Video 1 - BEFORE - The Master Bedroom & Bathroom

Hello loyal followers,

As promised, I have attached the video of the "before" version of Phase I: The Master Bedroom & Bathroom. The actual work on Phase I won't begin until after the New Year's holiday, and our plan is to follow this "before" video with more clips of the renovations in progress and then a final clip of the remodeled area. We will do this for each phase.

What you will see and hear in the attached is a brief tour of the master bedroom and bath as it currently exists, with what we hope is a fairly clear explanation of how we plan to renovate the space(s). We have one or two more shopping days with the contractor to finalize some of the materials, but the goal is to start the actual work during the first or second week of January.

I hope to do one more post next week to close out 2009 and hopefully report out on the last of the materials we've chosen. And here's to hoping that the first post of 2010 contains photos of contractors and builders hard at work!

Happy holidays to all. As always, be safe.

Still shopping

We've had three shopping trips with our contractor: two trips to look at tile selections and one trip to look at kitchen and bathroom fixtures. Happily, I can report that we have all the tile, fixture and flooring selections made for both bathrooms, and we also have the faucets/sinks selected for the kitchen. Next up, next week - shopping for countertops.

I have to give major props to our fantastic contractor - Matt Harris of MH Contractors in Houston. Matt has a great eye and knows how to listen to what we say we want and find workable solutions that may not be exactly what we said - just better! Matt is making the process fun and collaborative.

I also have to thank our architect, Jesse Hager, of Content. Jesse drew up all the plans and elevations and has been following the blog. Jesse recommended a tile vendor for our last shopping trip, and we found the perfect master bathroom tile at that vendor (and the tile we chose was a surprise to us both - keep reading, you'll see what I mean later in the post).

As I've long been promising, we are taking the day tomorrow to do a walk through of the house to either put together a photo slide show or video with commentary to document a complete "before" entry. The slides/video will show the interior as it is now, and we will provide commentary and explanations of what we plan to do to each room. We will, naturally, do the same style of slides/video as we update each room and then a final composite of the finished product.

So, rather than bombard you with a long entry describing colors and transformations, I will make a post this weekend that will describe everything but with photos or video so all our faithful followers can visualize what we hope to do.

I can tell you this much: it's been a fun and educational experience so far. I think the advice I can give to anyone thinking of remodeling at this point is to always be prepared to change your mind. We went into these shopping sessions with some very definite color schemes for the two bathrooms, and after these three visits and the fourth coming tomorrow, we've changed things . . . and have even started to rethink other colors for the rest of the house. It's amazing how you can have such a solid idea of what you want in your head, and then be either surprised by finding something you never expected to like or by seeing your idea in material samples and realizing, "Oh, that looked so much better in my head."

Stay tuned for the long-overdue digital house tour. And wish us luck on the next shopping trip. I plan to take my own advice and just dive into countertops with a completely open mind. I can't wait to find something I never would have imagined!

Shopping, the first update

Okay, so I don't have any photos yet, but I am happy to report that we've been out twice now with our contractor and have had some fun looking at tiles, counter tops and fixtures for both bathrooms and the kitchen. We've even narrowed down some choices, though I'll readily admit that we were both pretty overwhelmed by the bounty of options that are available.

Remember the days when your options included white, olive and gold ? Of course, if we're going to go back that far, I'd have to remember the year my mother opted for hot pink as a kitchen accent color, or the subsequent replacement of the hot pink paint with, shudder, vinyl faux brick. That was also the year my parents decided the living room should be olive, their bedroom was done in all shades of purple and they painted the basement floor fire engine red.

And everyone wonders why I like monochromatic design. It's a mystery.

As a result of being raised in a box of leftover crayons, we've come up with a color scheme that incorporate gray, cream and reddish wood tones and are carrying that through the entire house so that there is a natural flow to the design. It will be so nice to live in a space that doesn't look like it was decorate on the basis of, "Hey, this was on sale."

We haven't narrowed down the tiles and counter tops, but today we picked all the hardware for both bathrooms today as well as the sink and faucets for the kitchen. We chose everything from Westheimer Plumbing Showroom (Westheimer between Shepherd & Kirby), which is a fantastic place. They carry everything from the most basic fixtures to a line in which each fixture is hand-made. The choices are astounding.

We stayed pretty simple and went with what the consultant calls "transitional" designs: a look that is halfway between traditional and contemporary. The result is very straightforward, clean lines without being too severe or angular, which really wouldn't fit the 1960's design of the house. The consultant is putting together a picture book of the fixtures, so once we have the digital version of that, I will post it on here.

The first website below is for a company called Cifial, which is the manufacturer of the faucets we will be using in the bathrooms. The second website is for Westheimer Plumbing Showroom.

Cifial - www.cifialusa.com

Westheimer Plumbing Showroom -www.westheimerplumbing.com

As always, stayed tuned for details and photos - all coming soon!