Skid Row

Okay with the fiasco of the cement board situation behind us we looked forward to the next step in the guest bathroom, which was putting up the purple board and calling for the insulation and drywall inspection.
With another 10/10 from Mr. Inspector, we could go on and put tape and wallboard compound on the seams and screws.


The next step was to tile the floor.

I don’t know if you have noticed this but for the last several years, the Tuscan look has been big in the world of home décor. As in BIG. When we were looking at homes prior to buying this mess, project, money pit, consumer of life, destroyer of sanity, we saw a lot of Tuscan-inspired bathrooms and kitchens. A LOT. Now I’m making no judgments about this (well actually I am) but it did get a little bit BORING. If you like it then good for you, it’s your home and you can do what you like with it, and we did see some very nice manifestations of this style. But it was not for us.
When we started looking in Lowe’s and other purveyors of tile for ideas, the Tuscan look was still by far the most prevalent kind of tile available. And it was cheap which probably meant that either no one had any money to put in tile at the moment and the shops were trying to off-load it, or no one wanted that look anymore so the shops were trying to off-load it. Whichever it was, it didn’t fit the beach vibe we were after and it wasn’t non-slip.
The whole non-slip was a big issue with us. Kitchens and bathrooms are wet places. Wet, plus slippery tile can lead to the reading of golfing or five-year-old women’s magazines, and the handing over of co-pays as you wait to be seen by a doctor. Being in our 50’s and 60’s means such thoughts come to mind more often than they did in the past.
But finding non-slip tile seemed like an impossible job. We just about wore our fingers away running tile after tile in every shop we could hunt down. Then one day we spotted a tile in Lowe’s. Called Gea beige, it was a 20” x 20” porcelain tile, in a beige, sand, grey colour that mimicked the look of slate. And it was non-slip. We checked out a sample and took it home. We looked at it with the carpet we were considering, and in the different areas it would go.


We had previously decided to have just one tile design since, downstairs from the living room, the different areas of tile would all be seen and we felt this would pull the look together. Although we didn’t have to do this upstairs, and we did find a brown version, we decided to use the light version there too.

To us, it looked a little like the ground in places near the beach at Salt Creek in Dana Point where sand, dirt, and rock come together. What better look for beach house décor? It cost $5 a square foot and we would be using quite a lot of it (kitchen, dining area, both bathrooms, entry, and around the fireplace) so it wouldn’t be cheap. Not as in 89 cents for the striped tile cheap but that coup, helped pay for the extra the Gea Beige would cost (which was on sale so not as expensive as it could have been) and it was the only thing that came close to being non-slip and the kind of colour and look we wanted.


And here it is laid on the floor. It looked as good as we hoped and Mrs. R could finally get a picture of the house looking like something other than a perpetual construction site.

Back in Time

We interrupt normal programming (the installation of drywall downstairs) to bring you, dear reader, a cautionary tale. Know your material before messing with it. That’s the abridged version.

Because drywall goes up pretty fast, Mr. Remodel knew that it wouldn’t be long before he came to a standstill if he wasn’t ready to take out the toilet and shower downstairs because, if you remember, they were preventing us from completing all the new walls. That meant turning the main scene of operation upstairs to the guest bathroom. And that mean installing cement board.
No one had worked with cement board before and everyone presumed it was like drywall, only harder to cut and made of cement. We did know that cement dust was not kind to people’s lungs and asked everyone to wear masks, which is something.
So people set about cutting it and screwing it in with drywall screws.
Oh look how nice it looks. Tra La La.




Because we weren’t installing a shower with the bath two sections of the wall around it did not need cement board. However, because it was still a wet area, it would require purple board.

Meanwhile, the soffit was covered with regular drywall. Tra La La.


