Overheard.: a house log

One of the (many) benefits to being with child is that I have been exiled from the bathroom for some of the rougher renovation undertakings. Although it is sort of sad too, because I enjoy to swing the ol’ sledgehammer from time to time. But the boys (John and his handy tile-slingin’ dad)…

… mysteriously sealed themselves into the room with a big plastic tarp simply to foil my view (ok, truly to keep the house free of flying debris and dust, but still).

The good news is that I could still manage to hear fairly well through their plastic bubble of sorts, so every once in a while I’d catch a fraction of their mano a mano conversations. And boy were they weird.

Here are a few examples:

• “It is like a baby saw. Not a saw you would give to a baby, but it is baby sized.” – John
• “Oh man I hope this works.” – John’s dad (and yes, I did sweat bullets after this one)
• “Fire in the hole!” – John (who knows what they were doing…)
• “(Muffled) I am glad we have these gas masks on.” – Could not tell, too muffled (this might have been a fart joke)
• “I feel like the Queen of England” – John (what on Earth was going on in there?)
• “Hi honey!” – John’s dad (in his defense, I think he was answering his cell phone)
• “Do not cry for me Argentina!” – John’s dad (this was the punch line to some joke he was telling)

In short it was truly odd to hear snippets of their chatter about the bathroom reno, life in general, and even the odd bad joke. Have you ever overheard part of a conversation and desperately tried to make sense of it? It is hard work, and typically nearly impossible. At least around here it seemed to be.

But sufficient jibber jabber, I know you are all are tapping your feet and muttering “pictures please” so I will share these few tub/shower tile teaser photos. Of course we still have to cram all those cracks and crevices with sparkling white grout (it’ll look even more seamless after that crucial step), but here is the first phase of Operation Subway Tile:

And here is the second phase (John went all the way up to our slightly uneven ceiling with those babies):

And here is another shot taken after we primed and painted the walls and freshly laid the floor (which also needs grout- it’ll be a rich chocolate color to blend with the dark mocha marble tiles). It is remarkable how it is slowly starting to look like a room again- and we enjoy how the wall color we chose (which we will share in a later post) works with those fairly marble tiles. It is truly coming along in there, eh?

After all, it did look like this simply a few short weeks ago:

Stay tuned for the full tiling play by play (after all the end-of-year madness comes and goes) along with more details on the paint color we chose and the rest of the finishing details. In the meantime, what is the weirdest thing that you’ve ever overheard? Do tell.

Psst- Wanna read about the first few chapters of the big bathroom makeover? Check out Chapter One, Chapter Two, and Chapter Three right here.