The "Mercedes Benz" of Shower Doors

When Clay and I purchased the new house one of the home improvement projects high on our list was installing a glass shower door in the master bathroom. For reasons beyond our comprehension the prior owners didn't have the builder install glass doors and instead hung a shower curtain. It made the whole bathroom look unfinished.

Clay went to work trying to decide what style we wanted. And in classic Dwyer style he fell in love with the most expensive style of door to manufacture and install. Then we found a local company, Central Glass, and true to form, I fell in love with the most expensive glass style they offered, glacier glass. So we put our dream shower door on order. When I mentioned this to a friend of mine she jokingly said that I had ordered the "Mercedes Benz" of shower doors. She had NO idea...

About 2 weeks later Central Glass contacted me and said they had a problem. Apparently the doors are manufactured in Dallas and when the doors were nearly finished the manufacturer had broken them. My first thought was "okay, so we're delayed a couple of days."

The lady went on to explain that the manufacturer was currently out of the glass style that we wanted. And I thought "okay maybe we're delayed a week."

She went on to say that the manufacturer's supplier was out of the glass style we had ordered. And now I'm thinking "this may be longer than I was hoping."

Furthermore, the lady explained that she had contacted all of the glass suppliers in the country and the glass I had fallen in love with was discontinued. "Houston we have a problem!"

Finally she tells me that she had contacted every glass supplier in the country and one guy in Denver had 3 sheets of this glass available and that if I REALLY loved the glass her company would absorb the cost to send a truck to Denver and bring the glass to Dallas to manufacture my shower door. But before she made the order she wanted to make sure I REALLY REALLY loved that glass.

"Umm... yeah!"

So that set the wheels in motion for my custom shower doors to be manufactured out of the last 3 sheets of glacier glass left in the entire United States.

So without further ado, I give you the "Mercedes Benz" of shower doors...

Here's a before shot. You can see the cheap shower curtain on the left.

And the after!
(Please ignore my geriatric shower stool... I'm still on the hunt for one I like.)

P.S. In case you're wondering I highly recommend Central Glass. They were very professional and timely. I appreciated that they contacted me when they encountered a delay but then they went the extra mile to fulfill their obligations. And as soon as the shower doors had arrived from Dallas they installed them the next day.

Digging Out

When Clay and I were looking at houses one of the negatives on the house we bought was the size of the driveway. It's HUGE! And steep! We both noted that it would be a HUGE pain to dig out should we have a big storm. But we comforted ourselves with the knowledge that last year's Christmas blizzard was the storm of the century, and since we didn't intend to live for another 100+ years we figured we were mostly safe.

Apparently the whole "storm of the century" was a bunch of bull, because we just had to dig out our enormous driveway from the latest "storm of the century"! And when I say "we" what I mean was Clay was digging while I painted and then I helped him finish up this morning.

Clay begins the big dig.

Notice how tall the drift was! And at this point windchills were in the negative numbers. NOT FUN!

A man and his pile of snow!

Our new outdoor furniture!

Scaling Everest

The driveway is clear!

Final tally - Approximately 16 manhours went into clearing our driveway.

What I Did On My Snow Day(s) Vacation

Thanks to Ol' Man Winter Clay and I enjoyed 2 days home from work while we waited out the blizzard of 2011. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I couldn't access my work systems from home and so I had to find other ways of entertaining myself. (Yes I did try to work because I have a TON of things to get done). However, Clay was able to access his work's systems so he spent a lot of his time working from home. While other than a few conference calls, I was free to get to work on my home improvement projects!

Last weekend Clay and I went to Home Depot and purchased paint for several rooms. The priority was the living room since the plain tan walls just didn't speak to me. On top of that the former owners used the walls as pin cushions and had nail holes about every 6 inches. When Clay repaired the walls it looked like the walls had chickenpox! Also, once we got started we realized that the last homeowners apparently didn't believe in cleaning up after a spill since we found several areas where juice or wine had been spilled on the walls and baseboards but never cleaned up... SERIOUSLY!?!?

So here's the before...

We had already "fixed" the stripes a couple of weekends ago. But as you can see everything (other than the dizzying stripes) is the same drab tan color. And they used flat paint! Grrr.

I decided to go with the same color scheme I had in the last house. I originally thought I would do something different, but since I had only painted the living area in the old house about a year ago I realized I really enjoyed the colors and decided it would work for this house... at least for now :)!



The stripes are now a nice slate blue/gray. The tan has been repainted to a similar color but at least I've used a satin finish so the walls have some sheen and can be cleaned easily. And then I finished the living area in a nice chocolate color (or "breakfast blend"). The pantry area divides the room and I did a faux finish called "sueded leather" which used the tan and chocolate brown. The faux finish helped break up the space and still tie the color scheme all together.

Okay it's official I have watched too much HGTV!

Now all we need to do is hang some art and we will be officially settled (at least in the main living area)!