Yep, Yaya (have you read the Yaya Sisterhood book?) you are right, and when he lashes out it really frustrates me. I understand his reasons for it, but it still is unsettling. The fact he is hard of hearing, has bad knees and cannot do much construction work anymore, also depresses him. I've tried to get as much into this remodel to keep him from even trying to do the work himself. His poor knees cannot take hours on ladders, or hours putting in flooring. He once did ALL the work for additions or improvements but these days no way. I think that is part of his problem too. Of course, he wants to do it the OLD way, which is not up to the stringent code now in place for hurricane zones. So our disagreements about the ways they do things NOW contrary to the OLD FASHIONED way, or the way they did things up in MA which has different requirements (no worry for carrying heavy snow loads here, at all), puts him out of his element. We are not cutting many corners at all, with quality of flooring or roofing or strength of lumber and such as that. Even though we are OLDER PEOPLE, and should not worry too much about definition of "lifetime warranty" that is something he expects. I suppose that is why he insisted the cabinets be custom and wood, instead of the IKEA much less expensive kitchens. I figured that even 10-15 years from now, or not long thereafter, this kitchen would seem OLD to a buyer (more than likely a buyer would consider this a starter home) and they'd want to do some "updating" of the kitchen anyway. I know we updated appliances in our river house that Katrina destroyed, and that kitchen had been redone 10 years before. Steph, I think you make many good points, I like light floors too, which is why we have the ash hardwood going in. And, the new lighting fixtures will be super easy to deal with. I'm not going to keep big closets filled with anything stuck back for a rainy day if I can help it. Or shopworn chairs either--although he has 4 windsor chairs, and he takes pride in those. Somehow I'll have to find a place for them....and NOT at the dining table or in the living room! Right now I'm thinking about the Shaker style of hanging chairs on the wall out of the way. They would do okay in my Teahouse, up about 10 feet on a traditional Shaker "chair rail." with pegs for securing them up high. Hmmm, sort of lends new meaning to the term "chair rail" doesn't it! When I painted and decorated his MA cape, I took great delight in the house. I thought I was making it a traditional and pretty place like other capes. However, everybody who saw it said, "Oh, it is so SOUTHERN." I guess they were right. I believe the structure a lot similar to the cajun style and raised creole cottages of the south and the bayou. Both are charming homes to live in. Anyway, I must add that today he is more amenable to the work in progress. We've had a few days of respite from the work. The old roof, which is so bad it was crumbling beneath the feet of the carpenters, is to be removed tomorrow and the stickyback underlayment is to be laid down. The chimney will be refurbished with copper cap and flashing, new vents and turbines. He was much concerned about the dilapidated state of those crumbling shingles. As soon as GAF delivers our ultra high definition architectural shingles, maybe Thursday or Friday, we shall present a new face to the street. Namely a color called SLATE which has some green in it, and dark enough not to stain easily. The imminent install of the new roof has brightened his outlook considerably. And now I'm going to go read the last 150 pages of COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. What a book!

I thought you might like to see the end result. While the bathroom is finished, I'm still working on styling it. This first picture is the entrance from the master bedroom. I have tried to take pictures from the same angles as the originals. This view above is from the vanity looking back to the bedroom door on the right and the closet door in the back. I may put a free standing make up table to the right of the closet door. I am in the process of hunting for a simple one that has a top that opens to a mirror and everything can be tucked inside the vanity except for a few pretty items. The switch to the right of the closet door has a timer for the exhaust fan and a switch for the heater in the ceiling. There is outlet further to the right which is also controlled on the same switch box. I did this so I can control a lighted make up mirror and/or lamp from a flip of the switch. Here is the new Toto toilet. The space is 48" wide. It is located to the right of the shower. My carpenter did a great job with the wainscoting and the crown molding. Yep, I need art or something over the toilet. We intentionally do not have a separate water closet. You can not see the toilet as you enter the bedroom. This illustrates the view from the closet looking back to the vanity. Master vanity/I used 12 x 24 porcelain tile in the shower that is the same on the floor. The niche has matching tile, but I used a large piece of tile to have no grout lines in the back of the niche and in the box parts of the niche. I was really lucky to find the grab bars that don't look institutional. I did not carry the crown molding into the shower. With ten-foot ceilings, I am afraid it would be too hard for me to keep clean. The shower is about 40" wide. The shower water is simple. I can have the shower head or the handheld shower spray on or both can run at the same time. This view shows the shower side from the entrance of the bath room. In the ceiling you can get a peek of an exhaust fan that also contains a heater. Since I live in the south, I selected a heater at the shower entrance to throw off any chill instead of heating the floors. The wall color is white with a touch of gray with the trim color is BM Simply White. My husband and I are enjoying our new bathroom. I just need to find the finishing touches to complete it. I appreciate receiving your input and your listening to my questions and concerns as I embark on this adventure. It helps to have others give opinions and thoughts because it is too hard to think of everything.

@Patricia Colwell Consulting, thank you, contractor has said the same-just wait and get used to it. I'm very light sensitive, always have been, so LED has been tough for me-but I don't want a yellow glow, so good to know on that! Maybe I'll try 2700 in living and 3000k in kitchen, out kitchen is very white, so I don't want it to feel too sterile. Right now we just have old canned bulbs in there and the light is fine, actually quite bright (some of them might be LED bulbs now that I think about it). Thanks!

We redid our master bath not long ago, and I struggled with one long/two shorter mirror options. I found this process helpful: Assuming your big mirror is still in place - use painter's tape on the mirror to mark two outlines the size of the individual mirrors you might want above each sink. Cover the middle section between the outlines with a roll of kraft paper or butcher paper (or even the back side of a gift wrap roll) to simulate a blank wall in between them. If you have a long "Hollywood" bar light across the top of the whole thing, unscrew the bulbs in the center to simulate having two smaller fixtures over the mirrors. ( To be even more realistic, mock up a tower in the center to see what impact that has. You could stack up narrow boxes, or buy a $15 sheet of Styro insulation and fabricate the approximate shape.) Evaluate what you see in the outlined areas that represent two smaller mirrors. You may still see the shower and toilet as very close. You may find that you don't like the loss of reflected light in the middle, or that the tower casts shadows. Or maybe you'll like what you see and it will reassure you that change will be good! In our case, we stayed with the long mirror. We preferred the additional light, and found it more appealing in our space to use three new lights over one mirror over two sinks, rather than the rigid symmetry of two sinks/two mirrors/two lights. Good luck!