Home Improvements!! the Bathroom edition v.2.

I have renovated a bathroom once before in my life, and so this whole process was not that daunting.

We have a room in the basement that is ready for a bathroom. We use it for storage, and it's pretty full.
It is actually frustrating not having a bathroom in the basement, though. When you're working out it would be nice to get water and use a bathroom without having to go upstairs, and I would like a place to do handwashing. At first we were going to put in a whole bathroom, and then I said - why?! We need the storage space more, and what do two people need with 3 showers in one house? So we decided that we would not put in the shower and would install "standard and bracket" shelving for storage. I figure this is a good place for the seasonal decorations (read: Halloween!), and some personal archived things that you don't want in the garage.

Here is a photo of the room used for 100% storage - this would be the stuff of the previous owners.


And here it is as our "locker room style" basement powder room:


We will be installing shelving on the back wall in the next couple weeks.






We decided to go ahead and have our GC/handyman contractor, Ryan, do the main-floor powder room changes too.
We wanted this bathroom to look like it was in Africa.
Here's the powder room at the Rhino Post Lodge, which has the feel we were going for...




Here's a kinda before photo from the home inspection prior to purchase:





Our renovation:


We will be putting up photos of animals from our South Africa trip on the wall you see when you walk in.


Eric will be building a shelf to go above the toilet and hold a towel.
I want it to look like this (not white, natural wood... thank you Martha Stewart Living):





LOVE the tile! hard to capture the color in an artificially-lit bathroom.

And there you have it...
slowly, we plug away at making this house more of the home we want it to be.

Observations from my window...

I've decided to start posting here the interesting things I note out of my (home) office window.

Today, a woman about my age doing hill-repeats... so far there has been two downs and two ups.
Road bike, not "pro" looking... kinda like me.
I say kudos to her!
This is on MY list every Tuesday!

Spring Green

We had two hot (80) days, but mostly the weather has been cooler (60) with lots of rain. The garden is more green than anything else.
Here's where we are with spring growth.

My garden is full of a plant that has the leaves of a carrot. I have pulled them up to see if they are carrots, but there is no large root. They smell like carrots. They started growing in the fall and stayed alive over the winter. I'm waiting to see what they are because they could be a wildflower (I seem to remember that there is one that smells like carrots).
Some quick research... Queen Anne's lace Daucus carota


Two lily of the valley came up:




And the bleeding heart is huge!


The side bed never fails to impress.


Foxglove doing well. The pink one I planted next to it did not come back.


This is behind the foxglove. There should be an Agastache coming up that seems to be missing too.


This Columbine is doing very well.


GREEN!
This is two Del Oro's, some sage in the front, and the Buddleia getting full in the back.


Azalea about to pop!
and something growing in front of it... wildflower?


Kitchen window bed is coming along.

Spring Garden Visitors

ladybugs

Garden Preparations for Spring

Well, we bought the annuals for the pots today.










April status of the side bed...



Close-up of the Columbine:









I planted some Zinnia in the front of the bed here, and for the trellis we have sweet peas in the front and on the left, Black-Eyed Susan Vine on the right, and Cup and Saucer vine on the back. Let's see if any of these come up.
There are also nasturtiums everywhere!

Front bed...





It looks like the second fox-glove is not coming up :-(





We put a trellis on the lamp for the clematis...

I also planted some seeds of Cypress Vine (lpomoea quamoclit) on the opposite side.
Plan is to expand this bed into a kitchen garden.

Lavender in the island...



Under the kitchen window...




Shade bed...
TWO lily of the valley came back!




We got some bleeding hearts this year:








This is the bed next to the deck I planted late last year:

Arriving at Spring?

Boy, this is a cold and snowy spring.
We got the mulch, cleaned up the beds and laid it down.
As compared to last year, there is very little growth.


I was looking back through March last year, and saw how big the chrysanthemum was. I am now worried about it! The roots are holding firm in the ground, so I'm hoping it is still dormant.






There aren't even any hostas yet!

This year, I raked back the old mulch, spread seeds from two wildflower packets, and then covered that up with the old mulch, and new mulch. Then it snowed. Let's hope that was some good soaking moisture!
The seeds I have put down already are from Botanical Interests:
Hummingbird Haven Seeds
Goldenrod Summer Showers Organic Seeds
Bring Home the Butterflies Seeds

I have others, but will put them down once we know we will get no more snow.