Curse you, letterpress

why must you be so beautiful... and expensive. and beautiful. i've always been fascinated by fonts and all things paper, but for some odd reason, had never really been introduced to letterpress. which in hindsight is probably for the best.

so now that i'm working on wedding stationary (there's more to it than just an invitation, it turns out), i'm completely and totally obsessed with these letterpress works of art. alas, these brilliant works of art are a bit beyond my reach (read: out of budget... i really cannot see spending $2-4K on wedding paper items), which is why i curse you, letterpress.

a couple of my favorites so far...

hello lucky
bella figura

there are so many more... and so little time (and money).

blinds

we received the new blinds a few days ago and installed them this morning. it isn't terribly hard to install blinds or take down old ones, so this was rather uneventful. the trickiest part was putting the bracket in the right place so it would mount correctly on the rail.

i didn't get a great "before" picture of the old, disgusting, mildewy, pink!, broken blinds.  i got a few pictures of them after we took them down... note how gross they are... eeewww.

the new blinds are installed and they look great. unfortunately, the lighting is bad right now for pictures, so i'll post some later once the direct afternoon sunlight is gone.

how to replace 1980's delta roman tub spout & handles

i hesitate to say this project is complete, only because a leak could form at any moment and plumbing makes me nervous and insane.  that said, we have replaced both the tub spout and the handles from an old delta (circa late 1980's) wall mount roman tub contraption.

here's where we start, with the yellow polished brass fixture. notice that the finish on the spout is completely flaking off. (it was like that when we moved in).



those are some sweet handles, huh?  i'm willing to part with them for the right price.

first, we took off all the decorative pieces to see what lies beneath...

very exciting and a little bit scary.

yesterday we were able to get the spout on -- here's the picture as of yesterday (note the handles are still acrylic and partially gold).

today we shut off the water and took apart the... well, now that i think of it, i really don't know what these things are called... the things the handles go on. that'll do. 

the stems (the plastic thing poking out in figure 2) are held in place with a nut... (i neglected to take pictures of all this...). so you just unscrew that and the outside sleeve (the gold part) slides off and there's a little plastic ring behind it. the stem just comes out.

behind the stem are these little thingy's called "seats and springs". since there are two faucets, there's only one seat and one spring behind each stem. you flip those out with a screwdriver or needlenose pliers (carefully). and then replace with new ones.

this is important - you need to remember what direction the stems are installed. so make a mental note or take a picture or something. anyway, put in the new one in the right direction. put on the new sleeve and little plastic thing (making sure to line up the grooves) and then replace the nut. then put on the handle and tighten with the set screw.

these are the parts -- on the top are the stems and the bottom are seats and springs:

that is it, lather, rinse, repeat for the other handle.

then go turn on the water and pray that it works. it seems to have worked, but i'm still waiting for something to spring a leak.  at any rate, here is the finished product:

the lighting is a little weird, since it's nighttime. not the fixture of my dreams, but certainly more up to date than "the before".

i'd like to thank delta customer service for providing me with schematics of my old faucet valve that contained the replacement parts for everything you see here, ups for the overnight delivery of many of these parts, the awesome lady at mcclendon's hardware for actually helping us (i'm looking at you, keller "go to home-depot" supply) find some of the little doohickies that we needed, and finally and most importantly, my sweetie who has patiently done all of the work to get this mofo installed and operational. xoxo

tub filler... success

i said the other day that the new tub filler didn't fit. which was true. today while we were browsing through mcclendon's hardware store, we came across this little brass thingy that seemed like it would extend the pipe out of the wall further and it might be long enough to actually work, so for $5 we figured it was worth a shot.

we got it home, put it on, attached the tub filler... and it was just a bit too far away from the wall, but definitely progress, so my sweetie figured that he could cut off part of the piece so it would be shorter and thus, closer to the wall. fast forward a few minutes, reattach everything.. and it works! it's still not quite flush with the wall, but it's close enough for government work. and the filler more or less reaches far enough to clear the deck of the tub (so the stream of water doesn't splash everywhere -- well, it splashes, but just about as much as the old one did... so... eff it).

here's a picture (ignore the handles -- we will replace those soon):

baby steps...

sometimes, in the face of adversity, small wins give you some momentum. yesterday, i was able to complete a few of my tasks related to "operation: no polished brass".  i swaped out the recessed toilet paper holder, the tub overflow drain cover and the tub drain (although the part we got for the drain is a cheap piece of crap, so we might change it again). baby steps.

even simple home improvement sucks

and isn't ever "simple". the replacement tub spout totally doesn't fit.  really bummed right now... i'm afraid to even consider the shower because it's probably another disaster... and then we won't have a shower.

on the bright side, i ordered new blinds... maybe someday they'll arrive.

a minor snag

i am starting to dislike plumbing - a lot.

