The shopping fun continues!! The spending part does not feel as fun, but progress feels good, so we’re going with it. Finally we just NEED to make some progress. And it happening!!!
So yesterday, we bought ourselves a vanity and toilet. We anticipated spending some time assembling the vanity, but of course, it came out in one piece, lol! It’ll need some little tweaks to help it be perfect, but it looks great. The toilet has to wait for flooring, so that’s on hold. In fact, in a lot of ways, even after dropping the money on those bigger items, we were at a standstill.
We found out this morning that our doors were in! There had been this whole other debacle based around finishing materials. See, we had this amazing materials contact who worked pretty tirelessly to get us what we wanted when we built our house, always giving us at least a contractors discount. Brady developed a real friendship with him, and he’s taken to our whole family by default. He was always SO good to us. There were times I’d have to go see him with a couple of kids, or with my mom, without Brady, and he was always SO polite and helpful. He never talked down to me, always had lots of info, and always had some kind of treat to offer the kids. But he left his job shortly after we moved here, which was a real bummer. We began doing our basement project without him, but came to a stop when the guy who replaced him couldn’t get us wouldn’t actually look for the doors we wanted. Brady texted our original contact/friend and, lo and behold, he had really disliked his previous job and had moved to Co-op! He happily and easily found us our doors, hardware, etc. Somehow, him being back on our side made this whole project feel doable again.
So today, we went in to see him and grab our doors! Our handles weren’t in yet, but he knew we were eager to get things moving. He wasn’t in his office when we arrived, but he fairly easily picked us out of the storefront. We chatted and caught up a bit before getting down to it. He helped us find a few things we were unsure about, and then got us set up with our custom doors, trim, jambs, etc. Everything we needed. It felt really good to have a familiar face behind the contractors counter again!
But that wasn’t our only stop. Not at all. Now that we had our doors and trim, we headed to Home Depot for more paint, as well as a few small parts that we couldn’t get at Co-op. We also grabbed some tile for the basement bathroom and laundry area, since the flooring guy we were in contact with wasn’t getting back to us in good time. ** Tip time! Buy your grout and mortar in bags. The boxes and pails are tidier but you will get WAY more for CHEAPER if you buy the bag. We literally got about 11L of mortar for a dollar less than 3L in a box. Tip time over. **
Lastly, we hit Fandango for lights. Because we went through them with our original build, they basically offered us a loyalty and gave us light fixtures for the same price we got them for years ago! So they were actually comparably priced to basic lights out of Home Depot, but with warranty. Also grabbed a bathroom track light. I really dislike track lighting, but it works, and it isn’t super ugly. I’m not picky about the lights, clearly.
The kids were SO good! They loved shopping and choosing and getting excited. When Brady got the lighting on his own, they happily ate the snacks I had packed rather than hitting McDonalds for lunch. They really impressed me with their patience. Wavy only really fussed towards the end of Home Depot. Crackers made it better later.
We brought home SO MUCH STUFF.
Brady had the forethought to remove half of our backseat, which was really important! We could’ve never got everything home without that!
Now, as you’d imagine, our basement is a total mess…
But we feel SO excited!!! We have things we can really do now! We have almost everything we need to finish at least a bedroom and the bathroom. We’re waiting on door handles. We have to get carpet for the bedroom. We need to close up the ceiling at some point. But its coming 🙂
So if you’re looking for us this week, we’ll be downstairs!