Just a little note to recall that good old Jupiter, my first Brittany adopted from the animal shelter in Iowa City, was born 35 years ago toady.

We dropped off our packages at the post office this morning and Trisha has almost finished decorating the house.  I don’t think we’ve ever been ready Christmas this early.  Here’s a photo of Wamu, the little steer who was a gift from Trisha’s sister Lisa.  He looks prepared for the holidays too.

Shower glass went in on Tuesday and the mirrors were installed this morning so…. finally, the master bathroom remodel is complete.

Original Bathroom

After the remodel, we now have this lovely space:

Gone are the old bath tub and little shower, replaced with a 4×6 shower space with travertine and glass enclosure and three shower heads.  The old vanity with its blue-green tile counter top has been replaced with cherry cabinets and beautiful green granite top.

This morning we drove 45 miles to Woodinville to determine how our green granite slab would be cut out for counter tops and window sills.  We’re looking forward to seeing this stuff in place but that’s a couple of weeks off yet.

Costa Esmeralda granite with templates

After seemingly endless design meetings and looking at countless tile samples our huge bathroom remodel is underway.

Last moments of old bathroom

Old bathroom gone

We took a big step today toward the complete remodel of our master bathroom.  We visited warehouses of two granite/marble slab companies and selected the stone that will be the counter tops and window sills. It was great fun to see so much remarkably beautiful slabs of all kinds of stone.  I wanted them all.

We finally decided on a stunning light green piece from a quarry in Persia.  I can’t wait for work to begin on August 1st.

Although most of our landscaping efforts have been focused on the back yard we did spend a bit of time tweaking our front yard as well.  A bit of weeding, a few new dwarf spruce and some new pots and things look much better.  This is the view from my home office window:

Front Yard

We are still mired in a record cold, record wet spring.  We’ve used the few brief rainless periods to keep up with our landscaping projects.  Alas! Yesterday –May 14th– a few rhododendrons began to show blooms.  The red azaleas we just planted a couple of weeks ago are in full flower but they had the advantage of spending most of the spring in the nursery. 

We finished our landscape design class, carefully laid out our plan, and made dozens of trips to all the area nurseries.  The plants are lined up and fifteen yards of top soils awaits in the driveway.  And here we sit in the wettest spring in decades and the coldest first half of April on record.  We had several periods of snow this morning and rain showers, thunder and lightning throughout the day.

During a brief sun break late in the afternoon I snapped a photo to capture the current status of our now mud-bound project.