Then, we discover that the cement board we were using needed to be attached with special screws. So Mr. Remodel and Mr. Fix-It took out every drywall screw and replaced it with cement board screws. It was annoying but we wanted to do things right.
Phew that was lucky to have caught that in time…

The following day Mr. Remodel sat down for an hour and read the bathroom book he bought weeks ago and made a disturbing discovery. The cement board needed to have plastic sheeting behind it on the walls as it doesn’t have the same moisture barrier that green board had, and it needed a layer of mortar underneath it on the floor to make the floor level. In addition, it needed to be installed with a 1/8” gap between the boards.
As a result, Mr. & Mrs. Remodel proceeded to take ALL of the cement board out again. Plus we had to take off all the soffit drywall as well because that needed to be either green or purple board. That left us with only the ceiling drywall left in place. That was only the start of the fun.
Of course this had to be a holiday weekend and we couldn’t get anyone at the cement board company to advise us exactly on the kind of mortar we should put on the floor, although it would have been nice if they had called us back after the holiday as the one person manning the phones there said they would. Lowe’s is usually very helpful, but the young man on duty in that part of the store isn’t too sure about what we need. Self-leveling cement, which would probably have been easy, wasn’t going to work because it would run down into the bath plumbing cavity.
After a significant amount of time staring at the myriad bags of mortar in the tile department, Mr. R chose one, and with our plastic sheeting, we wended our merry way home to re-install cement board instead of enjoying some time at the beach.

Mr. Remodel laid the mortar and leveled the floor, which went pretty well. What was difficult was taking removing 1/8” off each piece. The way to cut cement board to size is not to cut it at all because it produces nasty cement dust particles that human lungs don’t like. So you ‘cut’ it by scoring it and then cracking it over a beam (much like you can score and crack tile). But you can’t score and crack 1/8” off the edge. So we had to score it and break it off with a pair of pliers. It was hard on our hands and took FOREVER because we could only break off less than an inch at a time.
Once we had done that for the floor pieces we laid them on the mortar and screwed them down before we put the plastic sheets on the wall.



Then we took each piece of cement board for the wall, took off the 1/8” one by one and screwed them back up.



Then we cut new pieces out of green board for the soffit and installed them.




By the time we were finished we were very tired, and more than a bit fed-up over the three days we had lost. But as I reminded Mr. R, it could have been a lot worse. We might have gone further and found out our mistake from the inspector when we called for the drywall inspection. And Mr. Fix-It and we had all learned a lesson about how to deal with cement board.

Drywall Haiku

Drywall, I love you
Holes in walls covered quickly
View of neighbours gone

Drywall is my new best friend. I know, we got off to a bad start. Day after day it would lay around waiting for me to carry it outside to the trailer and would never sweep up after itself. But so like now I’m so totally over it and we are like totally BFF’s.

So one minute I can stand in the bathroom and wave to the neighbours across the road, the next I can jig about in there to my heart’s delight without anyone knowing. Forget hugging a tree – I want to hug a wall!


Lets get the benefit of the before. Here is the new entry from the living room to the master bedroom downstairs.


And here is what a little drywall can do. Now don’t forget when putting up your drywall, you can’t skimp on screws (or nails, which is how the original drywall was attached). The inspector will be looking for screws or nails every eight inches.
Even though there are several more stages to go on from here, it instantly looks more finished. Actually, it is a pity you couldn’t get it already spackled and painted and somehow attach it without the screws showing and then it could be drywall for hopelessly busy people.


Although this picture looks much like the previous one (one of these pictures is not like the other), look closely. The edges have metal corner beading. This will not go on straight if the framing isn’t exactly straight which happened to us in some spots, we don’t know why, or why we didn’t see it earlier, or why whoever put it in didn’t get it in straight, or who put in that section, or… stop asking so many questions.

Meanwhile…


Look, the old entry from the living room is gone. It is no more.

Of course there are down sides to everything. I no longer feel like I’m in a Star Trek episode where I can pass through walls (but not fall through the floor).

Update: Living Room

Anything happening in the living room? Let’s see.


Well, Evil insulation trapped in black bags is still there but we have a new friend in the lower right-hand corner in the form of Mr. Fix-It’s compressor. It’s very noisy but very necessary for powering the nail gun which makes nailing in beams and two-by-fours and the like, SO much easier than a using a hammer. In fact, good luck nailing the forms onto the concrete some other way. But very noisy. Very.
I found the nail gun a little intimidating. Mr. Remodel or someone had a habit of putting it down still attached to the compressor and switched on facing the toilet. This made using the toilet even less pleasant than it already was, although Mr. R assured me that Bond films not withstanding (Casino Royale) nails only shoot out if the gun is pressed against a surface. That may be so but I was taking no chances and attended to business very quickly.
But enough of that - check out that a portion of the black bag wall has been taken down and plywood has taken its place! Look you can see more of it further along covering what used to be the old doorway. It’s the earthquake shear wall nailed in place. It’s also a step towards having a private bathroom space.

