Bathroom Update and some Zoo pictures

It has been crazy around here. The kids went back to school this week, but last week we went to the zoo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Yes, my belly is huge. I think this baby will be big. Or maybe not.) 

After much deliberation, we finally settled on this bathroom configuration. You still have to go past the toilet to get to the sink (but it is turned facing the window), but you can't see the toilet from the door and the window is not in the shower.

Now I need advice: we are going with a shower head mounted high for Mr. Burli and a handheld shower head on a fixed mount (not a bar, since we have had too many broken shower head bars, although maybe we will add that later/change our minds) - do we put the drop ell (the thing that the handheld shower hose connects to) and the holder on the right (towards the wall) or the left (towards the shower curtain) side of the wall. If it is on the right, it is harder to reach from outside the shower (if I am helping a child or giving a dog/child a bath and need to reach it), but on the left maybe it will splash out of the tub if the curtain is not pulled well? Any thoughts? This stuff is annoying - because "put it where you want it" is the mantra, but I am not sure we will know until it is all done...

Advice needed number 2: shower niches. We are thinking of two, one lower for kids/bathers and one for adults. 14 inches width (space between studs) and about 12 inches high. Yes? No? Thoughts? Again, there is too much to think about - some like them not so close to the spray of the shower, but then we don't have a shower, we have a tub so we have to take into consideration the footprint of the tub. 

Things got a lot crazier after we chose the layout. And for some reason it got really cold in San Diego. We went and spent the night at a hotel one night since the heater air kept getting sucked out the (non-existent) floor and (non-existent) ceiling of the bathroom.

A plumber came to help get rid of the cast iron drainage pipes. And then he went ahead and plumbed the supply lines for the sink - which I did NOT think he was going to do. (And he did them incorrectly. Our sink has wall-mounted faucets, which aren't really wall-mounted since the sink has a flange/apron-thingee and so the supply lines have to be inside the wall, but he didn't recognize this at the time and I was not home.)

Mr. Burli removed our old window. It was nice and big but did not work properly. So a smaller window it is, moved to the side a bit.

New window going in! Our stucco guy is coming Thursday to cover up the hole.

And I managed one project before getting a stomach virus. I used rub-n-buff to add some shine to our old handles (from the TV console and china cabinet, both from the 30s). They were probably brass plated at one time. The finished product is on the left. I hope they are not too shiny - I was going for a slightly less old and worn out look but not too new.