic.
Very groovy.

 The bathroom has been taking shape nicely. 
The in-wall suspended toilet turned out really great.

Apparently, they are not very common at all in the USA, as I found out when I was trying to describe the project to my mom.
Here in France it's A Thing.

 We also have the heated towel rack ...which is also totally a must-have in your bastic French bathroom.








Below is the shower.  The glass bricks are to let in light and keep it from feeling too claustrophobic.

I also like the exposed beam.

 This was my brainstorm for the vanity: custom-tiled to match the wall mosaic!! I am SO happy with how it is turning out.

I also ordered a really cool faucet to go with it.....

 This is where it is as of today.... I think the final touches will be done tomorrow and then we will have a brand-new,  fully-functional bathroom!!

Totally Worth Waiting For (AKA Pimp My Garage)

After long silence, it has all built up to this moment:
 STILL MORE HOME RENOVATIONS!!!!
And what is better than that?
 Nothing- duh!

We need more room in our home in order to welcome guests more comfy-cozily (pretty sure that's not a word, but it is so much cuter than just "comfortably"). This in mind, we ("we" in this case mainly  consisting of  Paul the Roumanian Magician)  have attacked a new moumental project:
 making a nice guest room with full bath in the upper story of our cavernous garage.

What used to  be a closet next the the half bath on the landing now leads to a small, empty (for now) stairwell.  The ladder there takes you to a soon-to-be-finished mini guest suit ( NB: not that it is intended only for smaller than average guests.  The "mini" refers to the fact that it is just an average-sized bedroom with a bathroom thrown in.  Non-palatial in nature.)
It is only 3/4 finished at this point, but I figured that a few "before and  partially finished" photos are in order:

 The new area only takes up half of the total upper floor of the garage.  The other half is still desperately needed for storing all of our plenteous junk.
The little cement block you see at the right edge of the picture above  is part of the closet that was later cut to provide a space for the new stairs to come up.

The above photo was taken at almost exactly the same spot as the one at the top. As you can see, the bathroom takes a chunk out of the space. But I think it's worth it. 
 In the left photo, the ladder is in the hole where the stairs will be installed. And I hope that happens soon, as the ladder is a pain.

This is the exterior wall where the window went in.  It is by far the biggest window in the whole house. These old Savoyard homes were built to keep the heat in and that meant tiny baby windows.




Now we have a nice view of our backyard!

Pimp My Livingroom

This post is not about television programs, travel or bubonic plague. It is about my all-time favorite topic: renovating our sweet and rather exasperating old house.
Yes- in May, The New and Improved Romanian Handyman showed up. Actually, we don't call him that. That would be silly.   We refer to him as "DJ Pauly G".  Not to his face- even though the girls mean it in the nicest possible way.  It is just their way of expressing the amount of his awesomeness. The truth is, the man works miracles!  Just look!

 This is the "before " shot. This living room is quite small and has one tiny window.  One!  Only a cave-dwelling troll would have thought to "improve" the place with dark varnished wood ceilings. Sadly, the previous owners were cave-dwelling trolls with a decorating budget.....

Not that our own  "improvements" over the years turned out much better.  The textured wall treatment was my bright idea.  I started hating it the minute I finished putting it all over the walls. Definitely time for a change.....

This is where Paul took down the wall between the living room and the entry hall.  The idea was to make that wasted space part of the living room and give it some much-needed volume....

It was so great to get that horrible wood off the ceiling.  But under it was tons of lathe and plaster.....

As you can see to the right in the photo,  there is
the old opening leading to the main staircase of the house  leading up to the bedrooms. This would be blocked up and the space behind transformed into a closet.....



 Dust ruled our lives for many; many days.  Every surface in the house was covered....

One of the worst things about the hated textured wall plaster was that it was so hellish to remove.  We had to use a wallpaper steamer and putty knives to chip it off little by little. It was truly Satan's Wallpaper


The green being uncovered here is the original wall color from back at the turn of the century.... So, that is an historically accurate revolting shade of green.  Call the Smithsonian!

.












As for the clean-up task-  luckily we had help from R2D2's cousin.  (see below right-hand  corner)  He's never, ever been in a movie and his name is Kevin.  Sucks to be him.

 Anyway, the above may look similar to what we started with...but it is actually COMPLETELY different.  The room is now about a meter longer, the ceiling is NOT a disgusting troll-ceiling and the floor is a lovely oak parquet instead of splintery pine....

