§ Done and Thank Goodness....

After nearly two weeks of working on the bath, I really began to "hate" the entire job. But, now that it's finally done, it's not bad. Next room on the agenda is the Livingroom. A big, huge room that requires emptying the very large entertainment center of records [vinyl collection], CDs, tapes, DVDs, and even some very old VHS that haven't been replaced. Plus lots of knicknacks. Then, we need to patch cracked walls from the foundation sinking this past summer. And, rearrange furniture and picture frames. Estimated 2-4 weeks of work. I'm sure there will be many days off relaxing sore muscles. lol

I know I showed a lot in my previous post of the bathroom progress, but I wanted to record the finished job. We decided to go from blue to everything accented oriental red...

We have collected many Buddahs and dragons, a couple of oriental fans, Foo Dogs, and chinamen figurines. But...as I mentioned last week, there is a SPECIAl Buddah. Actually a Ho Tei [pronounced HO Tie]. I bought this for Bud for a gift of our very first Christmas...nearly 54 years ago. He's about 3 feet tall. Trust me, his belly has been rubbed thousands of times for good luck!!

Even when we moved from Colorado to Arizona and then the Texas coast, he had a special place in the CAR instead of the moving vans!!

The last share today is of the four Chinese Zodiac symbols in soapstone...
The Rat *Erik's
The Tiger *Bud's
The Ox *Me, Anni
The Rooster *Irene's



Wanna know what your personality [zodiac] is? Click here. PS...you need to know what YEAR of your birth to know your symbol first. Calculate here!!!

§ Catch Up...

To begin, I mentioned the delay in working on the bathroom. Well, part of it was a nasty fall I had that put me in a blinded state for a couple of days! -the photo here is today, the 14th, about a week AFTER the mishap, and quite a bit healed. I never thought of a selfie at the time of the fall- The very night, a few minutes afterward, my left eye swelled shut, a large knot appeared on my forehead, and the several scrapes along the cheek and nose and under both eyes were bloody, and stinging. Then, the very next morning, all was still swelled badly, tho the pain was subsiding. To top it off, I lost my cellphone during the day sometime!! I searched everywhere. Bud tried calling my number. Nothing. Erik, my son texted Bud and said the night before [the night of the fall] someone called him while he was teaching class. He didn't realize until it was way late in the evening. After thinking I had lost it for good, the mechanic called Bud's number [I have his contact on my phone ICE -In Case of Emergency] the next morning; it was the secretary at the mechanic's telling us I left my phone on the counter there while I was paying for the repair work and picking up the car!

So a few days passed and no work done on the painting. Again, there are two individual rooms for both of our bathrooms. I finally felt up to getting some done about 4 days later. I did get the walls painted in ONE room and all the 'stuff' hung for decorative touches. I am gonna take another day to myself and relax then, begin the 2nd room.

This has been a week from H E double L.

before...


after...

Note: I whited out the door opening to the 2nd room

Bud was in the Navy, stationed in the North Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Orient. Hence, his interest in everything of the culture/figurines, etc. I have one piece that goes into the 2nd room of the bathroom that has a 'history' to it, will hopefully remember to share it when that room is done.

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Well this one has a little bit of special effect added. I took a photo of a mirrored plate where a lighted mermaid globe and amethyst is setting on my computer desk...then, I flipped the image and added it to make it reflect, the REFLECTION



The one above is a reflected bathroom vanity from the walled mirror. Notice the lavender towel to the left...that is a reflection of it.




And it seems when I bring the camera out around the house any more, Tahoe wants in the picture...this is her REFLECTION...she's actually taking up squatter's rights on the edge of the marbletop counter.




The sun's reflection on the shoreline.

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With the week we've had I wasn't able to set up the show n tell I had planned. Will do the one I wanted next week. So, I opted to make a blog show n tell with photos I had stored on the computer already....

A couple of weeks ago, for show n tell I shared some photos of our hallway bathroom off the guest bedroom. This week, I thought I'd share the master bathroom. At least part of it. The master bathroom consists of three separated rooms. As you enter from the bedroom, you go into the lavatory room. To the left is another room, the toilet and shower. To the right is the walk-in closet. They're all sectioned off with hidden-in-the-wall wooden doors that slide open and shut for privacy while the lavatory is being used. It's nifty! But what adorns the walls? You come to the right place then---



This is one of two imported mahogany, hand-carved, bric-a-brac shelves adorning one wall in the lavatory section of our master bathroom. Placed on the small crocheted doilies are some of my red glass objects and blown glass swan. And a pearl hairpiece.





