Savoie Neil - that's a clematis, though I don't know which one at the moment (there are hundreds, if not thousands.) Edited to add: I just went back & looked at the photo to see if I knew which clematis is pictured, that one is Perle d'Azur. Isn't she lovely?

Funkycamper - shower pan was lead, at least according to my contractor. But, yeah, that wood is really rotten!

crl_ - I don't know yet about the bathroom renovations... I'm hoping it'll just be a new shower pan (maybe an all-in-one base, that included both the pan and the part of the shower that your naked feet touch) and tiles on the lower 2' of the wall. I should know more by the end of today.

Romy - yeah, on the backsplash. And, seriously, at this stage of the game, the last thing I want to do is pick out a new countertop and a new backsplash to look good with a paint color I don't love...

In the "it never rains..." department: My 3rd floor (master) toilet has begun running. It'll flip on in the middle of the night, so, it's not one of those after-use-just-jiggle deals. I think the plumber is coming today to work on the shower pan, so I'll ask him to take a look at that toilet while he's here.

I also plan to go look at cork samples today, and probably also shower tiles.

I have cork samples! I think I have a favorite, but would welcome your input. Pictured with cabinet sample, counter and backsplash:

I kinda like the brown one, lower left....but the lower right is nice too and sorta has a cool pattern about it. Not sure the reddish one is the right blend at the top and the light colored one..eh.. does not jump out at me.

Russ

I also like the brown one on the lower left.

Lower left for sure.

Can you switch them around for us, and put the counter and backsplash with the left hand ones? I'd love to see how they all look with the red, but also next to the bottom left.

Hi -- I'm strongly leaning toward lower left!

Here are some separated photos:

I still like the same one..bottom one in this picture..but I would look at the swirly one ;)

Russ

Swirly:

Yea, the other one.. heh

It was close though! :P

Russ

I'm the outlier, I guess. I much prefer the lightest one. Partially because I just don't like the light-sucking quality of such dark wood even on a floor so, aesthetically, I like the light sample. And partially because I have read repeatedly here at GW and seen repeatedly many times in real life how dirty dark wood floors tend to look. Every speck will show. Every shedded hair from your cat will show especially if they have any lighter, whiter fur. When the sun streams in through those wonderful windows, and it doesn't have to be direct light for this to happen, you will see dust and any spot you missed while sweeping or vacuuming. The lighter sample with more variegated colors will help hide those kind of specks.

My sister has a very dark floor but she can get away with it because she has a very dark house with limited light.

My choice... either the red or darker brown (not the swirly one). Depending on what you think will transition better from the existing adjoining floor.

Also glad the cabinet thing worked out as well as can be expected.

I would typically agree with funkycamper about the preference for a light colored floor but I just can't get the image out of my mind of a floor covered with school room corkboard...the lighter one just doesn't work for me as a floor...the reddish one, just no...I like both of the medium brown colors but I kinda like the swirly one better because it seems all your other surfaces are going to be fairly solid color. It brings some movement into the room, if that makes sense.

Are you going to be refinishing the LR floors in the near future? I'd choose with that in mind and what if any stain you might use there.

Thanks, folks. When I first looked at them, my preference was for the darker, non-swirly one. If the majority of people on here, and others I asked (working guys, and sister via emailed photos) had expressed a preference for another (or a dis-preference for that one) I would have re-considered (though not necessarily changed my mind.) As it is, enough people agreed with me that it made it easy to decide I was right. :)

I've ordered that one, and it should be in the middle of next week. Contractor is going on vacation the week of labor day, and cabinet delivery is scheduled for 9/14. I've ordered an inexpensive all-in-one shower pan. They don't come in the exact size I needed, so it will be a little less deep - contractor plans to build up a small, 6" or so shelf in the back of the shower to make the shower fit the pan. I'm fine with that solution. A little extra space for shampoo placement will be useful. Here's what my shower looks like right now (I'm standing on the toilet) (plus, you get a bonus view of the kitchen!):

The guys are working on cleaning up all the construction debris & bricks that are out back. Some of those bricks will be used for my new steps, and whatever's left, for the fountain.

I like the lighter, swirly one best. The very lightest one reminds me of OSB! Makes me think of Christine's kitchen floor that she's finally getting finished;)

ETA: do you have another shower to use while yours is a gaping hole?! I hope so:))

Clueless - you know, I thought about that... I've wanted to refinish these floors almost since I moved in, but I don't know if & when that'll happen. We'll see...

When you do ever refinish the rest of the wood floor, the colors don't have to match, just be complementary to the cork. My LR/DR is red oak with a 15 year old "natural" finish so it has aged to that reddish golden color. I did the pine in the kitchen in a darker, more chocolate medium brown -- the natural variations have some streaks that are close to the oak, and the two colors work well together and I think distract from the fact that the woods are different.

