With Help From The Other Brother-in-law

One of our greatest concerns with this renovation was to make a seamless space out of two small, meager holes-in-the-wall.  As the drywall took shape our fears withdrew until the final coat of paint went on the wall.  Late into the night I climbed up and down the ladder to trim, taking great care to get a crisp edge between the walls and the ceiling.  Having learned my lesson with the Kilz, I made for certain all the windows were up and all the fans were on.  Without doors to the room, Mary struggled to get a few hours of sleep despite the sound of my size 10 Chuck Taylors banging, clanging, and occasionally tripping up and down the fiberglass ladder.

Bleary eyes at 5:00am, I climbed the ladder for one last coat, dressed in my pajamas & shower robe.  Though it may sound reminiscent of a couple featured on Trading Spaces, our rush was not at the prompting of a TV crew.  First thing in the morning, my brother-in-law's, brother-in-lay's, brother...that's three brothers, two in-laws...was due to arrive to put his magic tile laying touch on our project.

We opted for the 3x6 ceramic subway tiles rather than a fiberglass tub surround for many reason.  Most notably, the expense was comparable, but the impact was much greater.  We have, after all, an extra foot of bathroom for the tub, and who doesn't like extra feet where they can get them?  Especially after five years of life with a closet sized bathroom tucked below a defunct staircase.  In addition to the cost & the space, one of the few perks inherent in a house 120 year old house is the 10 ft ceiling. We opted to buy and extra box of tile and go all-the-way up to the ceiling.

To our surprise, we ended up having to special order the shower curtain rod.  Missed it by that much (and by that I mean exactly one inch.)

After almost 15 bags of self leveling underlay, it was unavoidable that we would select ceramic tile for the floor.  In keeping with the previous statement about who doesn't love an extra foot, we picked out 12" square tiles.  Over the past two years we have poured over tile samples every time we went to Home Depot.  In other words, once a week for two years we considered the options.  In the end, we discovered by accident our tiles at Lowe's.  On principle I worry about shopping at Lowe's because I was once told that WalMart own's them.  However, while fretting over the price of some rather handsome Italian tiles recently, we turned around to discover a similar product on sale.  And so, we purchased all of it.

Again, we are thankful for the help of my brother-in-law's, brother-in-law's, brother.  And, ironically, He  he enlisted the help of his brother-in-law.  Which leads me to ask myself, when and where will my other brother-in-law call in a favor from me.