After Peter finished removing the grout and caulk that sealed our bathtub, we were stuck with the question of which one to use. We knew that you weren’t supposed to mix grout and caulk but which one do you use for a bathtub seal? After a lot of googling I learned that the correct answer is caulk. Here’s why: The foundation of a house will inevitably shift over time. Grout is such a hard substance that if you have used grout to connect seams (think bathtub to wall or one tile wall to another) it will crack when there is any shifting in your foundation. Since caulk had a bit more give, it can hold up better to any minor shifting. If you own a used house/condo/apartment and the previous owner used grout to fill these parts, you need to beware that if/when the grout cracks mold, mildew, and other types of ick are likely to accumulate in those wet crevices. Make sense?
Even after we knew that we would need to caulk things we still had some decisions to make. Many caulks swear that they will not mildew. After researching this on google and talking to my dad (have I mentioned that he’s the handiest person I know?) I learned that a lot of the brands that promise not to mildew still do it anyway. Apparently a lot of handy people do not consider it to be a permanent solution. You’re supposed to go into it knowing that it will eventually get gross again and at that time you’ll have to rip it out and start over.
My dad swears by using tape to get sooth edges. So this was the technique that we used. Start with a clean, dry surface. Use tape to expose only the surface that you want to be covered in caulk.
We used relatively inexpensive caulk that came out of a tube rather than buying a caulk gun. This may seem like common knowledge but if you choose to use a tube, start by cutting a smaller hole and then make it larger as need be. Squeeze a steady stream of caulk into the hole and then use a wet finger to smooth out the top. Make sure not to put an excessive amount, otherwise when you remove the tape you will have a raised caulk line.
Remove the tape while the caulk is still wet.
Let the caulk dry per the directions on the back on the container. Then you’re done. As tempting as they may seem, you really don’t need any of the special gadgets. It’s actually a lot easier than I thought and my dad’s trick of using tape left us with a really professional-looking line.
Here’s a before photo to remind you of the progress.
Have you ever caulked a bathroom? If so, feel free to add the tricks that worked for you.
Monday night I came home from work to a huge surprise from Peter for our engagiversary. Our actual engagiversary was last night but Peter and I often get so excited about holidays and exchanging gifts that we celebrate them a bit early. Monday after the surprise had happened, he told me that I just looked so tired and sad about the whole “springing forward” concept that he knew I needed to come home to something special. This is one of the many reasons why I love him. I don’t have any before photos because I didn’t know an after was coming but basically he took a plain cork board that I had and repainted it with some leftover paint from this and recovered it with some leftover fabric.
On top of this crafting project, he also bought me a home improvement book that I wanted from Home Depot (although he found it at Half Price Books), a pencil holder and some magazine holders from the container store (all of which I had recently discovered and then told him were on sale), and fresh tulips. But the best part is that this whole girl space didn’t exist Monday morning when I left for work. I had been sewing at the kitchen table and we kept talking about how we should find a home for the machine. When I walked upstairs on Monday it was so touching how he had taken the new and newly crafted gifts and combined them with other things we owned like the candle from Anthropologie that his mom got me for Christmas and the Ikea stand that we bought this weekend. He even brought a chair up to the desk and removed some of his more boyish art. You can see that in this post here.
Plus, you should’ve read the note that he wrote inside the home improvement book. *GUSH* It was just so perfect.
We’ve only ever pictured the office once and even then it was just a small portion of one wall, so let’s zoom out for a second and take a look. You’ll quickly notice that Peter has *a lot* of books.
I’ve tried to convince him to let me arrange them by color or even cover them in wall paper, but each time I send him into a panic attack.
(Do you love our nutcracker hiding on top of the book shelf?)
So that was his super sweet surprise, along with cooking me a fabulous dinner. He later confessed that reassembling the cork board was actually quite difficult. He said he knew he could force the whole thing apart and break it but gently easing it into submission was a whole different task all together.
I think I’ll try to reupholster the chair and we’ll probably add some more decorations to my wall space in the office to make it feel that much girlier. For a moment I wanted to add a chandelier to my side, but I realized that would be odd. What do you think I should add to my little corner?
