Is a project room ever done?

Saturday 02.13.10
I feel pretty comfortable claiming that the bathroom is done.  Ok, ok, so I haven't putty'd all the little nail holes and touched up the small areas of paint that were nicked as we finished the last of the installs.  I admit it.  But I'm thinking I'll wait to do that when I get all that gooky stuff out for the start of the NEXT project.  Since I know it won't be a year (more like a week) before that starts up again, I feel quite comfortable with that.

Shut up.  I do.

So what did I learn? 

1. Plumbing is no small or easy feat.  Essentially we all learned the basics in shop class, but shop class wasn't fitting new to old, and old to older, and also - if the water leaked a little, no big deal.  Here...yeah it's a big deal.
2. If Kip ever leaves me I'll require a serious handy man on call or a For Sale sign on the house and I'll be back to apartment living with a resident building manager.
3. If you don't start with a very firm budget...the money adds up fast.  And keep your receipts (which I did) because you can return all those items that didn't quite work out (even if you've opened the packages).
4. I can envision something and come pretty close to seeing the end result.
5. I learned HGTV weekend home makeovers are fallacies!  Even if you had your own resident carpenter and crew I'm doubting it all actually works out.

But mostly, I learned to know what "good enough" is when doing facelift type work and there's no reason to put off for SEVEN YEARS an ugly room makeover just because you aren't ready for the big construction investment.

Here is the final before and after.

You know, until I looked at these side by side, I really didn't realize how far we'd come!

Hence my big-ass smile.