Taking Decorating Skillz for Granite

It's detail time. Jaydee and I thought picking out the pretty things was gonna be a breeze. We thought, "We can do whateeeevvvveeerrrr we want. We've both got great taste! This will be cake!". We were wrong. I turns out we both have really terrible taste and neither of us care a whole lot for this "matching" trend we've been hearing so much about.

We walked into the rock shop and started looking for counters. My eyes were immediately drawn to this gem.  

OOOOOOHHHH, I thought. This looks like the jungle! I took a second to imagine my bathroom as a jungle then hefted the slab of granite over to fiance to ask his opinion. He loved it. Then we said stuff like, "Yeeeahhh it seems really, like, adventurous. Yeah, kind of like a dinosaur..."
"YES. It's like a dinosaur. It'll be so zen and outdoorsy. Like being outsides while we're inside."
"Perfect."

We were feeling really proud of our quick decision so we continued through the store with a new pep in our step picking out tiles and shower accents that we thought would look just stellar with the granite we had picked out. Here's what we came up with:

Fortunately for 16202, I have a life coach named Sister, and I decided to share some pictures with her before we committed.  She said, "I thought that was a picture of a tree.... A little busy." What she really meant to say was, "Dani. This is hideous. You can't just pick jungle pictures to plaster all over a bathroom.... especially if you also want rocks in your bath tub. The answer is no. Try again and this time, try not to be such a goon."

Phew close call. A quick Google search on "rainforest granite in the bathroom" after sister's warnings yielded troubling results:

Oops. My bad. We sadly replaced all of the unique bathroom pieces we had collected and started again. This time with tempered spirit. Finally, after some very tense moments (including one when Jaydee's foot itched so terribly bad from frustration that he had to, literally,  drop everything he was holding, sit on the ground, remove his shoe and scratch his foot (This really happened.)). Alas, we arrived at what we thought was good compromise between jungle bathroom and boring hotel bathroom.

Once again, we were pretty sure we nailed it. Luckily, the woman at the rock shop wasn't afraid to speak her mind. "Gold? You're going to go with gold counter-tops?" Another quick Google search:

Eek. No Gold. This time Jaydee got real smart and asked the nice lady "What color would you pick?" Genius. She suggested something a little less... shall we say... rich. We settled on a nice white-grayish number with the exciting word "fossil" in the name.

And so, my friends, there you have it. Ze batroom: 

De Walls are Gone

My favorite thing about this whole renovation thing is that I have no clue what's going on. I just live at 16202 and things happen. It's great. Who doesn't love surprises? I came home to a couple of good ones today...

Surprise #1: ugly blankets on the floor

Surprise #2:Ugly blankets on the floor lead to wall missing at the end of the hall way

 Surprise #3: Many walls are missing!

 

 

The gun and craft room is now in the process of becoming a smaller gun and craft room and the hall closet is a goner. We are a couple steps closer to a bedroom with a door and an attached bathroom. Yeehaw! Here's where we're headed... 

Pretty big surprises, huh? Well we're not done yet. 

Surprise #4: Jaydee decided to launch an impromptu, backyard excavation project!

Why you ask? Well, because this offensive black box was too far out into the yard. So, he started to dig it out to move it then, naturally, he got curious. What do these pipes REALLY look like under here? Are they grey the WHOLE way? Sooo he decided to just go on ahead and dig up whole the gosh dern thing.

This guy doesn't do things half way. Fortunately, Jaydee had help with this last minute project. Trent oversaw the entire thing.

These last couple surprises blew mind. Who could expect this?...

Surprise #5: BEAN SPROUT!

  

Surprise #6: TEENSY TINY TOMATO SPROUT!!

  
Surprise #7: THYME SPROUTS!

 Surprise #8: BASIL SPROUTS!

 Surprise #9: GREEN ONION SPROUTS!

 

Geez Louise!

I'm gonna grow something, gosh darnit.

I am bound and determined to grow something this year. Let me rephrase. I am bound and determined to grow something that I mean to grow this year (last year I grew mushrooms on accident - cool, but alas, I can't say it was planned).

I don't have much of a green thumb. When I've tried to grow things in the past, this usually happens:

If there was a PETA for plants there would be a price on my head for sure. But this year, this year, it's going to be different. I'm going to grow something [on purpose]. Jaydee's on board. We're committed.

We went to Lowe's to visit our BFFs on Saturday and gather supplies. Jaydee got more make-grass-grow stuff and I got seeds. Lots of seeds! Oh and a new pair of gloves because Jaydee ripped my last pair in half. Ironic since he doesn't use gloves... but that's neither here nor there. I also got good potting soil because I read that soil is key and that you just can't trust the shady NW dirt. Then I just went for it and splurged on Jiffy Pots - I think it'll prove to be a $1.50 well spent.

Have you seen jiffy pots? They're handy little buggers. You plant your seeds in the little pots then stick 'em inside till they sprout. Then you take the whole dang pot and plant them right into the garden. "Keep the germinating seeds inside?!" You may ask. Yes. It's Seattle. There's not much sun so that's really not a factor inside or out and it's still too chilly for those fragile little babies to sprout outside (or so the back of the seed packets tell me).

Having baby seeds in the house didn't stop Jaydee from hoeing around.

It was pretty much the most beautiful day ever in Seattle, so who could blame the guy? The hoeing had to happen eventually - might as well be during one of SeaTown's redeeming moments.

Meanwhile, I started a fancy little seed assembly line.

I decided to plant about 233,234 different things just in case the odds were still against me. After potting five or so seed packets it occurred to me that in 4-6 more minutes, I would not know what was in each identical pot. Sooo I got some sticks and a handy dandy Sharpie.

This step made me feel like a real life gardener. I even started to get a wee bit hopeful that one of these bad boys will sprout. After I was all finished with the planting, I read the seed, soil and pot directions 8 times each to make sure I watered the right amount. Enough to make the pots damp, not enough to make them drip. Fingers crossed I got that part right.

Here's my final pot line up:

• Green beans
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• Basil
• Jalapenos
• Cucumbers
• Beef Cake Tomatoes (ok fine, they're actually Beef Steak Tomatoes)
• Green Onions 
• Sage
• One other mystery plant that lost it's stick label and now I can't remember what it is :/

Shall I take bets on what makes it? I have a really good feeling about the Beef Cakes.

Now the only problem is where to keep my plant babes. I read online that they should be in a south facing window, but would you believe it, 16202 doesn't have a single south facing window. What the heck?! Apparently they need to be kept warm, but not hot, moist but not wet, around natural light but not in a sunny spot ... it's all very confusing. If you have any tips, I'd greatly appreciate them.

For now, I've got my hopes up and my mind's eye vice gripped on this:

Come on Beef Cakes....!!