The counter arrived today with the sinks attached. I’m kind of glad I was busy at the time (I’m working at home so I can be available for issues but *do* actually need to get my day job done..) ’cause there are a couple of places where door trim got scratched/scraped enough to need repair.
The new counter looks very nice
The mirror still needs to be ordered and will hopefully be ready soon. We had the old mirror cut and mounted in the gym so I could do manly poses between reps 🙂
Note the handles on the drawers /doors of the vanity.
The fixtures are called Pegasus and I find them pretty attractive.
One side-effect of raising the height of the vanity is that the plumbing was still low for the original faucets/drain. So we needed slightly longer connecting pipes than expected to hook up the new faucets.
Here are the new towel bars. Man, these cost a small fortune but they look very attractive. They’re from the Baldwin Cecina collection and we picked them up from Home Depot Expo
Above is Mich’s side, and below is mine
I didn’t note yesterday that the safety bars had been installed in the bath area. Mich was against this at first. But a few trials of stepping into and out of the much deeper tub convinced her that, esthetics aside, this is a good idea.
We elected to have a 24″ side-bar for those times when your eyes are full of soap and you may need to steady yourself. It can also be used to help haul yourself out of the bath when you’re seated in it. Also, this configuration keeps it out of your elbow’s way when standing in the shower. I didn’t want to make things feel too narrow.
and then one at the back to help getting in and out. Originally we were going to have it either up and down or on an angle like the one above but we did let some esthetics creep in and went with it running across like you see below. Having it on an angle was a little weird looking and up and down just seemed to be in the way when you tried to enter the tub.
Here is the new shower head and faucet. Both made by Grohe. The faucet is thermo-balanced so it’s supposed to maintain a set temperature no matter what happens with your water pressure / hot water supply.
It’s heinously expensive (compared to what *I* think such things should cost) but I was sold by the intelligent design. Turn the handle counterclockwise and water comes out the faucet. The further you turn, the more water pressure. Turn it clockwise and the water comes out the shower head. Most of the single handle designs I saw seem to have only one flow setting: FULL. To control the temprature there is a knob in the middle. You turn it counter-clockwise until it stops and your water will be 100 degrees. Push it in and keep turning it to go as hot as you like. Turn it clockwise to make the water colder. Wherever you leave it the temperature will be maintained for you.
Here is a picture showing the faucet in relation to the tub. Note that we deliberately offset it so that a) it wouldn’t make as much noise and b) someone can sit there comfortably without having a faucet poking them in the back of the head.
By the way, that little white thing to the right of the faucet? *That’s* the overflow. You can actually use ALL of the tub for soaking.
Tomorrow Tommy and Larry will address a number of smaller items in addition to completing the plumbing for the vanity faucets (they came with plastic connectors to the drain actuators and they would like to replace those with steel ones). Then there will be a bit of a hiatus as we wait for the new counter for the guest bathroom and Mich has decided that she likes the cabinets so much that she wants to order our bed tables from Cherokee Cabinet as well. We’ve got a little planning to do to sort out the design for both of these.
Work on the guest bathroom will likely not commence until the week of June 4th (holidays and all for some of the suppliers involved making it hard to get supplies this coming week).