Worth the Wait!

Our little herd of deer continue to hang out in our front yard.  Ian thinks that since the twins were born here and it’s been safe for them so far, that they’ve adopted our strip of natural vegetation.  We haven’t had rain in four months so we’re putting out buckets of water for them and they obliging us by drinking it up.

I haven’t made soap in quite a while and when we got down to our last two bars, I decided that as much as I don’t want to make my soap, I really do want to use it.

Our kitchen is half the size of our previous one and it was a challenge to weight out the oils and get everything assembled.  This will produce 24 bars.

This plastic plant carrier from the nursery is perfect for holding the 24 bars without tipping onto each other.  When I brought it downstairs I saw the note from my last batch.  I always put the date in it so I would know when the soap was cured, especially important when I was selling it.  It turns out that I made it November 29th last year and November 16th this year.

These are my essential oils which I thought hadn’t been packed in the move three years ago since I had never come across them.  I ordered a couple scents for the last two batches I made but they’re so expensive, it took the wind out of my soap-making sails.  We gave grandson Logan our camping supplies this summer and in going through the bins, Ian found all of these, carefully wrapped and snugged safely in with all the supplies.  Since we no longer camp, we didn’t look in these bins and they would have remained lost to me if we hadn’t passed everything along to Logan, who was thrilled by the way.

Matt and Julia were here today to connect the water to the sink and hang the towel bars which we just bought yesterday, bringing the bath to fully functional.  We have continued to use the upstairs bath in the meantime so it’s nice to be able to move back into the master.  It’s a small narrow space and Matt did a terrific job of making it beautiful.  We bought the white set of shelves at Redux, a consignment furniture place on Friday.  I wanted storage space for linens, something the house doesn’t have so I divided up our linens into the bedroom closets which are already small.  Downsizing has it’s foibles.  I have placed a basket below the towels because the door could hit the towel bar otherwise.  There are so many hard surfaces that the room has a bit of an echo.  Hanging the towels helped but I’m thinking about getting a silk flower arrangement for the top of the shelves to see if that would make any difference.

Here’s further demonstration of how narrow and long the room is.  The shower is where previously there was a bathtub which we never used, not even once.  Now we have to finish moving everything back in.  I’m going to shop for towels to replace these which are at least ten years old but I couldn’t see replacing them before now.

This is what we started with.

And this was the original shower, plus the toilet was low and the counter only 30” high.

Demolition started June 16th so it’s been a journey.  Matt built a 6” box and put it under the sink cabinet, elevating it to a wonderful 36”, the same as the kitchen counters.  I am no longer bowing to the sink god when I brush my teeth!  He could only work on weekends and only some of them, but the results are oh so worth the wait.  We are thrilled!  And Julia’s pregnancy is beginning to show!!!!!!!