I can't stop humming the Space Odyssey theme music

Ladies and Gentleladies - The moment you've all been waiting for....dummmmmmmmm, dummmmmmmm, dummmmmmm..........DUM DUM!!!!!! (2001: Space Odyssey trumpets; look it up; watch the movie)

I am about to reveal to you, loyal constituents, my new and improved hallway bathroom. This unveiling event has been 7 long years in the making.

tangent - can I say it's been 7 years in the making since we've had the house for 7 years, or should I say it's been 4 months in the making because we started remodeling in April?

This has been 7 LONG years in the making. 7 years of tinkeling/tinkling/tinkleing in a toilet, surrounded by white walls that had only been primed, brown linoleum, a chipped toilet bowl, and a sink that, had a 6 year old put all of her weight on it just one more time, would have ripped out of it's anchor in wall. For all of you who never had the pleasure of tinkeling/tinkling/tinkleing in my hallway toilet, I have a lovely before picture to show you. Now, for some reason, I wasn't smart enough to take a recent before picture. I do, however, have a picture taken with our old camera from 7 years ago.

Please note the fact that for years, our shower curtain was a skin graph thin piece of plastic found at the 99 cent store and the color scheme was purple and blue. It would have been like putting lipstick on a pig, so I happily left the bathroom looking trashy. Sanitized, but trashy.

This was the bathroom our little family used for 6 years. Our master bath was torn apart in December of 2001, and was just completed in December of 2007. You may think that for those 6 years, Clint worked on the master bath diligently every night after he got home from work. You're wrong. It sat, closed off to the world, in it's gutted, motionless state, until Clint had a few weeks off during Christmas time of last year to devote to it. It's completed now, and I'll get pics of that up in the future.

Remodeling the hall bathroom was a long and arduous task that required many skills from both Clint and myself. I had the unenviable task of delegating, while Clint got off easy by just doing what I told him to do. I told Clint to install a new sink drain, frame, bath tub, shower walls, drywall, toilet ring, toilet bowl, plumbing fixtures, tile, baseboards, wainscoting, sink, medicine cabinet, crown molding, chair rail, door, door casing, oh, the list goes on and on. I'm exhausted just by the memory of the work I had to delegate. It was hard to keep him on track. I found him once sleeping on the job. Can you believe I had to press pause on my remote and walk all the way in there to wake him up and tell him he won't be receiving any dinner until the walls are installed?

After I withheld dinner and other unmentionable services, he seemed to kick it up a notch. The bathroom took about 2 months to complete. This last month, I've been doing my finishing touches. I'm not a fan of buying sets i.e. a shower curtain from Target that comes with coordinating towels, bath mat, soap dish, toothbrush holder, knitted kleenex box cover, etc. It's frustrating and exciting at the same time to shop for each component separately. I love how different everything looks and yet how it all fits together. So, now that the last picture has been hung and the dust swept away, I'd like to unveil our latest endeavor.

What? You're not impressed? Wait a second, you actually thought I was going to show you the entire finished product on my blog? You're crazy!! Get your rear over here and come see it for yourself!