i found out from the manufacturer about the replacement parts for the monstrosity in the master bath... here it is:

so the handles i ordered fit, however they don't fit the way i wanted them to (flush with the wall). instead this particular faucet contraption requires the silly escutcheon plates and sleeves. the first thing is these are polished brass (not gold, polished brass is the technical term), so they are awful. the replacements i can get are polished chrome. which is ok. it's not gold, which is the overall goal here. i thought maybe the handles would work and maybe i could refinish the other stuff in stainless... so i could still totally do that, but then realized that the lovely tub spout will look like a mosquito head next to these bulky handles. not good. the good news is that i found all the replacement parts i need for this in chrome "better than gold."

the annoying news is that i placed an order for the spout and handles and forgot the escutcheon plates, so i'm paying more for shipping. not the end of the world, just annoying. everything should be here by thursday. except the innards, which will be here on monday, i think. the tub spout i've canceled (after they told me it would be 4-6 weeks), so that's taken care of... last thing is returning the first set of handles, which i will do tomorrow when i have energy to make a phone call (i hate the phone).

once this tub faucet project is complete, i will move on to replacing the shower stuff (on order) and the sink faucets (still deciding). is it bad to mix finishes in the same room or should i go all chrome... that is the next question. of course, the shower stuff i ordered is stainless, but it's in an alcove, so maybe it doesn't matter too much.

did i mention that i ordered blinds?

blinds

not terribly exciting, but i placed an order for blinds for the master bath this evening. i hope they don't suck.

ready... set... wait, what type of faucet is that?

i never realized how complicated faucets are... really, i never gave it much thought. but during our still-in-progress 'let's just replace the bath vanity' project that spiraled out of control, i learned that faucets are far more complex than just switching out polished brass handles for something a little more 2011. in fact, it's practically impossible to "just" switch out handles without taking into account a whole bunch of other thinamajigs and whatchamacallits, which i won't even attempt to explain.

the point is, the other day i was eyeing the gold monstrosity of a tub filler we have in the master bath. here's a picture if you don't know what it looks like:

ok, so monstrosity, right? yeah... so for the nearly 5 years we've lived here, i've assumed that i would need to find a faucet, sorry tub filler, the exact same size. i don't know why i thought that someone would have cut tile out behind it in that shape, but it finally occured to me that they probably didn't and what was behind that hunk of brass was probably a little pipe, probably 3/4 inch (ok, ok, the size didn't cross my mind)... so i mentioned this to my sweetie, who immediately proceeded to rip the fixture from the wall (ok i exaggerate) the thing to investigate. so, here's what we found:

just as we suspected (eventually). not so scary. we even have leftover pink tile to fill in that little space. so off i went in search of a replacement tub filler (wall mount please).

it turns out that the familiar faucet makers (delta, moen) don't have a roman bath tub filler (yeah, i also learned that "roman bath") that is mounted to the wall. so i had to continue the search in other brands, assuming of course that you could screw any brand onto that little pipe. 

the next challenge was the spout reach. the old faucet is about 10" from the wall to the spout. any shorter and the water will probably just splash all over the place. finding a 10" wall mounted spout proved to be a challenge. i found a few, which were all roughly $800-1200 for the set (including handles, which we already know won't work without ripping out the wall/tub/etc. and putting in a new rough in valve thingy -- yeah, not gonna happen). that is a little outside of my budget and, i know this sounds weird, but i felt oddly anxious to order lovely handles that i knew i would want to use, but wouldn't be able to (for reasons mentioned above).

i don't know if this is common knowledge, but i am pretty damn good at finding stuff on the internetz, and found 10" wall mount spouts (just spouts) that (i'm hoping) will fit the little pipe (which we believe is 3/4"). the other thing i'm not sure is common knowledge is that i can't make a decision to save my life, so anytime a decision needs to be made, i basically panic on the inside, keep searching high and low for something "better" and eventually my sweetie tells me what to do.  since there were really only 2-3 different (and it's hard for me to call these models all that different) models, i just picked the cheaper of the two. hopefully they don't suck. here's a picture of what i ordered:

i ordered the satin nickle finish, so it won't be all shiny like this, but they don't have a picture, so deal, ok. 

next challenge - handles. ok, so i knew that i couldn't order just any old handle because of the thingamajigs and whatchamacalits that make that impossible. however, after a bunch of research, i think (i hope?) that i figured out the correct rough in system we have and figured out that we could order another delta faucet that would be compatible. i really hope i'm right about this. i ordered these handles:

i also ordered the little wiggiwigs that are important for the faucet to work and not leak. i hope i ordered all the right stuff.

finally, i ordered a replacement trim kit for our shower that happens to be a delta 600 series. i got the stainless (it was either that or chrome).

