I like to be fabulous in the milieu of the kitchen, but obvioulsy that is just one room in a whole house where all kinds of good stuff goes on. So I wanted to digress briefly from the world of food to expand your view into some of my other activities. Ergo, I am going to share a recent renovation that we did in one of our bathrooms.

Actually, it turns out a lot of the skills you learn being a pastry chef apply perfectly to things like tiling and laying mortar. Just think of the mortar as the icing, and the grout as  custard, and it's basically a big ol' tile trifle. Renovations use so many of the same principles and skills- learning to get the right consistency of a mixture by feel, adding more or less liquid- making everything flat and even and spaced correctly and perfectly shaped- applying an artistic eye for color and decoration- and more- so it's not as much of a leap as you might think.

Aside from the plumbing, which we paid someone to do, we did all of the work ourselves, so it came out pretty great for what is, in the renovations world, dirt cheap. I will now share a very brief evolutionary path of the process through the magic of photography.



Unfortunately I did not adequately document how hideous the bathroom was before, and also I had to majorly crop this photo because I am in it chipping away tile and looking really janky in my de-tiling garb, but you can notice some of the detractors: the white tile with gray grout, the ugly purply gray paint color, and the corner of a moldy, wood and formica sink cabinet that came so far into the room it seemed like a room made specifically for members of the Lollipop Guild.




Now we're getting somewhere. At this stage, I have chipped out a section of tile and replaced it with this stripe of Italian glass mosaic tile, and also removed all of the grout and made it white. But just when it was starting to look better, the sink cabinet and the floor tile got ripped out.




The finished room. Mosaic floor tiles are in, with a new, small, much-more-in-keeping-with-the-style-of-the-house pedestal sink. Mirror has been edged with cool Victorian-era metal stuff. Walls are no longer a hideous color, they are painted the curiously named "designer grey." Everything is sealed and caulked and water-tight and stain-proof and clean and shiny and happy. All is harmonious in the world.



But only for one day. The day after that bathroom was finished, we had someone do this to our other bathroom. Guess we are gluttons for punishment! I have been documenting this one's evolution much more appropriately, so when it doesn't look like a war zone I will share the results on the blog.