I get by with a lil help from my Sister, Sister

Today I had my sister help me make some pretty important decisions. She has been out of town for the majority of my reno, hence today I had the privilege of spending time with her. I trust her more than I trust anyone in the entire world and her insight is extremely important to me. Therefore, with a lil help from my sister, i was able to make final choices.

Here are a few biggies:

Placement of the shower pot light

Making a pass through to the kitchen from the dining room

Insisting on it, for natural light to enter the kitchen

Bringing her side kick along to check out the new place ( and David feeding her a nice drink)

Approval on the grey accent wall

Making final decisions on tiles and fine finishing

A big thank you goes out to my sister for giving her hechsher (Hebrew: הכשר‎ "kosher approval") on my decisions and making suggestions of her own.

In the end, we decided to keep the wall ( i had my heart set on not opening up the wall) but decided to remove another part of the wall which will be revealed upon completion,

Great times with LeeC, CharLee and David.

Thanks again to the team at Stone Tile for making today's experience wonderful ( Jordan, Daniel and Sandy!)

Shower time

I have decided to go for a modern shower stall in my new bathroom. I do not take baths so therefore I am not putting a tub into my condo. I am going for a spa like bathroom concept. Due to the fact that the bathroom has been completely gutted out, we ( my contractor and I) have decided to make a few cool changes to how the shower will look and feel. All on a dime :)

Tiles- Stone Tile. http://www.stone-tile.com/
Stone Tile is a high end place and the show room is killer. The sales staff are friendly (if you go with a designer or a contractor, they get slight discounts).

I will be doing something like this:

I am inspired by the grey tones and the unique placement of the rain shower form the ceiling

Love the glass doors. I purchase mine from Vinpow ( see contact info is earlier post)

I hope to have a rain shower that will come directly from the cieling instead of the wall.

I also will be doing a shower stall shelf. I hate having to buy those shampoo caddy things. They are so ugly and I have always enjoyed the look and practicality of the tiled in shelf look:

The difficulty with this part of the renovation is that we need to build a new waterproof base for the shower stall. This requires alot of labour. I am in the process of trying to figure out what membranene this project will require. The drain is also placed at the front of the shower stall and not at the middle:

This is what we will have to do, but the drain will be at the front

In Israel, the old school kibbutz hotels do not have a stall. The system in Israel is that there is no lip to the shower edge, the water goes all over the bathroom and then is squeegeed into the drain. I like this idea, but will include a lip around my shower stall so that the doors fit properly. This is interesting because it seems that the tile is directly on the concrete floor with no membrane:

This pic doesnt do it justice, but you get the idea

I have also been inspired by the Israeli water conservation efforts and have decided to go for a double flush toilet as seen below. I shopped around for different toilets because I did not understand the price points. The range from 129- 600 dollars. I was lucky again because costco was clearing these puppies out and I got a serious deal! Check out the Wilson location to see if they have any left in stock.

This perfect flush system is what all new buildings are using. I like it because it reminds me of Israel and it saves the planet, one flush at a time :)