And you know what the erection of the shear wall means don’t you? That’s right, we passed our framing inspection. Which means we first passed our mechanical, electrical, and plumbing inspections. After weeks and weeks of work it was a big relief to pass all the relevant inspections. Hooray for us and a plastic cup of water for everyone who guessed right (sorry, the money for champagne went on nails and two-by-fours).

Okay so now what happens? You in the back. Yes, it means we can now start putting up drywall! Putting up. I like those two words. They have a much nicer sound than the words taking down.

Update: Downstairs (Master) Bathroom

Now it is clear from the pictures and descriptions of the work going on (and some whining) that this isn’t the nicest bathroom to use.


But let’s face it, it has a shower, a toilet and a sink unit, and a mirror, and a wall-mounted cabinet for putting things in what more does a person need? Just think yourself lucky Mrs. Remodel that you have all of those things. There are starving people in Africa that don’t have a mirror. They don’t get to see themselves and see how their hair won’t sit right. It’s my parents fault for moving (when I was 17 years old) into a house with a bathroom and an inside loo so I would become soft and spoilt and expect those kinds of things.

Meanwhile the framing is continuing.


Here we see some of the new ceiling support beams with small sections taken out to run the electrical wiring for a new light.

Moving along, it is time to reduce the amount of fixtures in the bathroom. The wall-mounted cabinet had already migrated into the kitchen, now it was the turn of the mirror and sink unit to leave.


This allowed Mr. Plumber to come in and install the new plumbing for sink number one and sink number two. Brushing of teeth now has to be done in the kitchen, the only sink left in the house.

Still being unable to remove the shower in this bathroom, doesn’t mean it still has to have a ceiling.


This allows the raised ceiling to be finished off and the installation of a new light for the new shower.


And why bother having all that extra wallboard on the wall when it isn’t serving any purpose? It has to come down at some point anyway because both cement and purple board is eventually going up on that wall, plus electrical wiring for new lights and boxes has to go in as well.


Little by little, things are taking shape and various necessary parts are being added, or moved into new positions.


The old vent has been given some new tubing and is set it its new home. It used to be lower down to the right of the shower.


A new opening to the attic is framed in and a new electrical box for a light for inside the closet is put in place (we ended up having to move it as the light fixture blocked the opening).


Here it is with new insulation to replace evil insulation.


Here is the wiring for the electronics equipment that will eventually be on the other side of the wall. It goes up through the ceiling along to the TV that will eventually be above the fireplace.
The view beyond the black bag walls looks out to the back garden and the neighbours, which is why the black bag barrier is there. Saving everyone’s blushes.


Another view of the ceiling insulation and the new shower light in the background and the new vent.

I haven’t talked about the theme for this bathroom yet but rather than describe it in detail and spoil the surprise, I’ll just say that it’s ‘beachy’ with a mostly blue/green palette.
Meanwhile back to the salt mines.

Update: Upstairs (Guest) Bathroom, aka 'Little Grass Shack'

Okay, it time to get back on track and see what progress has been made.

Last time we visited the upstairs bathroom, the rough plumbing had been installed and Mr. R started pulling down the dropped ceiling. Previously all the wallboard in the room had also been taken out.


Once we had decided on our theme, it allowed us to focus in on finding the materials we needed to execute the idea. Mr. R wanted the room to feel like the inside of a Little Grass Shack with a large window opening looking out onto a tropical scene. So we had to find a material for the walls that gave the illusion of being inside a LGS. In reality that would either be wood or platted palm fronds. Covering the walls with platted palm fronds didn’t get any votes (but that doesn’t mean we have heard the last of them). We thought about wood. We thought particularly about putting wood flooring on the walls. We also thought about tile. Given the moisture generated in a bathroom we thought tile was going to be the best choice but finding the right design was difficult. Finally after weeks of looking we found it.