A closeup.
This one is of one of the carved birds in the wood itself.






Another closeup.
This is of the glass swan.






Both of the two shelves are on the same wall, tiered and set up close together. This one has the same styled red glass and pearl hairpiece; in the center is my blue 'lucky' glass elephant [elephants with the trunk up are good luck!].






The blue glass elephant in close up.






This photo shows one of the light switch metal plates I antiqued. I found switch plates and electrical socket plates for cheap at Home Depot one day, and thought they'd be perfect to go with the wine/gold/copper wallpaper I chose. I brought them home and painted them black and swiped most of the black off, then did the same with copper acrylic and cleaned most of it off the brass plates...this is the finished work.




This is my father's school house clock with pendulum. Other than having no other place in the house for it to 'fit in', I hung it on the wallpaper in one of the rooms.




The crystal liquid soap dispenser...I love to mix the colors of the soap purposely to give a layered look. A strand of gold beads surround the dispenser holder which I also 'antiqued' with the black and copper paint finish.



Lastly, a closeup photo of three glass bead tea lights. I bought several silver antiqued chain necklaces at the dollar store and hung them from the bathroom ceilings then attached the beaded tealights at different depths. All in front of the wall mirror above the marbletop sink. [the light fixture plate above all this, you can only see the light beam is also brass with the black/copper antique finished look, like the switch plate I did -shown above]

_ _ _

And next week's show n tell is about "TEARS". A bit of historical stuff that we have in our possession. So, come back next Friday and see what I wanted to do today and found no extra time because of the work involved with the storms. Okay? See you then!!

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Hi everybody! I've had a lazy spell the last day or two. And today is no different. Do you ever get those kinda days where you really don't feel like doing anything? So far in the last couple of days, nothing's been done except mowing and edging the lawn. And with the humidity so high, it just zaps me. Takes me a while to recoup from that chore in the summer. LOL

So, while I'm lounging around reading or watching ball games, I'm thinking "What do I show for show n tell this week?" And once again the laziness takes ahold of me. I don't want to set things up to even make the photos/shares more presentable. Now, that is the height of being a bit off-key for me.

Anyway, I took the camera into the bathroom. Oh now, don't panic. This is all in good taste. There will be no toilet bowls [besides they need cleaning] or no toilet paper rolls...nothing bizarre. Nothing at all. [The images can be enlarged for full view by clicking on them, and they should open in a new window]

It'll be part of the oriental knick knacks we have in the hall bathroom. [And yes, the walls in the shower room are black! With the sink/cupboard and laundry shoot room is papered in gold and black.......





This little piece is antique. It's some kind of metal...I'm thinking either nickel or lead. But, actually all I know is it's old. It's on the wall just to the right of the counter and mirror above the sink....it's also an incense burner. It's framed in just a box stained green for a contrasting accent against the cherry wood cupboards that are in the rooms. We used to burn incense in it, but it's been ages since he's been used.



This shadow box is on the wall just the opposite of the mirror; above the main towel rack. Several pieces are placed strategically --the top shelf are two black marble "Fu Dogs" [in ancient China they were used as statuary -guarding the temples outside the gates]. The next shelf -left to right is a ceramic Chinaman. Next shelf over are two small red soapstone miniature Fu Dogs. And on the right is also soapstone...an Oriental scene with human figures carved into the stone. Below these shelves [center] are clay figurine of a man; the smaller box holds a sandstone Buddha. Then the larger box to the right is another ceramic Chinaman. Right in the very middle on the bottom, another clay Chinaman, a soapstone Buddha, then the Chinese zodiacal symbols of our family's birth [also in soapstone] --The rooster for Irene, the tiger for Bud, the rat for Erik and mine is the ox; a miniature man to the very right.


Now this IS sitting on top of the commode, but as promised, nothing is distasteful. This is an imported China vase. With two Geisha Girls. I love this. We've had this in our house nearly as long as we've been married. It's very thin [width or depth I guess I should say] and only holds a very small amount of flowers at a time. As you can see there are two small china pedestals that are on the bottom.



And lastly, this is Bud's antique Abacus that he purchased while on liberty away from his ship during his Navy days. When he bought it it was even antique...he found this little item from a street peddler in a port city after being over in the China Sea on duty. I never could figure out how to use them, even when Bud would explain to me just how the masters of the Chinese mathematicians worked them. And probably never will [insert my hand gesture flipping way over my grey matter!---incomprehensible to me].