A year ago Peter and I were in Paris. He had managed to get an approval to do some research for his dissertation in a very selective archive and I had recently graduated from college. The boss of my internship turned part-time job (later to become my current full-time job) allowed me to work a bit from Paris. Knowing that another opportunity to spend two months abroad would be hard to come by, I had diligently saved my money and planned very carefully to maximize our experience. Let me tell you, the planning was worth it. Every day when we walked out our front door this is what we saw.
Yup, we spent a couple months living under the Sacre Coeur. Peter would go off to study for a couple hours everyday and I would sleep in and then wander the streets or read in a cafe. It was quite heavenly. Then one particular day (March 16, 2009) Peter and I decided it would be really romantic to have a picnic under the Eiffel Tower. At sunset, after he finished his research for the day, he met me at a vintage shop and we walked over to the Eiffel Tower.
We took a million pictures along the way, most of which have the Eiffel Tower peaking out in the background.
The whole time I just remember us laughing, hugging, kissing, pausing for pictures, and laughing some more.
We arrived right as it was really getting dark. The lights on the tower were lit and it gave off such a magical glow from above.
We took our little tote filled with a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, and some Comte cheese to a nice grassy area. Peter was surprisingly particular about which grassy area we should pick. (I now know that he was worried that if it was too dark, I wouldn’t know what he was doing–doubtful, but it makes a lot more sense.) We selected a spot. Peter spread out the blanket and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Right when we kissed the tower started to twinkle. It does this about once an hour, but in the moment of him asking, us kissing, and then the tower sparkling, everything just felt so picturesque. It was terribly romantic. We hugged and kissed and felt really excited together. Then, we opened our tote and shared our simple dinner.
Afterward we didn’t rush to call our families. We just spent time together, walking, talking, and enjoying the magnitude of what had just happened. A lot of this happened over dessert. 
Yum!
The ring that Peter proposed with was a simple ring that I had liked in a shop. Awhile before this we had talked about how if we ever got engaged I would want to help pick out the ring. I feel like its such a symbol of the decision that we both made to spend the rest of our lives together, but the one he picked is so meaningful to us as well. I love that he listened to me as I made some off-hand reference that I liked this ring and went out and bought it for me while I was away.
When we got home we had this one made. I could probably write a book on the things that I learned while shopping for diamonds. I will definitely dedicate an entire post to it at some point in the future. It’s a very terrifying process and the more you know about it, the better off you are. Today is not that day. Today is the date the marks exactly one year from when my fiance and I committed to spending the rest of our lives together.
(Sadly, the Hello Kitty car is not ours.)
Happy Tuesday. I’ll be back tomorrow with the fabulous surprise that Peter had for me for our engagiversary. Get excited because it is home related.
Before I got started planning out the bathroom closet, Peter had a much less pleasant job to face. While I was at work he created various pastes of bleach that we left sitting on the tiles for long periods of time. Is this the safest thing for you to do? Probably not, but we were desperate and as I mentioned before we didn’t have much money to throw at our bathroom makeover. He managed to gently chip away some of the freestanding grout that was dried to some of the individual tiles. Unfortunately, for fear of chipping the tiles themselves, he did leave some of the more stubborn grout. After just the bleach the bathroom was looking a million times better.
As you can tell from the photo above, the caulk and grout was way too disgusting to leave in tact. Even after bleaching it repeatedly, it still looked like a gross gray color.
Peter went in and removed the strange caulk/grout combination that lined each of the walls and connected the walls to the shower. After vacuuming up the debris, we were ready for a fresh new start.
The best thing about painting is that when you rip off huge sections of paint because you decide you hate taping and think that maybe your tape will stay put through two separate coats of paint, you can always re-paint.
After spending what seemed like hours with some tweezers trying to pull off bits of tape that were left behind, I’m beginning to think that I should become one of those people who has a really steady hand and doesn’t need to tape things off. Thoughts? For those of you who missed it, check out this great post about painting by Making It Lovely.
Happy weekend!
