Our Master Bathroom... and How we are Surviving

This is going to be a long post. Lots of pictures, but I promise, worth reading!! 

The master bath is 90% finished. Let me show you a few before - this was what the master looked like when we purchased the house in March:

M aster March 2014

Master Bath March 2014

That bathroom, believe it or not, was something I would Rather have dealt with for the last 8 months than the first re-modeled one. Let me explain...
When we looked at this house in February, I told Brian, I could live with the house, as long as we fixed the kitchen first. The rest of the house was fine - sure outdated, but fine. We opted to do a total house re-model and the master bath (besides the kitchen) were the two largest parts of the re-model. We never lived through this:

Master Demo 1

Master Demo 1

The demo above was done by our first contractor, Brian's uncle, and crew.
The bathroom was done around the time we got married - in fact we came home from our honeymoon and moved in June 1st.  The room looked like This:

Master Bath June 2014

Master Bathroom June 2014

 Unfortunately, we had a MAJOR problem with this bathroom. We would not know it for a few weeks though. 
Brian and I moved in the new house like I said, around June 1st. We were So excited. The upstairs was 99 % done. 
The story goes a bit like this... Brian asked his uncle (and workers) to leave for a few weeks. We needed to 'live' in our house for a week or two as newly-weds, and have some peace and quite. The upstairs was 'done' and we just needed to enjoy it. Plus we were trying very hard to get our old house sold; and we Had to get moved in, so that process would be a bit smoother.
See - this was our house - almost done June 2014:

Dining Room

Hank in the Hallway

Guest Bedroom 1

Living Room

Again, unfortunately we were in for the biggest upset, and shock of our lives during the month of July! I went downstairs to our basement to check on a load of laundry. Brian had just come home from the gym, and was taking a shower. While I was downstairs, I could hear what sounded like rain. Felt strange, but we didn't go in the basement much (unless it was for laundry) because in June/July we were taking a much needed break from re-model. I started walking around, concerned but not ready for what was about to unfold. I noticed it was 'raining' in our basement (coming from the upstairs master shower). I ran up the stairs and explained to Brian the situation.
The following day, I had a plumber meet me at the house to see if the drain was cracked or something? Unfortunately the plumber began explaining that we didn't have a shower pan.
How is that? no shower pan? and what did this mean?
Brian contacted his uncle, he assured him the plumber was wrong. So we went through a few days of showering in the guest bathroom, and tried to get a grip with the master situation. We had a second opinion, another plumber. Sure enough, he said the same thing. The water was just seeping right through the grout in the shower floor, straight to our basement. (At this point, thankfully NOT finished).

This picture below - I can never fully explain the day here - I don't want to re-live it - ever. It was the first and worst fight of our marriage.

This day was July 3rd. Like I said, I never want to re-live this day again. We screamed and yelled, and screamed. Words were hurtful, and hateful, and just....bad. It was honestly the worst day Brian and I have ever had. I say this, because it is true, this re-model has been hard on us. And now it's November, and although we live in it, we are making it. And much stronger because of it. 

So, that picture. Brian jackhammered out the shower tiles from 'the first remodel' - turns out, the minute he took out the tile, we could see straight below to the basement. There was NO shower pan. We just shut the door to this bathroom for what felt like months. It took us until September to actually figure out what to do... The tile was SO expensive, and the reality of our situation was, we had to take all of it out. I - was - Sick! We figured, Brian and I took all of 3-4 showers in that bathroom. OH, and did you notice the glass above? I'll get to that in a moment.

2nd Master Demo - Oct 2014

So like I said, we shut the door until September. Many other issues would unravel after this bathroom problem was found. Turns out the plumbing was done incorrectly as well as the electrical. So not only did we lose my pretty tile, we had to do a complete overhaul of the entire room. The picture above was taken (October 2014) the weekend Brian and I demoed our master bathroom (this time ourselves to save money) and unfortunately a second remodel was about to be underway. For those of you who have been reading, I mentioned this demo earlier under 'bad news 2'.