It was at a tile shop called Morena Tile in San Juan Capistrano. We had been in there previously but this tile had either not been on display then or we had not noticed it. But notice it this time we did. And it was on sale for 89 cents. Yes 16” x 16” ceramic tile for 89 cents each. Hooray for the budget. Now I can understand it not being everyone’s cup of tea (obviously which is why it was so discounted) but for us it was perfect. And very cheap.

Part of this preamble was not only to keep you updated with the design side of the remodel but also to explain why we had removed all the wallboard in the bathroom. In case you didn’t know, you can’t just slap tile onto wallboard. Tile is usually put in areas where there is going to be moisture (around sinks, baths, and showers) and it needs to be installed onto a material with a good moisture barrier which regular wallboard doesn’t have. This kind of wallboard used to be called green board (it was green) it has now been replaced by purple board (it is purple). There is another choice, cement, either in the form of cement board or a cement wall. With cement wall chicken wire is attached to the studs and cement is plastered over the wire – we’ll go into this in more detail because that is what is going to happen in the bathroom downstairs. For upstairs, we were going with the cement board.

With the wall tile chosen (the floor tile hadn’t been finalized yet) Mr. Remodel could move onto building the soffit for the bathroom lighting.
Now there is not much that Mr. R likes more than buying wood and building something with it. Just in the time we’ve been married, Mr. R has built bookcases, fences, a desk, shelves galore, a workbench, a flat ledge for my drawing table, and numerous other items. I believe we can rival Lowes for the range of nails and screws we possess.


Here is part of the soffit. It is angled for reasons I chose to keep to myself for now. Check out the new vent. For non-US readers, bathrooms have to have a vent that takes out moisture (and smells) from bathrooms without a window.



Here is another shot, this time with the new insulation to replace the old and funky stuff that was there.


Here’s the other end. Not great pictures but you’ll get a better idea of how it looks when the wallboard goes on.

While we’re taking the tour here’s another view.


The black pipe is a vent for the sewer, while the larger, silver pipe is for the gas. The floor is plywood and because it is also going to be tiled will have to have cement board put over it. Finally to the left of the yellow level is a new electrical box for the pig (the unit that will power the claw foot bath’s air massage system).


More new electrical wiring courtesy of Mr. Sparky (another find through Mr. Fix-It).

Once the new vent, new electrical, and new plumbing is completed in the downstairs bathroom, we can call for our first inspections.
*In an earlier post I said that rough framing would be our first inspection but rough mechanical (heating and vents), rough electrical, and rough plumbing are actually listed on the permit inspection chart before framing.

Is There a Doctor in the House?

There are lots of lessons to be learned during any home improvement project. But some just don’t get learned well enough. One is keep your thumb out of the way when you are waving a hammer in the other hand.
Mr. Remodel got his left thumb in the way of hammer in right hand and whacked it good. Nail turned black. Luckily Mr. Doctor Relation lives nearby so Mr. R drove over there to get needle poked in nail to relieve pressure and save nail.

Another good rule of thumb (excuse pun) is not to hit said thumb again with hammer. Nope, didn’t learn that one either. No surprises to learn it hurt more the second time around (and third time too). It also hurt when a handsaw slipped and cut into the top of the same thumb.

Next lesson. Don’t try to move position of stepladder while still on it. Apparently learning that lesson was re-scheduled for another day. Mr. R. thought if he just held onto the beams above him, he could move ladder with feet. To be fair, it might just have worked. However, the floor below was littered with tools and extension cords and Mr. R did not check that aforementioned ladder was actually sitting on level ground before putting all his weight back on it. Consequence? Falling from off the top of the ladder in a confined space (with lots of potential for hitting of head on way down) onto a concrete floor littered with tools (including sharp ones).
Mrs. R can write about it in a somewhat jocular tone now (even though she walked into the room just in time to see him demonstrate gravity) because she did not have to call an ambulance or a funeral director but it was actually a very, very stupid thing to do (move the ladder while on it, not write about it in a jocular tone). In many ways, this story belongs in the last posting since Mrs. Remodel considers it a miracle that Mr. Remodel was able to get up nursing nothing more than a sore elbow. Although he almost had a sore head to deal with after Mrs. R heard how he had come to fall off the ladder.

Sorry I don’t have any pictures of the above event but we were not in the mood to recreate the scene for the camera.