Not trying to spend what's left of the budget or stress your cats out even more...with all that new light pouring in, refinishing those floors will make the space glow! In previous house we had our southern pine floors sanded and then finished with tung oil.

raee - that was a part of the decision against the red - red can be harder to work with in the sense of playing nicely with others.

Clueless - I know, I know....!

Who was it here, long ago, who talked about having floorboards running the opposite way of other, existing floorboards? It was good advice, and I remember it and am doing that.

Re: a little ledge in the shower: we added one in our old shower, when we shifted it several inches. It was so nice to be able to put a narrow acrylic basket there with my soap and shampoo. I just lifted the basket after the shower to squeegee the ledge off. It was tiled like the rest of the shower, but because it was so narrow, there was only, I think two grout lines. And it looked "richer" :)

In my defense, I like the look of cork boards! And OSB. And unfinished plywood edges if they are quality ply like Baltic birch. I know my tastes aren't normal which is why you'll very rarely see me give decorating advice. :)

Haha, funky, my favorite by far was the dark swirly one, and nobody liked that either!

I also do not give decorating advice.

Any one of those corks would have worked. Contractor is on vacation Labor Day week, and cabinets are scheduled to arrive on 9-14, the day contractor returns.

The morning, I ordered these tiles for the bottom couple of feet of the shower wall. I went to Avalon Tile, Lowe's & Home Depot. There were some mosaics I liked, but they were about $40/sf. These tiles are just over $4. a square foot and I like them. I'll have them installed subway style, and will probably try to match the grout of the above white tiles. Not exciting, but fine.

The shower pan is supposed to get in sometime next week, as are the tiles (and the cork flooring on Wednesday.) It would be really, really nice to have an operational shower before the contractor goes away, but that might be overly optimistic. I do have an odd jacuzzi tub (here when I moved in) that I bathe in, in the meantime. It has a shower wand, but no curtain or any way to keep the water from going everywhere, so I tend to sit in the tub and use the shower wand to wet myself. Fine, but not ideal. I'm not a bath taker, and the jacuzzi is otherwise never used. I've sometimes thought that re-doing the 3rd floor bathroom would be my next big project.

Depending on when stuff gets in, I think they'll either do the shower or the floor before vacation.

Today, they're working on the kitchen walls, re-enforcing the rotten beam, and I think they're hoping to close up the kitchen ceiling.

And, here, are the loves of my life. They were locked in the guest room, but were so unhappy that I moved them up to my bedroom. They seem infinitely happier there.:

I like the tiles you chose. I think they look more expensive than $4/sq ft, too.

I adore your kitties! I want to reach through my computer screen to give them scratches behind the ears. We had to say goodbye to our beloved, 19 yr old tabby a year ago (kidney disease) and we miss him so much. Our house seems so empty without him. Once our next leg of remodeling is over, we will be adopting another kitty.

Lisa - I've lost two kitties to kidney failure. Such a heartbreak. Your tabby lived to a good old age - ya done good. Consider getting two bonded kitties - it's so hard to find homes for two together, and so often owners die or surrender two kitties who love each other. That, and two cats is definitely better than one. :)

It is a heartbreak, Carrie. We kept him alive for nearly a year beyond what we thought we'd get, thanks to a great vet and the extra TLC and treatment I gave him (sub-Q fluids, I'm sure you know the drill). But I knew the day had come when he had 2 seizures just a few hours apart.

Other than my first kitty, I've always adopted strays, which don't often come in pairs. But if we can find two bonded kitties that are a good match for us and us for them, we would adopt both of them. We have a great, no-kill cat shelter just a few miles from us. They're so good at successful adoptions that they had to bring in cats from states that don't have no-kill shelters to fill the demand for adoptions. I've considered volunteering there but I'm afraid that I'd have a hard time not bringing my "work" home with me. =)

Kitties!

(That is all)

I've been enjoying this thread and I love your kitties!!

Shower tiles look nice. Your bathtub is absolutely charming. I love the tile and your art. And the kitties!! Of course they prefer your bed. :)

Thank you, everyone!

Lisa - SubQ fluids bought my Chloe an extra couple of years - Del only lasted a few months, and they were both much younger than your cat. The fact that your kitty lived as long as he did says a lot about your care.

Funkycamper - you mention my bathroom art... that picture up on the left of the 3rd floor bathroom...this one:

Here's the model (shes the in back in the bed photo:)

There's now plywood on the shower floor, and sheetrock on the kitchen ceiling.

Next week, the sheetrock is going on the walls, and, hopefully, the new floor is going in. There's a chance that my new window will come in & be installed. Contractor says it's very unlikely that shower will be done before he goes away labor day week.

