TWO BUSY NIGHTS

The night before last, Dave and I closed Lowe's. We ordered all our bath fixtures, a tub for the downstairs bath, and the sink for the upstairs bath. We are going with Moen's "Vestige" pattern for the faucets and other hardware. We are using it in both baths. We feel that it is a fairly classic design in keeping with the house. The finish is chrome. We purchased the toilets and the shower unit for the upstairs bath a while ago. The shower is made from Swantstone and is white. The toilets are also white.

The sink we ordered is the "Retrospect" self-rimming sink from American Standard. We ordered a simple "Villager" bathtub from Kohler. We wanted a cast iron tub. American Standard has a product called Americast but I read some thoughts on that and it was said to dent. We wanted the tub to last forever so went with the cast iron.

We also ordered toilet paper holders, robe hooks, tank levers, and shower massage units with the upstairs shower unit. These things, of course, added to our cost. We forgot to measure for towel bars or would have bought those, too.

Our price at Lowe's was hefty. That night of shopping totaled: $2534.85 without tax. But we have said all along that we wanted to put the money into the house and we would do as much labor as possible to offset that spending. I still feel we are doing it right. Our purchases should arrive early next week, except for the sink, which won't be in until June. That's okay. We probably won't be ready for it before then anyway.

Last night Dave and I went to Carpet Spectrum in Marion, NY. We love this store. Not only is it only a couple minutes from Hardy House, but they have everything you could want in tiles, carpets, and wood flooring. They also carry wallpaper. We decided to purchase 12" x 12" black marble for the upstairs bath countertop, of which we needed approximately 22 square feet for our wrap around counter. We will lay it with thin black grout. The backsplash will be black 4" x 4" ceramic tile with a rounded edge. The front of the counter will have a black bull-nose edge. We went with tile because we know Dave can lay it and a solid surface would have cost us a lot more money and we would have to have it installed. We think we will like this option just as well.

We have looked at and priced some tile options for the ceiling of the shower but have not yet decided on what we will choose.

Cost for tiles, grout, and mastic, including tax: $605.34.

We are looking for a good shape oak dresser of some sort, antique, that we will use as a downstairs bath vanity. We may or may not replace the top of it with white, honed marble. It is my mission to find a piece. We tried Brick House Antique Center, see links, and they had three pieces, one of which would have been great, but Dave felt it needed too much work in the drawers to be useful. I'll keep looking.