bathroom time
i've turned my attention to the bathroom while i track down the remaining insulation for the studio and wait for the hvac stuff. initially i thought i could start drywalling it this weekend, but ran into a few snags...
i need to cut a 4" hole through the outside brick in order to vent the bathroom fan. initially i assumed i'd be able to get something for my hammer drill at home depot in the $30-50 range to help with this, but i soon discovered that home depot carries no core drills, and even if they did, a 4" one would run me close to $200. so i'm in the process of trying to track down a source for borrowing or renting such a beast.
hit another snag with the window. the plan all along has been to rip out the exisitng window and replace it with glass block. however, i keep completely forgetting about this part of the plan and the fact that i really need to put the glass block in before i start drywalling. the window's a little bit of an odd shape and will basically require me to use 6" x 6" block in order to fit the dimensions. however, all the major hardware stores in town only carry 8" x 8" blocks, so i'll have to obtain these pieces elsewhere.
i'm also second-guessing my drywall decisions for the bathroom. initially i was going to put up greenboard in the bathroom (greenboard is drywall which has been treated to better deal with moisture conditions in bathrooms), but then i read some stuff that seemed to indicate this wasn't really necessary. so i just got more regular 5/8" drywall instead. however, i was reading some more stuff tonight that leads me to believe i was right initially. better safe than sorry and all that stuff. so i'm gonna get me some greenboard this week and put that up instead. since i'll have to have it delivered, this will give me an excuse to have a couple of other big house items delivered. like a screen door! woohoo! we've been screen door deprived since about may.
in more positive bathroom news, we've been spending more time wandering home depot and lowes and looking at fixtures for the bathroom. i've also been trying to nail down the room colors. i think i've settled on using a kind of subdued violet for the base color and white (or perhaps something sandish but not too yellow) for the ceiling. we found a kick-ass medicine cabinet with a stainless steel frame which would go absolutely perfectly with this scheme. however, i'm having a bitch of a time finding a sink that would work with the cabinet, so i may have to let that one go. besides, i found a pedestal sink that we both like, and it's probably more productive to settle on a sink and then try and find a medicine cabinet that goes with it, rather than the other way around.
the quest for ceiling lights for the main studio room continues. i absolutely loathe 98% of lighting products on the market, so it's taking me a bit longer than i'd like to settle on something i'm happy with. the tricky thing continues to be the multi-faceted set of requirements: something that won't look too awkward when mounted onto a surface-mount junction box, has a contemporary design, doesn't hang down too far from the ceiling, and works with incandescents. i've found several lights that fit 2 or even 3 of those criteria, but nothing that fits all of them. if it's anything like some of the past lighting purchases i've been really happy with, i'll probably stumble across the right thing totally by accident.