Here's a final post on the twins' room, aimed at those of you who aren't entirely sick of this whole project. I just wanted you to see it all now that the girls are moved in and living in the room. I took a few pics, panning around so that you can get a feel for the whole space.

As you can see, I glued panels of cork above Alexa's bed, so that she could get her posters, pictures and scraps of paper all on display again.

Here's Mallory's bed. Her guinea pig (chilling in the blue cage at right) seems pretty happy with his new, nicely decorated spot.
On the south wall, there's a window, but there was too much sun and the pic didn't turn out. Sry.

So, here we are again at Alexa's bed. You can see the balcony on the left. And also note the fluffy shag carpet on the floor, cleverly camouflaging the problematic cement bar in the floor.
Here's a closeup of Alexa's wall:
And finally, the view off their balcony. It's a bit desolate now, but will be really pretty in the spring.
The balcony is certainly big enough for a small table and a couple of chairs... I think the girls will really enjoy it.

The only thing I love more than a good list is a good batch of "before and after" photos.
Sadly, I don't have many pics, as I was too busy and disorganised to take as many as I should have...
But here's a couple of good ones for your perusal:
On the left, you can see the door to the balcony that is now part of the twins' New and Improved Bedroom.

And on the right, we can admire the awesome new ceiling that Paul put in for us (the man has mad plastering skillz, srsly!) and the gorgeous apple green paint on the walls around Alexa's bed....








Below, we see things are being put back into place. This is Mallory's bed:

The next step will be to glue cork board onto the wall above Alexa's bed and the finish the raw edges at the top of the wallpaper....
There also remains the small problem of the cement bar running through the wood flooring near Alexa's bed.
There was much debate about what to do about the yawning chasm left behind when the original wall came down. Paul said cement would do the trick nicely and I thought it would be fine...and it would have been if it had been well finished....
But the job was rather sloppy. By the time he was doing it, I think Paul was tired out and slowly losing the will to live.
At any rate, it's not beautiful and probably best covered up by an attractive area rug....

The New and Improved Romanian Handyman aka "Paul" (which is admittedly shorter to say, but way less fun to write!) has been working steadily since Sunday morning, putting in 10 hour days.
I think he's pretty tired out at this point, but at least now we can finally really see some progress!

Here's a preliminary before and after for you:






You can see in the left photo the green wall that separated the bedroom from the hallway. Below, you can see that the wall is gone and now the balcony that was in the hallway is part of the twins' room. And the room is about one meter wider than it was. FTW!






Here's the new wall out in what is no longer really a hallway, but more of a landing...
Paul finished plastering it this morning and is painting it right now.

The disgusting wasp megapolis in the ceiling has been replaced by insulation. (Nice, normal, bought-in-a-store, insect-free insulation.)
Plasterboard has been installed and it's all been nicely finished...



Sev had to help out quite a lot yesterday- which he loved because of the awesome outfit he had to wear. jk lol!!!!

The kids are on vacation from school right now...but holiday atmosphere is thin on the ground.

We're WORKING over here, people!
Srsly

After talking about it for years, we've finally taken on the project of enlarging the twins' bedroom. Their room is rather small and it always seemed to me that the hallway and balcony right next to their room would be much more useful as part it.
All it would involve would be ripping down a thin brick wall and building a short new wall closer to the door to their room.
(Please note that the word all in the above phrase should have been enclosed in quotation marks or some other ironic device. )
These things always turn out to be more complicated (and time consuming and expensive!) than they first seem, don't they ?

Here is the hallway and the door to the balcony. The door to the girls' room is to the left. The door on the right leads to Sev's room.

The wall came down pretty well...it was messy work, though.
Luckily, we have help- we've a new Romanian friend! As any regular reader of my blog knows, we can't get anything done around here without at least one Romanian in the house.
With a bit of help from Sev, the wall was history with a few hours.....

Then the next step could be taken... the horrible wooden ceiling had to come down.

Go Sev!

The plaster underneath was so damaged that Paul (our New and Improved Romanian Handyman) insisted that it ALL come down, so that he would put in an all-new ceiling.

And when the plaster and lathes came down, we found this:

And so it was that the Mystery of the Extremely Scary Hornet Invasion was finally solved.
They hadn't only been attacking from the kitchen chimney and the garage and the front wall of the house, they'd actually been in a gigantic nest located right over Alexa's bed.

But it's gone now and, with counseling, Alexa should eventually be fine....

So- finally, the demolition-type work was all done...
We are ready to start building something!