These pictures below are of the bathroom as of today - November 23, 2014.

November 2014 - 2nd remodel

November 2014 - 2nd remodel

In the end, we had to put new floors down, and re-do the entire shower. The hardest part - that glass was already cut for the prior shower - and while that sounds like no big deal, just re-build the shower the same size. The problem was that the walls were not originally waterproofed, and we had to address the shower pan - so the shower shrunk, but the glass couldn't be trimmed. So the contractor and the tile guys had to modify the walls to Fit the glass. It was a very stressful re-build. The glass thankfully fit. The granite broke during the removal; we had new cabinets made. Not sure if you paid close attention above - our first cabinets were actually just particle board and very rough and messy. The 'new' cabinets are amazing. custom. and exactly what we should have received the first time.

So how are we surviving? We are. We just are.The house honestly looks like this:

We have 2 toilets in our dining room.... The furniture is all covered with tarps.... It has looked like this for 3 weeks. 3 weeks!
Brian and I went to New York last week, and hoped to come home to a 'finished' upstairs, unfortunately we had some issues in the basement, and the living room is pushed back. Go figure. I was told I could put the furniture back in its place and straighten up December 1. 
People. It's almost Christmas, and I need to decorate!!!

The top left picture of this photo grid is of our guest bathroom. It's coming along a lot faster than the master...that's because we didn't have to completely demo this room. I'll post about it another day.

My momma came to visit me last weekend, we had a great time. Brian was out of town, so we spent time figuring out how I'm going to tackle the house over the next few weeks - and enjoy the holidays.
We wanted to have Brian's parents and Grandma, and my family HERE to Little Rock for our first Thanksgiving. It was our little dream for the house - back in March, that was all we wanted, to be done by Thanksgiving. ...looks like that 'dream' may be on hold until next year...


Thanks for reading ....I'm heading to Lonoke to see Brian -- and Hank! He's back from a 6 week stay in Oxford / Training Camp! 
I'm going out to put on some waders and watch Hank in action! Should be fun :)

It Just Feels Slow

Some days are just slower than others, the week of (Oct 19-25)  - there was zero movement in the house. Nothing, Zilch, Nada, Zero Movement - No one came to work.....And when I say that, its really hard to believe, because we have SO much work that needs to be done here!
But, thankfully things are progressing This week (Nov 3-7). Sheetrock has been put up in the basement, which means, I have walls :) We hope they will be finished out soon, and paint up by two weeks! (I just want these rooms finished by Thanksgiving!)

view down new hallway

view into office/ window in distance is bedroom

The master bathroom is not going as quickly as we hoped, unfortunately one of the workers had a death in family. It looks good - but, unfortunately the room is not finished. As I've said before, once this room is finished, we start demo of the guest bath. We are actually planning to start that work mid next week - Nov 13th-ish. It will look like an entirely new room! I went with the same look/stone/layout for the second go around in the master --- but you're all in for a surprise with the guest! I hope it turns out like I plan for it to....

new master shower

The termite damage is fixed - sort of... we think we still have a few issues, but for the most part, the area under the kitchen is fixed! I won't share a picture it's not that exciting. I did end up having someone from the State Plant Board come out to the house to confirm the damage was properly repaired, and he did confirm that.... but also, confirmed our suspicions that we had more...Our attic had quite a bit. We have 30 days to get a response from Terminix about repairing that damage.

We got a garage door Last week. I'm not as happy with it as I hoped I would be....Trust me, it's better, but it's not what I was expecting. Hopefully it will grow on me.

old house/ new house

 That's all I have for updates right now - But I do want to share two pictures, of inspiration. I'm deciding between these two pictures below for finishing out the fireplaces upstairs. Both cost roughly the same, but both give the house a completely different look/feel. So....here is my inspiration for the fireplaces you've seen before. Thanks for reading, hope you have a fantastic weekend.

option 1 (cast)