Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Here is an addendum to our Christmas card with a few other photos from the year:

Lazy Cats

Thanksgiving

Award-Winning "VAD"amir Putin Halloween costume

Oh-so-easy Crazy Cat Lady Halloween Costume

Taco Cat

Cat-asy Football

Bathroom Remodeling Project

Summer Trip to Cancun

Summer Trip to Yellowstone National Park, Montana and Idaho 

Fence - Day 1

Our fence posts went in today. 

It sounds like they will come back in a few days and finish the rest. 

It's taller than I expected but it will be very nice. 

Nigel wanted to alert us that the cupboard was bare. 

Catasy Football - Week 5: Wins all around

Ravel was the Packer again the Cowboys in Catasy football. 

Making a guest appearance on the blog is Cheweenie Eddie who is a Cowboys fan. Maybe he'll get a costume for Christmas. 

 Nigel was also a winner as the Viking today. He is currently leading 10-6.

On a totally different note, we had a great lunch at Market Barbeque in Minneapolis yesterday. Excellent brisket and great mini-pie for dessert. We reminisced about when we did a self-guided Barbeque Crawl in Lockhart, Texas. It's some of the better barbeque we've had in Minnesota. We're toying with making this fall/winter Barbeque season. 

Catasy Football 2019

In order to make the NFL season interesting, we started Catasy Football a couple of years ago. Each cat is assigned a team. There are points assigned based on the importance of the game.

1 point vs AFL
2 points vs NFL
3 points vs Division opponent
5 points for the winner of the Packer Viking game

Nigel is leading 8-4 after 4 weeks due to his overwhelming victory as the Packer Cat in the 2nd week of the season vs Minnesota. Ravel could have gamed some ground as the Viking cat yesterday had the Vikings beat the Bears.

Next week, Ravel will be the Packer cat vs Cowboys and Nigel will be the Viking cat vs. Giants

Both cats are cheering for the Twins as they go into the baseball playoffs. 

Punchlist

It's the last day of summer vacation for me. Summer 2019 will be known as the Summer of the Bathroom. Spokescat Ravel would like to show you around. 

This is the tall toilet and some fancy glasswork. He is pleased a perch was included for him. 

Someone thinks he looks very handsome. The new drawers are great. Everything is organized and we each have our own side and even have our own toothpaste!

White doors and trim

The owner of the company personally came over this morning to install the missing globes. It really was important to choose a light that was finished on the back. I'm surprised we can see as much as we do 

Light over the toilet

Faucet

The tilework is possibly my favorite part of this whole project. The color and the pattern is nice but the installation is what is most impressive. I'm so happy we decided to get rid of our dingy woodwork and install tile floorboards instead. 

I like clean lines and look how great this tilework is. The lines match up even when they go into the shampoo niche! Quality work! 

The nice feature on this faucet is the temperature control. Once the temperature is set, it will be at that same temp the next time it is used. 

At Long-Last Electrical

 At long-last, the electrician was here to put in the light fixtures. This has been rescheduled several times so I was...pleasantly surprised... when he arrived this morning.

If you're wondering, the black cat has only jumped off the counter into the glass a couple times. He's getting used to it.

We did have an unfortunate drop a couple weeks ago so the replacement globes should be here anytime to finish this out. This light fixture took a lot of time to find as we needed one that looked as good from the back as it did from the front.

As soon as I saw it, I sent a message to Designer Rebecca telling her how much I liked it and how happy I am that we took ALL the time to find this one.  

Who doesn't have an Organza light fixture above their toilet? 

College City sent their cleaners out to give the bathroom a good cleaning and now we've moved into all the drawers. The flatter drawers were the way to go as we each now have several. Mine are organized by "morning", "evening", "hair" and "everything else". 

We're just waiting on someone to put the molding on the mirror frame. If this project ends tomorrow, it will be 9 weeks. 

UPDATE: And if by magic, as soon as I published this, there was an email saying the Globes are in and would be dropped off tomorrow morning. Glory Hallelujah.....

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

You're huge!!

The mirror is finally installed! The leaky shower is fixed. I've said this before but I think the project will be finished this week!

The electrician is coming tomorrow and the cleaners are coming on Tuesday. Hopefully someone is coming soon to install the frame around the mirror and then it might be completely done! 

Slow Roll To The End

It's been a while because... it's been a while....

We have finally have some updates on the bathroom. Today was an exciting day as the glass as installed.

It really turned out nice! As with all construction projects, it wasn't without chaos and drama. 

The installer arrived this morning. As with all the College City Design Build workers, he was super cheerful, polite and nice. He upstairs and got started. He came down a little while later and said there was a problem. The glass was the wrong size, would have to be reordered and he didn't know when it would be installed. He said the hole for the electrical in the mirror was also cut in the wrong spot so that would have to be redone. He was clearly annoyed, as was I. He left and I was getting ready to chew out call the Project Manager to find out what was going on.

The doorbell rang and it was the installer again. He said he couldn't believe it was wrong and stopped driving to look at the plan again. It turns out he read the plan wrong and the glass was right. So.... he cheerfully got back to work.

Unofficial Cat Perch 

Later this afternoon, he came downstairs and said there was yet another problem. Something wasn't lining up with something (he said words but I didn't know what he meant) so he was on the phone with someone. They got it figured out - I suspect it was whatever had him stumped this morning.

In the end, he finished and it looks really, really nice! Unfortunately, the mistake with the mirror will push off the electrician by a day but we should (SHOULD!) be completely finished by the end of the week. The project is about a week behind schedule but in the end, it's not bad when it's such a beautiful finished project.