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I logged in this morning meaning to post about the bathroom, but I got all wrapped up in The Royal Tenenbaums and Blockbuster and so forth, that I forgot to say anything about the bathroom. So here's the update:

We're done! Actually, we're not done. They're done. The contractor and plumber are finished, paid and gone. The vanity is in, the faucets are installed, the hand shower is up, and the door is rehung. I'll take some photos tonight but I'm really happy.

The hand shower is really cool looking! It's mounted right on the wall, under the showerhead about half way up. It seems like an odd place to me, but I asked the plumber to put it wherever he thought best, and he's seen way more of these things than I have. So I'm sure we'll find when we start to use it that this is the most convenient location.

The door opens in again. It would have been nice to have them switch it, would have given us more room inside the bathroom, but we would have had to get used to a whole new traffic flow in the hallway. So maybe it's for the best that they rehung it the same way. It was probably a big relief for them, not to have to deal with rehanging the door.

The vanity is huge. I mean HUGE. I had gotten used to the bathroom looking so spacious, and now there's this honking big piece of furniture right in the middle of it. Well it was inescapable. Even if we had put in a pedestal sink, then we would have need some other furniture to put all our stuff in.

It's also taller than the old one, I think. It's hard to tell because I didn't take any "before" photos (d'oh!) But I think the old vanity was about the height of the toilet tank and this one is taller. I guess that's because they needed room above the drawers for the sink, so the sink could be centered. In any case it's much better furniture than the old one. (Which I feel a little silly even saying, since everything in the room is nicer than before.) The back is some kind of wood composite, but the front is solid maple and the drawers as well. Basically everything you can see is solid wood. It's got nice smooth hardware for the drawers to pull out on, and the top drawer has a little extra drawer inside it. So it's really three drawers, one full height and two half height.

We ended up going with cool colors, blues and greens and greys, for the entire room so I was worried that the sink would clash. But it really doesn't. It's not as sandy as I had remembered, it's more off-white. So it looks pretty good I think. And the faucets look great! I've always loved these fat porcelain cross handles.

It's funny because another thing I've always loved and wanted was a real down pillow. Somehow I had this idea that a down pillow was the ultimate luxury. It took on this monumental importance in my mind, totally out of proportion with a pillow's actual relevance in my life. A real down pillow became some kind of symbol of having finally arrived at the life I wanted to have. If that makes any sense. Well, about six months ago I threw caution to the wind and bought myself that down pillow. And you know what? I hated it! I kept waking up all night long because the filling would mash down, and I had headaches all day from sleeping with my neck at a bad angle. It was awful. I replaced it with a good extra-support foam pillow and now I sleep much better.

Anyway, the point is that my dalliance with a down pillow taught me to be a little wary of these symbols of the good life. Just because I've always fantasized about having something doesn't mean that it will actually make my life better. Which is all to say that, it's kind of a relief to discover that I could get these cool knobs that I've always wanted, and they weren't expensive and didn't cause any problems, and they do make me feel happy every time I look at them.

So what's left for us to do? Well we have to find a medicine cabinet, buy it, hang it, hang the glass shelf underneath it, hang the towel ring by the sink and the robe hook on the door, find switchplates, and patch those extra holes by the toilet paper holder (which they forgot to patch). And I have to call the contractor and get them to pick up their darned extension ladder which is still in our yard.

Also, we still haven't resolved the problem of the Too Small Handles on the vanity. Maybe after work today I'll stop at the home depot and see what kind of backplates they have. If they aren't too hideous that would be an easy solution. Georg found some really pretty handles online that come with backplates, but they're 3 1/2" which might be too wide for the drawers. Also they're kind of mission style, which wouldn't go with our retro faucets and lamp.

Oh! At this same website Georg also found a gorgeous medicine cabinet. This is the first cabinet I've seen that I really liked. It would look beautiful in the room. They send it unpainted so we could paint it to match the trim, or varnish the natural wood. The only problem is it has to mount in the wall, and they only make one size. All day long I've been wanting to run home and check the hole in the wall to see if it will fit. Even if it does fit, the hole in the wall isn't centered over the vanity. If we got a wall-mounted cabinet we'd just get one wide enough to center while still covering the entire hole. But this one would be off to the left, which will look kind of weird.

Still, who cares really? I'm just excited to finally find a cabinet that I wholeheartedly like. Here's a picture of it on their website. They've even got a shelf below it like the one we've got.