Masterpiece.

Presenting a triumph by Xavier. A gut renovated bathroom (really gut - check out the last couple of pictures in this series). We are talking floor, walls, ceiling, plumbing (with just a plumber to weigh in one day), tiling, paint stripping (accompanied by many fights about lead paint dangers), electricity, 400-lb cast iron tub-removal and replacing and on and on. This was one heavy bricoleur job. He started out loving it, got pretty fed up at various points, but in the end, clearly triumphed.







The details are what make his work so lovely. I am delighted to have a husband who pays such close attention to things like trimming the tiling with that perfect red stripe...


choosing just the right clock for the bathroom,


restoring the original door knobs and hardware,


getting us a telephone receiver shower part in the tub (love this!),


installing a soap thing-y (yellow thing on the wall - savon jaune rotatif) - the same he had in his French primary schools growing up,


...down to choosing the perfect lights.

Colette adores Mr. Chaplin in the bathroom. She is learning to wave hello and goodbye and Mr. Chaplin is her primary conferree of these baby salutations. She also laughs really hard when she sees him hanging up there. He must seem really amiable.


When the guts were still out:


(Special thanks go to: François et co. for risking their lives to help Xavier bobsled the original cast iron tub down the stairs and out of the house. Also to Hugues for help fracturing the original floor, where flying cement chunks threatened his unprotected eyes. And to Julie for risking her respiratory health stripping paint with a heat gun while I was hiding out 8 months pregnant in Barbados - better for Colette, let's say).