Jeff and I have been partnered for nearly 24 years.  It is a true test of a relationship spending nearly 6 years in a leaky trailer while building our dream home in the hill. Not to mention all the monumental challenges of taking on such a project.  Though our house is not yet finished (is any house building project ever finished?), we were able to fulfill another dream.. And that was to be able to be married (legally as a same sex couple), in our own amazing house.  Circumstances were a bit last minute but with my mother and two brothers and my son visiting for Thanksgiving we decided to tie the proverbial knot.

Wednesday, November 26 with a few dear friends and family in attendance, the rainy skies cleared and gave us a glorious day for the event.We are sorry that more friends and family couldn’t attend but we will make up for that when we host a huge “Anniversary” party in April of 2016 which will mark Jeff and I being together for 25 years.  Everyone’s invited!

With the tile on the floor done, we worked our way up the wall (behind vanity & toilet)Because of the height of our wall and the dimensions of the tiles, we were left with about a 7 1/2″ strip near the top. Rather than “rip” a bunch of tile, we decided to add an accent strip of small basalt rocks.  These are the same mosaic stone tiles that we will be using in the walk-in shower so it ties it all together nicely.  We found gouting these stones and the vertical tiles to be a bit of a challenge…And rather messy…But I think you will agree, the results are rather spectacular.

The Toilet is back installed (just in time for more guests).  We are going to be making our own concrete vanity countertop but not until my bum shoulder heals.  So it’s a functional laundry sink for now.  Any professional tile setters out there? Building a custom shower pan for our walk-in shower is just a bit beyond my comfort zone.

One of the great features of our master bathroom is under floor heating.  We are using the Schluter Dietra Heat system.  This consists of an uncoupling membrane (The orange dimpled mat).  The dimples hold in the electric heating wires while protecting them from damage.

And then comes the tile.

Opps, I guess I got myself stuck into a corner.:-)These beautiful large format tiles will continue up the wall behind the toilet and vanity.  There will also be a line of small river rock going across the wall.

Stay Tuned!

Looks like we are getting a few days of nice weather so finally the stucco guys can finish up. With all the windows and doors protected the spraying fun began.  It is quite a transformation.

We are very pleased with the color and so glad that it is finally done.  It was beginning to look like our house might have to be surrounded by scaffolding until next summer.  This break in the weather is just what we needed. I think you will agree, the result is pretty spectacular.

We have this interesting niche space between the pantry and the water heater housing, lots of neat curves, shapes and shadows.  With the built-in bookshelf there is space for our cookbooks.  Then with the $20 Habitat ReStore 3 drawer cabinet installed, we now have a place to keep paperwork and charge phones (notice the integrated charger and outlet), and of course the requisite junk drawer.  We also installed this cool LED wall sconce to light up the space.