Surprise!

I am a bit behind on posting about this...oops!


When I left for Minnesota in April, I told Miles that I would love it if he would try to get some things done around the house that I've been dying for him to do (ie; paint our doors, start remodeling the bathrooms, etc.) I was going to be gone for 11 days, so I figured it would be a good time for him to get work done while Owen and I were out of the house. Miles kept hemming and hawing and finally said, "Just don't expect much - that way you won't be disappointed." In the back of my mind I was hopeful, but trying not to give it too much room to grow so I wouldn't feel that disappointment.


We talked while I was gone and I asked if he had started on the bathrooms. He said he hadn't. I decided I should just accept the fact that nothing was going to get done. After some prodding though, he said he would at least go to Home Depot and Lowe's to price out tile, and also call around for bids to see if he could get anything reasonable.


After that conversation, I got an email from our downstairs neighbor on an unrelated topic. At the end she said, "I saw them cutting the tile. It's going to look so great when it's done!" Obviously this made me very suspicious. However, I still didn't want to put a ton of stock into it and thought I should talk to Miles. When we talked that night, he was acting as though nothing had changed. He mentioned he got some bids which were considerably better than the ones we had gotten last year. While I thought he might be trying to trick me, I was having a hard time knowing since he was very convincing in what he was saying. So I figured, maybe all he's done is buy some tile and is cutting it. I basically decided to not worry about it and see when I got home.


Miles picked Owen and I up at the airport and said, "Sorry, I didn't get as much done as I was hoping. So don't expect the house to be completely clean." When we drove up, there was a guy standing outside cutting tile. When we got out of the car, the guy addressed Miles and said, "Oh you're back already." I looked at Miles and gave him a sly smile. He said, "What?" Oh please. Cat's out of the bag. So we walked upstairs. He said he was bummed because they were supposed to be done two days prior and he originally just wanted me to walk into the house, go to the bathroom and be totally surprised. But it's ok...it was still a great surprise!


The downsides were these:
1) They weren't done. Apparently one of the guys just didn't show up to the job for two days, totally throwing off their schedule. And that same guy was not the best worker, so he slowed things down.


2) I got home on a Friday. They said they would be able to finish with a half-day of work on Saturday. Nope. Took them all of Saturday and most of the day on Monday.


3) Our house was a total disaster. Well...Miles attempted to do some cleaning with his brother, Mitch (thankfully), but because of the demo they had done, dust was EVERYWHERE. Seriously...I don't know how on earth it traveled throughout our entire house, but it was insane how much dust was caked on every surface. I think I'm still finding places that have leftover dust. Not to mention, while the guys were working, they were tracking in all kind of junk (dirt, awful sticky things the trees outside dropped, etc.) throughout the house.


4) Because of said dust, it meant MULTIPLE loads of laundry. As in...I did 24 loads of laundry over the course of two weeks. Thank goodness we don't pay for water here! And I think I had to clean our floors about 5 times before they actually felt "clean."


5) And due to the above mentioned items, I was kind of grumpy. I was super happy and appreciative that we got "new" bathrooms, but probably wasn't showing as much excitement about it for Miles as I should have.


Alright...enough of the bad. On to the GOOD!


Miles said he was super nervous about picking out tile and making decisions without me. When we had discussed him looking for tile, I told him anything neutral would be fine and to make it presentable for resale. I think he did a GREAT job.


Also, I really wish we had "before" pictures. Sadly we don't. But imagine plain, small squares of white tile that were old and could not be cleaned properly due to years of misuse (prior to us arriving). Also, in the guest bathroom, there was green carpet up to the toilet, and linoleum in front of the tub. Sick.


Here are the finished bathrooms (guest bathroom first, then master bathroom):

I think he did a great job picking everything out. I like the neutral colors and I like the added detailing as well. I also like that he just did tile for baseboards so we didn't have to deal with getting more baseboards, painting and installing them. And let me just say, it is so nice to shower in brand new tiled showers. It feels so clean and wonderful. Oh, and in case you were wondering, we've always had two shower heads in the master shower. It came that way when we bought the place.