When the Dust Settles

Yesterday, I composed a lengthy, passionate e-mail to M. about toilets. Why, you may wonder? No, it's not because our sex lives run to the extreme, and when we sign off from Google Blogger we hop on to the nearist "Golden Shower"fetish website. It's because we need to buy one.

I had planned to do a thorough post intro-ing to our basement remodel, including the "before" pictures, and blah de blah blah about how we're embarking on this scary home improvement project, unchartered territory for us, etc. Half of our basement is unfinished, and we are going to put in a 3/4 bathroom and an office, leaving a small portion unfinished for M.'s guy room/work room. However, I thought I had plenty of time - our contractor indicated he thought he would have time for the job around the third week of August. Flash forward to Monday, where the contractor called M. and informed him he'd be by on Tuesday and Wednesday to bring some things over, have the plumber come by, etc. I thought this was just a planning kind of visit, but M. and I scrambled to get the room cleared out (thank god we had already started the process!) anyway.

As phone calls flew around yesterday between M. and the contractor, and M. and me, it became apparent that the job has actually started. Gah!! While this makes me ecstatic, it also meant that we were going to be up shit creek if I didn't hurry out to Lowes to do some shopping on my lunch hour. M. and I had begun collecting all the "design elements" for the rooms, things like floor tile, a vanity, wood flooring for the office, etc. All the things we'd want to pick out ourselves. But we hadn't quite managed to buy EVERYTHING yet. Important things, like, say, a toilet.

Now, I am not crazy - I was not about to actually buy a toilet on my lunch hour, somehow heft it into my small car, and drive it AND Finn home a few hours later. But I did have room in my car for lighting, and said lighting was purchased - vanity light for the bathroom, overhead light and closet light for the office. Talk about pressure - it's hard to make these choices by yourself! So, if you ever visit my house and think the lights suck, I lied, M. picked them out.

It was also my job to "check out" the toilets, and pick one out so that M. could run out at night, after Finn was in bed, and buy it. It wasn't terribly hard, because we are limited in what we can buy. The bathroom will be very small, so we were looking for a round front toilet (apparently they are smaller than the elongated ones - add that to things I never used to know). Not a ton of selection. And I was determined not to go for the cheapest one available, because I am scared of toilet implosions and flying crap as punishment. So next time you visit us, and you are sleeping in the new "guest suite" down in the basement, you can park your hiney on this:

The Kohler Cimarron Comfort Height. High performance flushing, may you never let me down!

I arrived home to find drop clothes and sheetrock lining the hallway in the basement, sawdust everywhere, and all kinds of framing done inside the actual rooms. Looks like they are moving fast! I'm excited to see the rooms "done" - it should only take a week or two. That's when our work will start - picking out paint, buying furniture and accessories and, our largest DIY project yet, installing the engineered hardwood in the office ourselves. Gulp! Wish us luck, we're going to need it.

For now, I'm just going to watch the progress, and worry about what visitors will be coming to my site after Googling "Golden Shower." Sorry to disappoint, fetishists!