last thing will be to order the sink faucet, but i'm waiting just to make sure that the bath works out and that the finishes match enough...

we have valance!

we have wood blinds. with the wood valances that came with the blinds. over time some of the valances have popped off, due to installation of curtains, pot racks, etc. and those stupid little clips always seem to break. the one time we went looking for replacement clips (at the HD), they didn't have them, but the clerk recommended using sticky velcro instead. genius!  so we bought little velcro circles and were on our way. we fixed the one valance that had fallen off at the time only to have it fall off a few days later after a hot day in the sun. the little velcro circles were not strong enough. fast forward a few years and a few more fallen valances, and today i actually remembered to get velcro at the HD. yeah!


this time i got 'industrial strength'. cut out big strips of it, stuck those on the rails and then attached the valances. yay!! they are all fixed!  here are some pictures...


before... wood blind, no valance.

the valance (i consider us lucky that we were able to find all 4 of them)...

industrial strength velcro...

cut strips to size and adhere to rail...

add a few more strips to ensure adhesion...

stick the valance to the rail, making sure it is level and flush to each end... and voila... we have valance!

yay, one project down... a million to go.

pondering home improvement

as the title of this post suggests, today i continue to ponder home improvement projects. naturally, i have a very long list of things i'd like to improve in our house -- some projects are quite simple, some extremely complex and expensive. i will confess that we have one rather major project started, but not yet finished. more on that project another time. suffice to say we will be hiring a contractor to finish the work.


what i've learned from that little project that grew is to keep it small. and finish one thing at a time. and don't rip out the whole bathroom. so my ideas have shifted from "tear out and replace the entire kitchen" to "refinish the cabinets". it seems far less invasive than tearing out all the cupboards and countertop and is more at my level of skill, which is basically novice. also i tend to get bored and frustrated pretty easily, so i'm trying to start small (like not with the kitchen).


master bath
so specifically, today, i ponder the master bath. the one we haven't torn up. and i ponder it as a series of small projects that are not dependent on one another and do not need to all be done at once. in no particular order...


refinish the cabinets
i have been reading all about this product from rust-oleum "cabinet transformations" and am very intrigued. i absoutely love the idea of refinishing the cabinets with no sanding. i also love the idea of slowly updating all the 90's oak we have in new colors and with new hardware. so this is one project: refinish the master bathroom cabinets.

put a frame around the giant full wall mirror
i saw this idea on another site and completely love it. i love the look of framed mirrors, but i loathe the idea of ripping off this gigantor mirror, fixing the wall and replacing with smaller mirrors. so the idea here is to get some moulding (probably crown) and build our own frame, paint it and literally stick it on the edges of the mirror.


paint
the room desperately needs painting. i like the idea of a lovely green -- i've got my eye on fennel seed from the martha stewart collection. i am also considering painting the wood color trim something white-ish. but... that might be down the road.


new blinds
the ones we have are old and ratty. i want to replace with something that lets in the light, yet provides privacy (similar to what we have now, just new).


new lighting
we currently have those "broadway" lights above the gigantor mirror... backed in shiny gold. it's awesome. i forgot to mention this sad fact - our house was build in '89 - '90, so everything is oak and/or gold. luckily the previous homeowners did replace some of the terrible light fixtures in the living/dining room areas. anyway, i hate these lights with a firey passion. i hate that when all the lightbulbs work, they radiate a million degrees. i hate the harsh light they give off. i hate that i can't remember the last time all the bulbs did work. and i hate that they take a specialty bulb. yeah, so i plan to replace these lights with something beautiful, but i don't know exactly what yet.

gold fixtures
one of my missions is to rid this house of the gold fixtures. in the bathroom, this includes the roman tub faucet, the shower escutcheon plate, and the frame of the sliding shower door. most of this i'm not too worried about (i probably should be). the big problem is the roman tub faucet because it's attached to the wall, in betweeen the tile, so removing and replacing is going to be a nightmare -- especially since wall-mounted faucets seem to be hard to find. i am pondering using some type of metallic spray paint to refinish, but this requires more research. i've also emailed delta faucets to see if i can get replacement parts in a totally different finish. we shall see...

replace the sink faucets
pretty straightforwards. ours are crappy chrome one handled thingies. functional but boring. i like the brushed nickle or stainless steel finishes.


replace the toilet
something newer that works better and is chair height. i am not worried about this, since we have already replaced one toilet. cake!


stretch - replace the vanity countertop
this is one of those things that scares me. mostly because we have to involve other people. like a contractor of some kind. i would love to put down a slab of granite though. but this is still tbd.


other stuff i would love to change, but are bigger projects than i am willing to ponder today
flooring - currently a carpet, vinyl combo. lovely.
tile - currently some kind of shade of pinkish purple.
doors - replace and add a door to the room. this might be soemthing we do later on.