The one with a sabbatical

I’ve never taken a sabbatical before.  In fact, I’ve always thought of “going on sabbatical” as more of an academic exercise than anything.  However, I find myself in the beginning days of my own sabbatical and I have one fear … I could get used to this!

Initially going on sabbatical doesn’t sound great.  In fact, it’s kind of a nice way of saying I have no work right now.  Although that’s not quite right either because I have a TON of work to do, as usual, but just not any paying work.  In fact, it would be really nice if I could pump out few razzle and dazzles to help ensure that our current contract is renewed, since I try not to count chickens before they start clucking.  However, I am finding these few weeks between projects more fulfilling, fun and exciting than any I’ve had in recent memory.  I love remodeling.  Maybe remodeling and I are still in our honeymoon period.  Should I have gone into construction?  None of my high school aptitude tests suggested construction as a promising career and even if they had, I would not have listened.  Granted this is not heavy duty construction but we’re doing more than hanging new curtains and moving furniture around.  Nonetheless, I wonder …

I like getting up each morning and moving around, building things, designing layouts and putting together a coordinated combination of materials, textures and colors that didn’t exist an hour ago, picking out hideous shades of paint due to my lack of imagination and somehow making it all fit together at the end of the day, or week … well, maybe we’re going on months.  Anyway, the point of all this is that I’m really enjoying remodeling.  I’m sure part of it is extra entertaining because John and I actually get to work together again.  I do miss that part of high school.  We make a great team, in my opinion, and we actually enjoy working on a shared goal together.  After high school, we had few opportunities to devote large chunks of time to building something together but now we’re back in action and I like that.

It’s funny … at the end of each day my body is just exhausted.  After a good night’s sleep I’m ready to go again though.  The human body is just amazing in this regard.  It’ll go for a good 16 hours and then require only 8 hours of sleep.  What other system on this planet (that isn’t mechanized) gives you that kind of return?  If every time I put 8 dollars in the bank I’d get 16 back you’d find me standing at the deposit teller’s station every single morning.   The other thing I find interesting is that my back doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it used to when I had to show up to work at arbitrary times, complete an arbitrary amount of work each day and then return home at an arbitrary hour.  Now, in defense of the “corporate world” this may also have to do with the fact that I’ve eliminated much of my dairy consumption and the only dairy I will consume comes from truly happy cows that are not mistreated or pumped dry in a random dairy farm.  I also only consume grass fed beef as well as chicken and pork that come from small “happy” farms where the animals are allowed to live out fulfilling animal lives before their demise. These dietary changes could also contribute to my decrease in pain.  I’ll compromise and say that all these factors are working together to make me a more happy me.

I’m also learning so much about my weird little self and my really weird little brain.  John is learning too!  We have found that my ability to visualize how something will look based on the individual components is almost non-existent.  For example, when we were designing the inset for the guest bathroom shower I had to tote, from one end of the store to the other, over and over, every piece of proposed tile, stone, grout and color sample I could find.  I have to literally place them all in an arrangement that allows them to overlap before I can get an idea of what the end product will look like.  I’ve heard that people exist with the ability to walk into a similar tile store, simply walk down each aisle once, point at the each item they want and know with 100% certainty how the bathroom will look when it’s finished.  Not me.  No way.  I figure it’s good to know your limitations, though.  At least that way you can find ways to work around them … even if that does require you to walk through a gigantic tile warehouse carrying one of every sample of each thing you like, trying to find the perfect combination.  At least no one has yelled at me (yet) for piecemealing all my proposed creations on the warehouse floor, in the middle of some random aisle.  They’ve looked at me like I’m wearing a clown costume but no one has yelled yet.

So back to the sabbatical.  Of course right before my sabbatical started I turned 31 and John turned 32 shortly after.  As a result of all this birthdayness, I’ve tried to determine my very first memory.  After 31 years of life you should have lots of memories right?  For some reason I figured the very first memory I could come up with would probably represent something pretty important simply because it’s my first memory.  After much digging into the depths of my non-imaginative brain, I think my first memory is the day my brother was born.  Either that or a swimming pool in an apartment complex we might have lived in when I was really really young.  I truly can’t be sure.  It could also be cutting onions with my mom in our kitchen in Broomfield or running out of the room whenever we playing Operation because the buzzing noise always scared me.  Chronology is a tough thing when you’re sorting out a basket of miscellaneous memories from WAY back when.  I think assistance in ordering these haphazard memories will be required to make a solid conclusion. 

And so the sabbatical continues.  I think we’re on day 5 now.  Why didn’t I do this sooner I ask?  And how can I keep it going beyond August?  Good questions to ponder while we construct.  And in an attempt to continue documenting our house’s transition, some photos …. you know, in case my ability to chronologically order past memories does not improve in future years!

Here’s the bathroom as we purchased the house.  Not a big fan of the wallpaper nor the linoleum.

Fast forward two years and now we have this …. please ignore the mustard splatter on the wall.  As I mentioned I have a really hard time envisioning what things will look like until they’re in place.  This shade of paint called Lion’s Mane didn’t quite work out the way my poor little brain thought it would.  Next color, please …

Again, a blast from the past

A blast from the more recent past.  John tried to take the shower tile down in a nice, orderly fashion but it put up a fight.  So, instead of playing nice guy, John just ripped the entire wall off the studs!  This, picture shows the water resistant backboard that went up in its place.  Can you imagine how nice the shower will look yet?!?!?

Just in case your brain works like mine and you answered No to the question above, here’s a sneak peak.  It’s our inset.  We designed it on the kitchen table and glued it to a mesh to make installation “easier” - at least that was the idea.  The outside pieces are just a basic porcelain tile, the next layer in is a bunch of 1 inch by 1 inch marble pieces and the very center is a 12″ x 12″ piece of New Venetian Gold Granite, the same granite as our counter top!

OK, so let’s see where we are now!

And here’s another view so that you can see the border on the top of the tile.

And on to the floors!  If you’ll recall we had linoleum in place before.  Now we’ve upgraded to porcelain tile with granite insets.  And yes, the insets are New Venetian Gold - the same as our inset and counter top!  How’s that for custom coordinated?

It’s hard to tell from the pictures but the floor tiles are just a little bit darker than the wall tiles.

And here’s a picture of the sink.  It’s kinda hard to see in the picture above.

So I think that’s it for the bathroom for now.  Next we’ll repaint/install the baseboards, caulk everything, paint the walls with a decent color (oh Lord help me pick a better shade next time!!!), install the lighting, install the toilet and shower hardware, frame the mirror and then call it a day.  Oh yeah, I gotta go seal the floor.  That’ll be a great task for Day 6 of my sabbatical!

This entry was posted on Mon, Jun 22 2009 at 13:06 and is filed under Vanessa's Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.