Other injuries involve Mrs. R stabbing her fingers with tacks when pulling out carpet and sore fingers from having them in the wrong place at the wrong time. We both got hurt when the top of a cabinet we were putting together, (which we had not screwed in properly) flew on top of us. First it hit the lower portion of Mrs. R’s finger before hitting Mr. R on the shoulder. Again, it could have done more damage, as it was a very heavy piece of particle board. Even so, Mrs. R. finger is still sore at times, red and has a lump.

Thankfully, so far, we aren’t in hospital, or missing any bits but the biggest lesson is that DIY can be dangerous. Take all those tools, a moment’s lack of concentration, and a misunderstanding of human vulnerability and you have a potential recipe for disaster. No patio, room addition, or remodel is worth death, serious injury or dismemberment.

Fellow Do-It-Yourselfers - stay safe out there.

As Luck Would Have It

Miracles, blessings, good fortune, or just luck, whatever you call it, a home improvement project needs a healthy dose of it on a regular basis. Whether it is finding the exact tile colour you want in the quantity you need, or getting a workman to fit you into his schedule when you need him, if too many things go wrong too often, it extends your time frame and raises the frustration level along with your blood pressure. Not everything is going to go right unless you live some kind of charmed life; you know that, you just want the balance of luck tipped in your favour.

We have received some negative circumstances and some positive. Since our project is still going it is hard to stay where the balance tips at present. For now, here one of our positives.

I mentioned some time ago that Mr. Remodel wanted a claw foot bath for the upstairs bathroom. Well after looking at the price ticket of $3,000+, Mrs. Remodel laughed and suggested Mr. R think again. But Mr. Remodel had set his heart on one so he went looking on-line and found one in the size he wanted at the American Bath Factory’s website for half the price. And because the company’s US headquarters were only two hours or less away they offered free delivery. So Mrs. Remodel declared the budget would tolerant it.


Now the free delivery only involved them bringing the bath to the curb. If we wanted them to take it off the lorry and into the house or garage, that would be another $200. Since the company said we would get a call with a two-hour arrival window, Mr. Remodel thought he could get some burly friends and neighbours to help with the unloading.

We got back from shopping one Saturday to find a note on the door saying that the delivery company had been there while we were gone. We rang their phone number. They knew nothing about a warning call. However, the bath was still on the lorry and they could come back after all the remaining deliveries had been made. That left Mr. R with 1 ½ hours to find some burly men. No one was in or in a position to help at that time. Mr. Remodel thought I could help. Hello! Remember me - bad back, bad neck? Then he thought perhaps he could do it on his own? I’m not even going to comment on that suggestion.

Finally we reached a friend who would be there just after 2pm, when Mr. Delivery Man said he would be there. But he arrived at 1.45pm instead. Mr. R went out and asked Mr. DM if he could hang on until Mr. Burly Friend could get there. No need, said Mr. DM. He noticed the bath was being delivered to a residential address and so he had a lift put on the lorry that morning. Hooray for Mr. DM! In a few minutes, he had wheeled the bath onto the lift, let it down, and wheeled the bath straight into the garage as if it weighed10 lbs, not over 500 lbs what with bath, accessories, and large bag of sand the bath was sitting on for stability.

Hiring Workers

Although Mr. Remodel had the ability to do most of the work himself, he wanted to hire others to do some of the major projects. Sometimes it was necessary because some jobs needed two or more people to work on it at once. Although I was not always otherwise engaged, some of the work was simply too hard (because heavy lifting was involved) for someone of my size.

Another issue was time. It would take Mr. R longer to do some of these jobs because he, unlike the professionals, wasn’t doing it everyday. Add all the extra time together, because there was so much to be done, and it was going to add more weeks and months to the remodel. Then there is Mr. R’s profound aversion to doing anything related to plumbing.
We needed to find a balance because, although professional cost, doing it yourself costs in time off from work, less free time, loss of sanity, loss of patience.

