The Cat's Meow

Just in case you were wondering who got to take the first bath ever in my beautiful brand-spanking new claw foot tub ...

[So that's where Tim Burton draws his inspiration from ...
Boots looking like the proverbial Halloween cat.

Look for the tail for any indication how fluffy she really is.]

This is Boots, resident feline here at the Ugly Duckling. The bath is part of her regular flea treatment. I don't know about your State but Florida is pretty heavy on fleas and you have to stay on top of it.

Boots came to us almost 8 years ago as a stray, and within no time she moved her soft-pawed self into our hearts and into our home. She's a sweet, gentle roly-poly kind of furball and prefers to sleep next to my pillow on cold nights, provided the sheet is smooth enough to meet her approval. She hates taking a bath, but she's good about it: no claws, no teeth and her escape attempts are half -hearted at best. Afterward, Boots remains upset at me for about half an hour and then she lets me know she's generously forgiven me. Over the past cuple of years she's become more vocal 'talking' to us with unusual almost bird-like chirping sounds and demands treats and attention with something that sounds suspiciously like "Now!".

I never wanted a cat and I HATE HATE HATE litterboxes, but this fluffball is -my- girl, and I don't mind sharing my lovely tub with her.

Splish-Splash, I'm taking a bath!

After my parents' visit in August, followed by my husband's family's visit in September, we were a little sluggish to return to our DIY "fixin' up da house" mode. Sure, we've painted some trim (That one's a no-brainer ...on so many levels), started decorating for fall including replanting and planting some plants and we crafted some window treatments, but overall, we've been laying rather low.
Really. There's only so much DIY you can cram into a day or weekend after work and family and regular household chores.

Anyways, the BIG project that is still underway is, of course, our Master Bath. We were fortunate that the groundwork was part of our 203k renovation so demolition, plumbing and electric and the creation of the wall turning the then kitchen into bathroom and dressing room for a sweet master suite were done by the professionals.

Star of our newly created bathroom is the clawfooted tub rocking a free-standing telephone style faucet we scored for a steal at Cabinetstogo.com in Orlando

[source: cabinetstogo.com]

Looooovely tub! And exactly the kind of clawfoot action an almost 100 year old house needs. Decades of rental life had robbed our little old house most of its vintage touches so it was up to us to add them back in.

[Every which way: Positioning the tub]

We mused over just how to position the tub and finally settled on the spot that positions it parallel to the window to the backyard. Since we're on the same level as the top of the holly tree right next to our house, it makes us feel like we're in a tree house. We also have fun plans for the wall you look at when sitting in the tub that have me rubbing my hands gleefully. More on that later.

Olin, our favorite plumber, advised us to tile the floor first before he'd come by to install the faucet and drain for our tub. This required drilling holes for the drainage and water supplies through layers of tile, mortar, cementboard, plywood subflooring and God only knows how many more layers of floor/ceiling. He did it without breaking a tile. Amazing, this guy! It did, however, take longer than even he did anticipate but after much grumbling and running up and down from bath room to the little cubby in the ceiling above the laundry room where the plumbing is hidden away, he finished it up and left us with the first functioning fixture in our master bath!


And gosh, it's a pretty tub and faucet! I can't wait to see this room finished for a first luxurious bubble bath and ice cream...

Every which way

Now that the bathroom floor is in place, I couldn't wait another minute to shovel all the hardware bits and bops into it to clear out the dressing room. So in went the vanity desk and the big box with the vessel sink and the accompanying faucet, the boxed up toilet and the star of the room: the clawfoot tub.

The plumbing for both, sink and toilet, is already in place but our plumber still needs to hook up our tub so we're still free to pick a location for it.

[Position 1: To the left side, parallel to the window]

Our master bathroom measures a whooping and rather luxurious 132 sqft (that's 12 square meters for the European readers here). It's beautifully spacious and bright which is great, especially since the room is in a later top floor addition that has rather low ceilings. Position 1 sees the tub to the left side of the room next to the window. It's the first thing you see when you open the door to the bathroom and when you're lolling in it you have a view of the tree tops through the window and the future location of a wall-mount fireplace. There's plenty of room between the tub and all the other fixtures that are on the other side of the room.

[Position 2: At an angle in the corner]

Joe, our contractor, suggested we might as well flaunt the amount of space by angling the tub in the corner. Sink and toilet would remain on their side, but the tub would claim the majority of the space and the attention on the left side of the room. It looks a bit more dynamic but it needs some sort of visual counterweight on the left to help anchor the tub, don't you think?

There might even be another position possible: Position 3 (no picture though because I just thought of it). Technically we could turn the tub at a 90 degree angle to the left wall so it's parallel to the entry way and faces the side with the sink and the toilet (although that's not necessarily -the- most beautiful view).

I don't know. What do you think?

Showing some claw

Clawfoot tub that is!

[source: cabinetstogo.com]

When we drove down to Orlando last weekend to tour IKEA and Cabinets-To-Go to help us come to a final decision for our kitchen, we managed to score a fantastic deal on a tub for our master bathroom. Not that we went there with the expressed purpose of buying a bathroom fixture but the deal was just too good to pass up.

Cabinets-to-go usually offers an acrylic clawfoot tub with vintage-style telephone faucet for under $1000 - a real steal, if you ask me! These babies usually don't come cheap at all. Last weekend (and from what I understand it's a promotion that's still going) they offered their tubs at - hold on tight - 50% off.

So for just a little over $500 and very reasonable shipping charges to have the tub delivered, we scored this beautiful beautiful clawfoot tub and faucet for our Master Bathroom.