Hi vineyard~ Thank you! The tile guys installed the backerboard in the master shower yesterday, much to my delight. The "shampoo niches" ended up much lower than we hoped for, because everywhere we wanted to go was piping. Sometimes you just don't realize until after the fact. If we'd thought about it, we could have asked the plumber to put his pipes on the other side of the studs. Simple solution, but too late at this point. So our shampoo holders will be for chihuahuas to access..... LOL! The only other "glitch" was the tile store was unable to find the 1x2 harlequin (rhomboid) tile that we were doing on the front of the tub step and deck, as well as the shampoo insets (which of course are so low now, who cares about them!!). Instead, we are having to go with the small 1 inch square tiles. They are nice too. Just messed a bit with the pattern we had planned. kygirl~ Thanks so much. It's great to see you on here. I think of you when I'm on here (as well as some of our "old gang") and wonder how you are enjoying your new home. Hope each day is better than the one before. I'm sure you're thrilled with your new home. It was always one of my fav's on here! Yes, we will divide our time up between CA and the south. There are good points to each place, so for now, we will just go back and forth as we please. Luckily we homeschool, so we can choose where we want to be and when... to some degree. Notice how positive I am sounding? Despite the fact that our drywall finishers didn't feel the need to arrive today?! They showed yesterday after waiting on them for 2 weeks and them consistently saying "we'll be there in 2 days". Yesterday they used their machines to lay the tape and mud the nails/screws over on the entire first floor. Very exciting. Now today, they are AWOL again. I'm beginning to wonder how it would look if we just went ahead and painted. LOL! So... wish us luck. Now I know what fellow posters go thru. We're beginning to experience some empty promises. A bit irritating, but life goes on. :O)

Thanks everyone for your kind words of encouragement! I will try and post some more photos, including one of the side bookcase and shelf as soon as I get new camera batteries. Hi Aliris19-you were right, the grill is a plinth fan heater! We kept it as I sort of like the industrial vibe it gives off. It was originally dark brown but instead of replacing it we sprayed it's grill with chrome heat-resistant radiator spray to save money as it worked perfectly. That radiator spraypaint (which is about $10 a can) has done loads in our kitchen! Our ceiling spotlights (can lighting in the States?) were all brass coloured so we just resprayed them chrome whilst still in situ (we placed a card template around them) as we couldn't afford the expense of changing them. You would never know to look at them! Thanks Boxer-I'm glad you like the bowls on the shelf-they are my favourite too. They're by Emma Bridgewater-I'm not sure if she is known in the States or not? Have a great weekend all!

Sounds like it's going to be gorgeous! I'll be staying tuned to get a peek at that granite!

I have no experience whatsoever with detached retinas, so I will happily get the thread back on track with an update! I don't think I participated in the original honesty thread, so I was about to do that now, but I JUST cleaned up the kitchen before sitting down to browse GW. Our house usually a giant mess (although, admittedly, the kitchen is the cleanest part usually), so this seems a very dishonest honest picture: The empty space above the sink will eventually house some dramatic and colorful art, and we will at some point get a backsplash and glass in our cabinets (hard to see, but all the uppers on the far left wall next to the fridge are waiting for glass). HOWEVER, that is a currently fully-functional kitchen right there, and that is true as of two months ago for the first time in FIVE YEARS. (I laughed ruefully at the comment about who expects a remodel to take a year. Five years and counting here due to some major life and remodeling surprises making for some seriously non-linear progress!) Needless to say, achieving function in the kitchen was the big accomplishment this year. By next year, we hope to be truly done with all remodeling, which still includes: painting/staining all the doors finally finding door knobs I can live with staining and installing the baseboards and door trim everywhere figuring out a backsplash I can live with and installing it designing the glass inserts for the kitchen cabs and getting them made/installed installing floating shelf in the kitchen finishing some touch-ups and trim pieces in the kitchen figuring out a fireplace surround design I can live with and getting that installed finishing the bathroom vanity drawers installing vent covers everywhere figuring out why the fire alarms keep going off, fixing that, and reinstalling them figuring out why the outlet behind the TV is not working going through what remains of our storage/remodeling items, paring then down severely, and finding permanent homes for the rest of the items hanging curtains and pictures! And though I'm not sure non-kitchens are relevant, honesty is, so here is what happens if you pan slightly right from the first picture: And even farther right: :D We are finally painting all our closet doors, and as you can see, everything in the living room has been shoved aside to make room for our saw horse painting set up. Also as the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed, the cat is a fan of our giant pile of remodeling stuff: My husband's and my original plan was to finish remodeling and then have only normal furniture and no piles of remodeling stuff in our living room, but now I am not sure either of us is cold-hearted enough to take the cat's tower of stuff away from her.