We decided on general construction work help, which came in the form of Mr. Fix-It and his helpers. Because Mr. Fix-It is a friend, it was an easy choice for us. But it’s not a given. You can lose friends from doing business with them. Mr. Remodel is more of a perfectionist than Mr. Fix-It (which has its good and bad sides) so there were differences of opinion at times and there had to be some give and take. Mr. Fix-It is very easy-going which also helped. Generally it is working well. But hiring friends has its risks.
In our case we hired Mr. Fix-It at an hourly rate since he could not commit his or his helpers time exclusively for the time of the project and because Mr. R was one of the workers as well as the supervisor (owner/contractor) and carried on with the job when Mr. F was elsewhere. But for the plumbing and tile work we were looking for them to do all the work on a ‘fixed-price’ bid.
For both our plumber and tile man we asked for recommendations. We got Mr. Plumber through Mr. Fix-It and Mr. Tile through Mr. Flooring we didn’t use. Mr. Plumber seemed to know what he was talking about so we decided not to look elsewhere. We spoke to three Mr. Tile men and chose one from them. He wasn’t actually the cheapest but we thought he understood what we wanted and he dropped his price a bit.
We have ended up being generally happy with the people we chose but we did make some mistakes.

When you interview workmen you have to be clear that the bid you receive coincides with what was discussed. You have to remember that these sub-contractors can be working on multiple bids and jobs and they mix up details or forget things (like the rest of us). We didn’t check the bids properly to see that all the work that was agreed was included. We just presumed it was all on there though we had looked at it. So the price ended up being more expensive. Not that this was unreasonable because the original didn’t include everything. But you get a price in your head so it is a shock when you have to pay an extra $400 or $500, which you hadn’t realised. We aren’t stupid people but there are times when we just get overwhelmed by all the things that need to be done at once. It’s like juggling, trying to keep all the balls in the air and failing because there are just too many balls.

You also have to be prepared for additional expenses because some aspect of the job turned out to be more difficult or because you need unanticipated materials. This was the same whether it was a project we worked on or on a ‘fixed-price’ bid. For example Mr. R and Mr. Fix-It estimated a certain number of two by fours needed to frame the new walls. They were off by more than double. There were weeks when Mr. R seemed to be off to the builder’s yard every other day for more, and more, and more two by fours. Even if you hire a contractor or sub-contractor with what you think is a fixed price, something will come up that needs extra time and materials. The contractor my absorb some of this but they will not pay for something he or you didn’t know was there before the job started and that couldn’t be known until walls, floors, or whatever are taken out. There are usually surprises because you often have to deal with something non-kosher that the original builder or a prior homeowner might have got away with. The walls are never as straight, the floors not as level, the corners not as square etc. etc. as you thought they were or should be.

The truth is that home projects always cost more than you expect and they always take longer which also has a cost effect. You have to build that into the budget. This is why people run out of money before they run out of project.

Meanwhile, off-stage...

As riveted, as I know you’ve all been at the exciting exploits in the master bathroom downstairs, I also know you’ve had a nagging feeling you’ve been missing something. What is it? Oh yes. What is happening in the kitchen and upstairs bathroom?

Before you lose any more sleep over the matter, the answer is not very much. When we started our remodel, I thought things would move quite a lot faster than they are. I thought this because I didn’t understand what it takes to do this amount of work and because we didn’t have endless amounts of money to throw at it (or rather at someone who could bring in lots of workers to do everything).

If you can cast your mind back (or just scroll down a ways) in the kitchen Mr. Remodel and Mr. Fix-It extended the light fixture opening and then moved onto other things. This left me with only the light in the dining area to see by (even throwing a frozen dinner into the microwave needs some degree of lighting).


Check out that the kitchen is becoming a place to put tools down. I frowned upon this but thought it might be a temporary measure while work was actually going on there.

Since my blog posts aren’t coming in real time compared with when the work was actually done (until I catch up), you’ll have to imagine that this situation went on for weeks.

But then there was a sudden and dramatic development. The electrical wiring and boxes were installed. Hooray!


And there it sat for several more weeks.


So much for temporary tool storage. The kitchen has become the defacto electrical equipment station while the white cupboard in the background (which holds first aid stuff) was until recently in the master bathroom. Elsewhere, the table we put in the living room to eat off of has become the place to hold the plans, shopping lists, samples, hammers, screws, nails, tape measures, and what not so it is impossible to put a plate on it.
Excuse me; I’m trying to live in this house!