The cats being part of the renovation is dear to my heart. I lost my beloved rescue kitty this past April (encephalitis-- it was awful). I so want to adopt two siblings but will be waiting until we complete our kitchen. I know you must worry about them while all this is going on but they look to be relaxed! Did you have the artwork custom done? Love it!

Is it just me or does your kitchen space look HUGE in that last pic? That door was meant to be there...it just looks, well, right.

Dcward: I'm looking at that photo on my phone, and I'm certain it's distorted. In reality, that door is 6', but the photo makes it look like 8'. Odd. I took it with my phone, quite possibly horizontally.

omg, I love that you turned a photo of your impish kitty into art! Did you do this? If so, please tell me how.

I don't think I can take all the credit. I think he had good genes (to which my DH would say, "but he's not wearing jeans!" Groan! Don't encourage him, folks). We also upped his odds of being with us a long time by keeping him as an indoor kitty. That's even more important now than when we first adopted him. Neighbors have spotted a pack of 6 coyotes wandering a few streets over. I hope that's not what happened to the lost kitty shown in neighborhood flyers but I fear that might be the case. What a horrible end!

mobuddy, sorry to hear about your kitty.

Love seeing the progress. That picture with the toilet paper hanging out of the cats mouth is priceless!

Boy, how did I ever get so far behind!

So,... I'm glad that the cabinet colour problem worked out - YEA!, the one on the bottom left (or, the one that you ordered), how cool is that that you can repurpose your bricks!, your cats are so cute and I love the artwork of the silly kitty, and wow so much sunlight pouring in through your new back door - that was such a great decision.

Can't wait to see more pictures.

Mobuddy89: the pink cat painting was a gift from my sister.

Years ago, I posted that Maddie photo on my (then, I no longer have one) blog. Another blogger, a young artist from the west coast (who I've never met) was experimenting with cartooning, she asked if she could use my photo. She did the portrait & posted it on her blog (from what I remember.) I loved it so much that I asked if I could buy a print. She uploaded it to a website that does that kind of thing, and she even picked out the border & the frame.Another blogger friend had two t-shirts made for me using the image, and I bought a box of stationery cards from the artist just last year.

The fact that I took that photo was such sheer excellent luck. Most of us know that cats pose all the time, but for them to keep a pose long enough for a camera to capture it... And there's no way I had a camera with me when I first discovered her - I would have had to run into another room to grab the camera. So lucky.

Lisa_a - I just posted the Maddie portrait story, above! I have the artist's contact information, if you ever want to reach out to her about pet portraits. I know that she does mostly watercolor pet portraits, now, and she's very talented. Agree 100% about keeping cats indoors. I grew up with indoor/outdoor cats that inevitably were hit by cars or disappeared. I volunteered with a cat rescue in the city that will not adopt out to people that declaw or to people who let cats outdoors. I agree with that.

Oh, that drawing is even cuter than i originally thought! Yes, how did you do that? I would love to do a wall grouping of drawings like that of all our pets over the years.

Oops....just saw above. I think I'm going to play with some picture art software and see what I can do myself. What a fun project this will be. Thanks for the idea.

Funkycamper et al, I just messaged the artist to ask if she has a website or an Etsy page for her pet portraits. Will let you know!

Let all of us know, she will be inundated with orders!

Here's her website, I think she doesn't update it very often: Shaw Fan

1. And her FaceBook art page: Shaw Likes to Paint.

She is absolutely lovely to deal with.

Love the kitty story. Love the artwork! Gonna love the kitchen!

I second blfenton - it's just been a day but so much has happened! Really glad the cabinet situation worked out, and it sounds like the shower wasn't too bad either (no need to remove walls or floor). The new tiles look nice. I also would have voted for the flooring on the lower left (and liked the swirly one too.) Things are really moving along. The kitchen looks great with the drywall up on the ceiling and the light streaming in the door. It's going to be so bright and welcoming!

Love the kitties! Their personalities just shine through in your pictures and that great print! Thanks for sharing with us!

Thanks, Carrie! I love the story behind the art!

You reminded me that DS2 did something similar with a self portrait when he was in HS. I think I'll ask him if he can do that again.

I haven't finished reading yet... but, if your KD has your signature/sign off on color in writing I'd be wanting to see it and get a copy of it. as for the other paper (crossed off color) if she gave it to you in error, that is her fault. I'd really be questioning her at this point.

Desertsteph - The KD did email me an image of my signature on the contract that had the wrong color. The final document was not corrected, and I (clearly) did not read through it carefully.

Almoscat - bathroom floor was completely removed. There's a photo above, posted Thursday, of me standing in the bathroom looking down at a full view of my kitchen...

Oh, sorry, I thought that was just the shower area and the rest of the bathroom floor stayed. Did it all have to come out? Still, as others have said, better to fix it now than to have bigger problems later.

Atmoscat - I'm sorry - I thought you were talking about the shower floor! The rest of the floor was fine. You had it right.