Our bathroom

Seems like a lot of my most recent posts on the house blog have been of bathrooms!  Well, they do say that a person who lives to be 75 yrs old spends 819000 mins// 13650 weeks// 568.75 days in the bathroom.  So I guess the bathrooms in this house deserve a little attention! Especially since there are 6 of us so we're looking at 9 years of our lives being spent in these rooms!

Our bedroom originally had a little kitchenette in it.  As did many of the rooms in this house.   Here's the bedroom the way it looked when we first visited the house.  

Josh and Blake got rid of the tile.  Then Josh and our pastor Zvonko built walls to make an ensuite bathroom.

Then Josh hooked up a toilet and we lived with it like that for about a year.  

Last May my brother Matt came to put in the tile.  It was a very difficult job and he really knocked it out of the park for us!  Plus it was great to get some Uncle Matt time!

Here's the final product!  We LOVE it!  It's a small space but Josh really planned the space out well so we now have a very pretty bathroom and have maximized our space!  

Guests!

One of the things about our lives is having guests in our home.  Take this week for example.  The Mormance Family was living with us while they looked for an apartment this past month.  We loved having them here and are grateful that the Lord has given us a home to host people in.  After they moved out on Wednesday we got ready for Josh's brother Dave and his family to arrive on Thursday and stay a few days.  On Tuesday my cousin Stacia and her daughter will come for a 10 day visit.  Because of this we started work on a bathroom 

for guests. And you can't believe the difference!  This doesn't even show the worst since Josh had already taken out the icky soap scummed shower doors and you can't see all the gross stains and mold spots.  But take my word for it.... not a place you want to invite guests to shower up in!

Here is the remodeled effect!  New painted ceiling, new fixtures and a newly tiled floor.  

Here's another shot from the shower area looking towards the door.  

Not bad huh?

My brother's help

My brother came to visit and help us with the house; and oh wow did we need him!
He's a great tile layer and has loads of experience, building, painting, pretty much anything you need he can do. He also lives in Costa Rica so he's accustomed to doing things a little different than we might do them in the US. All that to say that we knew he could roll with the punches.

But I don't think any of us had a clue of how long this project was going to take! I would take the kids to school in the morning and then he and I would drink coffee and visit for awhile. Then he would head upstairs and get to work, often barely stopping to eat and then working late into the night. We started joking that I would tell people, "My brother came to visit but he's spent the whole time in the bathroom."

The other thing that slowed stuff WAY down was that we'd pictured Josh and Blake working alongside him to get the project finished. But 4 days into Matt's time here we found out that Blake and Josh had pneumonia! The whole family had been coughing, sneezing... it was a miracle Matt didn't get sick!
Originally this had been a little kitchenette since all the bedrooms were being used as apartments before we got the house. But our pastor came over and he and Josh had built some walls to give us an en suite bathroom. Since they tile all the way up to the ceilings in Europe it makes getting everything to line up a bit more difficult. But if anyone could do it, it was Matt.
It really came out nice! Now all we have to do is install the shower and sink and we won't be fighting with our teenagers for a turn in the bathroom!

Guest bathroom

One of the things we prayed for when we were asking the Lord if he might want to provide a home for us, was space for guests. We have a nice size guest room in the basement that we've painted and is looking nicer all the time. It's a warm yellow color and we are currently getting it ready for our new co-workers Matt and Sharon Mormance. They'll be staying with us while they apartment hunt for a place of their own.

Having a bathroom that is specifically for guests is such a nice extra! I'm grateful to be able to offer that to our guests so they can really spread out and not have to fight their way into the line of the 6 of us to get a shower!
But we've been plenty busy just getting our family set up so now we are working to get this bathroom finished before they arrive on Thursday! And I will say that this is one of the rooms that has been the most difficult for me to envision being something less than icky.
It was covered with mold and bathroom scum when we arrived. Josh took out the shower doors and he and Brad Jenkins sanded mold out of the grout and repainted the ceiling with primer.Brad repainted the radiator and we got rid of the leaky toilet.
So these are the before shots. I'll be posting the after shots soon, hopefully!

Hidro izolacija!

One of the things we realized this winter is that it's cold in our basement! Before the main floor was finished we had set up a kitchen in the basement. I have "fond" memories of stirring the spaghetti sauce, wearing my winter coat and seeing my breath while I made dinner!

So we had some guys come out and dig around our foundation and put in some insulation. It's one of those things that you hate to spend money on when it's something you won't see. But I'm sure any of you coming for a visit will be glad for the extra bit of warmth since that's where the guest room is located!
On this backside of the house we're hoping for greater drainage down the side of the hill. And I'm hoping that the many ants who had built their ant hills right next to the house and seem to be seeking a food source in my basement will relocate. Hey! A girl can dream can't she?
Summer intern and all around great guy Nate came over and pushed wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of sand up the hill to dump into the grand canyon the tractor had dug earlier!
I do sometimes wonder how our neighbors feel about the seemingly endless supply of giant trucks that are pulling up to our house! Josh really enjoyed meeting the owner of this truck who is shoveling with him. He's believer that attends another church in Ljubljana. He was a great worker and a joy to be around.

Laundry Room

As any home owner will attest to, there's always more work to do on your home! And in our case that's particularly true. Josh has really had to keep on top of things to get our home in a functioning order. Our most recent project was getting the laundry room moved from the basement to our living room floor.

I think the laundry room will be a place I'll spend a lot of time! It houses my desk, my exercise bike, the chest freezer (for my once a month cooking) and the washer and dryer. Not to mention, the storage spot for the vacuum and other cleaning supplies. It's not that big of a room but Josh is maximizing the space and I couldn't be happier!
"The guys" came over one night and in just a matter of minutes they had lifted all these essential machines up into the room that Josh had just finished tiling to get ready for use. This was the old kitchen that we used last year but now is a storage room making up for the fact that we don't have a garage.
Terry always seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes to lifting up these stairs that lead to our basement!
David and Tomi pulled the machines in through the window while the guys below used a rolling system to get the machines to the window! Very ingenious!
We took a ton of photos but I'm not posting all of them here. But I will just tell you how blessed I felt when this army of friends showed up to once again, push us over the top into really living in this home! Every time that happens (and it happens quite a lot) I get such a thrill! Must be what the guy who got lowered down on a mat thru the roof to see Jesus must have felt! Thanks! (L to R) Blake, Kendra, Gorazd, Josh,David, Terry, Tomi, Meagan

Laundry Room!

When we first saw this house and the kitchen I told Josh I was really not interested. The kitchen was small and pretty icky. I spend a good portion of my day in the kitchen and cooking for 6 people on a normal day. We often have guests and I just couldn't see how we could make this work. But after Josh and his brother Dave brain stormed how we could make things work he asked me to trust him. He thought he could do it.
What we ended up doing was making the kitchen our laundry room and turning the old living room into our kitchen and dining room. And finally combining two bedrooms and a bathroom to make our living room! I tell you, I'm not a person of vision so as Josh described it I couldn't really see it. But I have a lot of confidence in Josh and my man delievers!
In the end, Josh put a wall up between the old kitchen and the new one and shaved down a portion of the wall to give us more space on both sides. Here he is finishing up the tiling in this room. This is one room I can't wait to have finished! We have plans for this room to hold some of our overflow, like backpacks and extra winter gear. Not to mention the laundry, freezer for once a month cooking and my desk! It looks small for all that but Josh says it can be done. And after all this, I'm thinking if anyone can do it, it's him!