Upstairs, there were equally important but slow and underwhelming movements in the bathroom. Mr. Plumber came to install what is called rough plumbing. This is where new pipes and fittings are put in at the point where the plumbing comes in through the exterior wall prior to installing the fixtures. At this stage the copper pipes don’t have to be the exact length. Rough plumbing has to be passed by an inspector (if you are doing it legally like us) before you can go any further.


This shows the plumbing for the new sink


Here is the new plumbing for the claw foot tub we bought.


At the same time, Mr. Remodel started taking out the dropped ceiling above which will re-built slightly differently and with lighting. Now that Mr. & Mrs. R have decided on the theme for this bathroom we can focus our work in the room and our search for materials.

The theme: Little Grass Shack (in honour of our time in Hawai’i).

Garden Tour (aka a Chance to Snoop)

Although we are a long way from working on the small patch of patio and dirt at the back of the house, that Americans call a yard and Europeans call a garden, we took some time out the other week for a garden tour. Every year, the San Clemente Garden Club holds an open house at several gardens of its members. Tickets cost $25 each with the gardens open from 10am- 4pm.
There were six gardens chosen. Three in San Clemente and three in San Juan Capistrano. Each visitor got a small booklet with directions and a small explanation about the garden and its inspirations. You could go in any order and take as long or as little in each garden. We got off to a late start but still had all the time we needed.
We started at a large and beautiful home in San Clemente. I wasn’t crazy about the garden but what was nice was how they had designed it to be very private with tall hedges blocking their view of the homes immediately around them.
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It’s not until you get up higher onto their sun decks that you have any idea of the size of some of the adjacent buildings.


The home had a covered patio running around most of the house with lots of windows providing a beautiful backdrop to the interior. We weren’t able to tour the house, which looked lovely from what we could see including this one door, which was left open for our viewing pleasure. Beautiful.


It’s easy to think that only wealthy people can have beautiful homes. True, money helps you do a lot of things you can’t do otherwise, but with creativity, you can have your own kind of wonderful. That is what we are trying to do.

The next garden was inspired, in part, by a visit the owner made to England. I liked it but am not sure it is anything like the way we plan to go.


I didn’t care for the third garden at all. I thought it very bland and not in quite the condition I think a garden club member would leave it if they knew a hundred or more people would be wandering around it. But we did like this plant that we were told was Clematis. It reminded us a little of the Lilikoi (passion fruit) flower.


Onto to San Juan Capistrano. Wending our way through Saturday traffic (those swallows – they leave it till the end of the week to do all their shopping) we arrived at garden number four. Full marks for cuteness. Bonus points even.
A pink cottage all decked out with frills and flounces and a beautiful garden shaded by an enormous, old (by US standards) oak tree.
How’s this for a fun and pretty idea.


I thoroughly enjoyed this garden although, again, it is probably not the look we will go for. But it was lovely to experience it and we got one idea from it. You can have the sound and look of a water feature, without it taking up a lot of space.


Garden number five also in SJC was not particularly impressive in my opinion. I thought they had too many of the same plants all around the garden. Rather than giving an impression of consistency, I thought it looked like lack of variety.
But they did have a nice water feature tumbling down their little hillside.


And we like this lovely Monstera plant, which makes a big statement. It’s on our maybe list.


The last garden was one of my favourites, not because I would copy it but because its design was a perfect match to the house described as Monterey Colonial style.

A good example is their walled vegetable garden.


Although we aren’t planning to do anything in this style, there were several individual items I put on my maybe list.

The first was this edging. I’ve never seen this done before. Simple but stylish.


The garden also had a lot of citrus trees, many in dwarf versions. We love fruit trees but with our tiny patch it seemed like one was the best we could fit in. In several of the gardens we saw fruiting trees in pots, which may be the way to go.
The tree below, though in the ground, caught our eye.

It is a lemon tree, which produces pink lemons.

I’m not thinking about growing roses but I had to get Mr. Remodel to take this picture in the vegetable garden simply because it was so beautiful.


Did you know that many wine growers plant roses at the ends of rows of vines? It’s because they act as canaries in a mine. Pests attacking the roses are an early warning sign for the grower.

I really enjoyed getting out of the house and being in the sunshine getting some ideas. I’m already looking forward to next year’s garden tour.