More Bathroom Progress

So, we continued our bathroom "March Madness", and have made great strides. Our accomplishments thus far include: sheet-rocking the hole in the wall; painting the walls; installation of the sink and vanity; installation of the medicine cabinet and over the toilet cabinet; and mounting toilet paper and towel racks. The only remaining tasks are mounting the light ( to be put above the medicine cabinet) and the baseboard molding. So not too shabby for a month's work! Here are the photos....

The remaining hole in the walls after the moving of the pipes.

"Plumber Jim" came over for one last installment

of DYI instruction: Sheet rock repair.

Here's Tony screwing in the patch.

Ah, the finished product.

The sink is mounted! Hook up the water!

Finally, a working sink!
No more brushing teeth in the kitchen : )

Isn't it pretty?

Tony hard at work with the screwdriver.

The finish product!

Woo-hoo!

Stayed tuned for the completely finished bathroom---new hand towels and all : )

An Icy Trip to Sugarbush

Not such great skiing (50 degree weather followed by 20 degree weather makes for a VERY icy mountain!).. but a great visit with the Deerfield and Gemignani clans at Miguel's Stowe Away was an excellent end to a chilly, icy day.

Warming up at the outdoor fire pit.

Tony and Mom.

Liz, Mom and Dad Deerfield.

Liz and Mom.

Major Progress on the Bathroom!

After nearly 3 months of walking across a plywood floor - we finally have tile under our feet again! After discovering that we needed to move the water supply pipes for the sink from the floor to the wall we enlisted the help of Morris De Luzio's very own Jim De Luzio ( Designer by day, amateur plumber by night!) to show us the ropes. The fruits of our first plumbing endeavor are seen in the photos below:

Tony and Jim hard at work making a tin-can shield for soldering.

Soldering the hot water valve into place.


The hot water has been moved! Woo-hoo!


So, due to scheduling conflicts with "Plumber Jim", we decided to fly solo on finishing the move of the cold water supply line and the PVC waste pipe. Were we up to the challenge??

I think so!!!!

First off, the difficult part about the cold water was that we couldn't drain the pipe. So, in order to rid the pipe of this unwanted water, we had to call in ....the Cardio-plumber! Who knew you could cath a copper pipe???!!!


After ALOT of intense torching we're in the home stretch!


Pipes are moved!


Floor is patched.

After finishing the "pipe move" we could finally tile the floor (only 3 months behind schedule) and put in our new Kohler Commode! After hours of scraping the old mastic adhesive from the plywood, we laid the first sheet of tile. This was followed by grouting, wiping, wiping and more wiping of the "haze". Then once we left the grout for about 8 hours we gingerly walked across the fresh tiles and hooked up the new toilet. Check out our DYI master work below:

Despite the Omni-Grip fumes clouding our brains we managed to stick all 33 square feet of tile to the plywood floor.

Tony worked his magic with the trowel, smoothing and scraping the adhesive into place...

While I carefully laid the tiles into place...


Viola! Tile is stuck - what a team!

And now for the grout...


And finally... the Throne!

Stay tuned for the installation of the sink and vanity....

Gemignani Women visit Providence (Part III)

Ice Skating in Kennedy Plaza

Topping off a fabulous Saturday was a trip to the local skating rink in downtown Providence. Megan's first bout with the skates was more than impressive -- take a look!

Gemignani Women visit Providence (Part II)

Pawtucket Winter Farmer's Market!

After leaving the RISD museum, we made our way to Pawtucket where we'd heard about a great indoor winter farmer's market. We'd heard right, here's the proof:

A whole mess o' Gemignani women.

Mom and Meg buy some apples.

Sisterly love.

Megan especially liked the bluegrass band.

A crowd scene.

Gemignani Women visit Providence (Part I)

The RISD Museum: Dale Chihuly Exhibit

The weekend after New Years, we were visited by Mom, Rebecca and Megan (Dad was ill with bronchitis and couldn't make the trip). It was nice to get a belated holiday visit as our Christmas plans had fallen apart (see the previous post). It was an eventful weekend starting with a visit to the RISD museum saturday morning:

These were full size white birch tree trunks with
approx. 10 ft tall glass 'candles'.

This was part of a series of smaller vase/vessel pieces.

These amoebic looking forms were displayed on

black mirrors and lit with neon lights.

This is a portion of the ceiling passage way into the exhibit. There was a
sheet of clear glass with colorful sea shell forms on top. (Apparently a
larger scale version resides in a Las Vegas casino).

After the exhibit, Megan displayed her own artistic abilities

on her new chalkboard easel.

'Makin' Lemonade'.....

Well, after the disappointment of Friday night's wintry debacle.. we decided to make lemonade out of the lemons mother nature dealt us. The snow was beautiful - so we took a nice walk in the neighborhood; helped dig a neighbor's car out; picked up some snowstorm "accoutrements"; and settled down to an evening of cookie making and snowflake cutting...

One of many times we needed to clean off the car..

And the grand total is... well, it's still falling! But as of Sat, just over a foot


Around the neighorhood.

Christmas in New England..

The aforementioned "accoutrements"

Cuddled up by the tree...