Decorating Diary - A New Quote for the Bathroom

We met last night with the bathroom contractor.  Poor woman.  She had such beautiful ideas for our master bath and I unmercifully slashed the budget.  Soon it will be no more of an upgrade than designer Dixie cups and a new cover for the toilet.

The quote she gave us for countertops was just under $5000.  FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS.  Are you kidding me?  Admittedly, that included custom work and inlays and the whole shebang but give me a break...not even an option.

She got a great deal, she informed me, on the high-end cabinets.  "Absolutely stunner of a deal," she said.  "I've never seen prices like this for this quality."

Fine and dandy but guess what?  I don't need high-end cabinets, killer price or not.  I just need a place to store my lipstick and Oil of Olay.

So I'm essentially making her redo the whole thing.  She seems to think we can still add in a lot of the extras but I'm not sure.  She keeps saying things like, "That's only another $250 dollars" or "We can easily get that done for under $300."  All reasonable prices, but those numbers add up.

Tuck in.  I have a feeling the Decorating Diaries saga will be with us for months to come.

Better Homes & Gardens

I've been receiving the Better Homes & Gardens magazine for free for close to a year now.  I used to subscribe to it but decided since I don't garden and the chances of my ever making "dazzling doily displays" are slim to none, I'd let the subscription slide.

Doesn't seem to matter.  I received 50 of the "This is your LAST notice" warning cards begging me to return as a subscriber and I threw them all out. But they keep sending me the magazine.  The mailings that come with the magazine now aren't even "please renew your subscription" but just the standard "buy now and get 1 year free" offer.

It's a running joke with us now.  "Hey, look what I got!" I'll exclaim in feigned surprise as I pull the magazine out of the mailbox each month.  "Maybe I should subscribe only, no, wait, that would mean I would have to pay.  Nahhhh."

If only I could get such a deal going with my New Yorker magazine.

Writing with Chocolate

Experiencing writer's block?  Can't get through that last report?  Forget meditation and brisk walks around the block.  What you need is CHOCOLATE.

My personal favorite goodie for creating new prose comes in the form of a German-chocolate danish from Panera Breads.  Something in the dough unleashes the creativity molecules in my brain.  To wit, my next topic assignment for my humor column in U Magazineis on celebrating and entertaining.

I've attempted half-heartedly over the past few days to brainstorm some ideas for my column.  Most of them were along the lines of "I wish I were Martha Stewart," or "Isn't it hard to relax when you're hosting a party?" or "I loathe Martha Stewart."  You know, really knock 'em dead stuff.

But today I stopped in at Panera after my Toastmasters meeting and before the last bit of coconut was wiped from the tray I had myself a 550-word essay that left me giggling in my booth, causing people in the store to give me a wide berth.

No mind.  My assignment is done almost a month early!  All hail the mighty powers of chocolate.

Decorating Diaries - Rooms on Film

My decorator is coming tonight with a friend to take the "Before" pictures of our bedroom.  The good thing about before pictures is you want them to look as poor as possible so my motivation to clean before they arrive is pretty much nil...

Running into what may or may not turn out to be a problem with the bathroom contractor.  As noted earlier, the quoted cost for redoing our bedroom and bath was over double what we had allotted.  So both our decorator and bathroom contractor have been hard at work, redoing figures and finding replacement features (i.e., on/off faucets under $1000, thank you very much). The decorator has kept on top of it, calling me every few days of updates.  Can't say the same for the contractor.

No word from her.  In her defense, she is friends with the decorator who has acted as a go-between.  But even she (the decorator) was commenting that the contractor needed to be better about keeping customers apprised of the situation.

"I even offered to give you the figures myself if she would give them to me," said our decorator.

I appreciate the extra effort, but I don't think so.  I'm not working with anyone who can't manage to dial a phone and call me.  And as I said, it's certainly not to that point yet.  She's coming along tonight as well to lay out her new plan for our bath and I'm pretty certain she's put in some long hours on it.  We'll see.

I was outlining all this for Blair last night and he was shaking his head and grinning.  "Women's communication dynamics," he said.  He made a claw and slashed through the air.  "Rowr!  Meow!"

That's it.  He's banished from making any color choices for the bathroom.