Just lost my oldest cat. I'd taken him to the vet but he was so afraid of going to the vet that he had a panic attack and a seizure. They were afraid to take blood or run tests in case it caused him to panic & die. He took a turn for the worse on the weekend when the vet was closed. I did my best to take care of him & in the end had to just be there for him and try to comfort him when he passed. He died in my arms. I wish I could have done more for him, but he wasn't alone and he's no longer suffering. I still need to bury him. On a side note, I've had an idea about installing a vanity light in my bathroom. Initially I wanted to have a plug that would go in to the GFCI outlet, but after studying wiring more, I realized that if I open up the walls, I could use the GFCI outlet as a junction. I currently have a single gang box. I want to replace it with a 2-gang and add a rocker switch for the light. I've examined wiring diagrams on how to do it. If it is not already a junction for the adjacent room, it should be fairly simple. I got the materials to make a mirror with bullseye plinths, so I might take the mirror that I was gong to put in my bathroom and put it in the guest bathroom instead and build one for mine, but then use it as the door to a medicine cabinet that I plan to make. It won't be very deep, but I'll have to see how far it sticks out so I can decide if I need to bump the vanity light out more-- although, if I set the vanity light higher, it might not be a problem. I'm going to need to redo the top molding-- maybe put in some real crown molding instead of the raw wood strips that are up. And the ceiling tiles are really ugly. I'm seriously thinking of covering my ceiling with luan & gluing vinyl floor tiles to it. Either that or I can put some beadboard on the ceiling.

In the first photo, there is a box bay window that gives extra space to this room. Could you possibly install or place a coffee/wine bar in the offset of this window? Perhaps a narrow, three-shelved rolling cart would fit into this area. I have two that I ordered from the Lillian Vernon Storage Catalog several years ago, and such could suffice as a coffee bar, provided there is an electrical outlet for the coffee maker in the box bay location. The Houzz website did have a link to photos of coffee stations, and you may get some ideas from this source. I would keep the wainscoting and the rather casual style of light fixture. If you want the room to look less formal, use some bright accent colors or even paint the upper wall a rich, bright color that you love. Perhaps you could get casual-looking chair pads in quilted material, corduroy, or washable tweed to tone down the formality of the room. For wall art, you might put some maps or tastefully done posters in large frames and display them above the wainscoting. Plain cotton, corduroy, or even quilted curtains to go with quilted chair pads will give the room a less formal atmosphere.

Sue, you came on here asking for advice. Next time you do that, look at who is answering you and what their credentials are. Listen to that advice and if you don't understand why they are saying something, ask some questions. I can't believe that you understood the implications of not having waterproofing behind your tile. Do you understand that the phrase, "marble is porous" means that marble is like a very hard sponge? That grout is not waterproof and never has been? (Your old acrylic walls WERE waterproof, so their keeping the drywall dry only means that they stayed intact.) That green drywall being water resistant means that it will eventually get wet, so you will have mold behind your tile? That those metal washers in the drywall, if not completely sealed, will rust and that the rust will come right through the tile and show on the front? That applying Red Guard starting halfway up the wall does almost nothing to protect your tile, since the water is going to pool at the bottom? (You can expect those bottom rows of tile to be discolored from being wet much of the time.) That a couple of memberships at the gym (which is what my husband and I did this summer while our only bath was down) is cheaper than a later tear-out? That you agreeing to a fix for only the second half of the shower may take away some of your right to demand that it be fixed later? That the only time you have any power to get a change made is before Lowes finished paying the contractor for the work, and that since it was Lowes who hired these guys, it was Lowes who had the ability to demand the job be redone and that it was Lowes who you should have been working with all along for any complaints? You don't make a complaint by sending some pictures to the order taker and suggest that she should send them along to the manager if she likes. You find out who the manager of the bathroom renovation contracts is and you send that person an email with return receipt, and follow up with a phone call. Or you see them in person. You have decided to be happy that the outer part of the tiling job now looks pretty good, and that you have someone coming to fix the final goofs. I would suggest that you do an addition to the house and put in a shower next to your bedroom that you use for your every day showers and that you leave this one for guests who come rarely. It will take days for the shower walls to dry out between showers once the wall gets wet. Meanwhile, though, it will look pretty nice, and that seems to be all you were concerned about.

In remodeling business you need to have a will in order to find a way to do it, specially when it comes to older homes. I think I can see the beam which runs perpendicular to the joist system and joist run parallel to the outer walls... This type of situations are always problematic when it comes to plumbing for the second floor. I'm not sure to what extend you changed the layout upstairs, but if you working with the same layout and just did structural modification on the first floor so you can have an open area, your architect is not the blame here... Experienced Home Builder would pick that up right away before the plans are drawn, same goes for a Plumber and some Architects would have a concern if they dealt with something like this before. It is very important to have a plumber, framer, architect at the house, prior you start making changes and see what problems could come up down the road when doing this or that, this way everyone is on the same page. But in any case, regardless that this situation wasn't foreseen prior, this situations come up and they can be easily handled in the field and you have some options there but you will have to do some additional framing, maybe change the design a little, which is not a big deal at this point and easy to do at this stage. I'm not sure what is going on upstairs, but if something upstairs can be moved or changed and if all the walls are open upstairs, it shouldn't be a big deal to reframe a few things is it's feasible. If not, there is other options. #1 you can cut the joist where the toilet is, add some additional framing with a mounted header to give a path for a 3" sewer line to get to the closest wall below so it can run down into the basement. All other pipes can be drilled through the joist system and find its way down. #2 to avoid all that framing, you can layout a coffer ceiling and use one of the drops to run your pipe. #3 build a few half walls coming out on each side of the room far enough to catch the above sewer pipe and at the same time you will still have open area with an extra detail indicating sort of separation between the kitchen and dining room... you can add a few decorative columns on each side, etc and drop the pipe in there and run it to the nearest wall, Something like this. There is always options, just have to find the best solution that will work in your case. Good luck