recycled plastic bag wreath

Nothing fancy here.  We shop for groceries at a store that uses plain brown plastic bags.  Sometimes I'm lazy and ask for those instead of paper.  (They're easier to carry the 100 feet or so from the car to the house.)  I've been donating them to thrift shops instead of throwing them away. (See?  I can be responsible every now and then!)  BUT...

Isn't this a much better use for them?!

This would work for Fall - add leaves, twigs, whatever floats your boat.

Or Winter - add twigs and pine cones with a little white paint to look like snow.  Maybe some red berries...

I'm on a roll!  Since there is that craft fair to do in a month, perhaps I'll save a few more bags and make another one.  They're easy, if  time-consuming.  Make one while you're watching The Sound of Music.  (or Downtown Abbey, or whatever...)


Here are a few instructions:



First find a metal coat hanger - the flimsier the better.  Then make it round.  A pair of flat-nosed pliers work well for getting the ends straight.  (Please excuse the fuzzy picture.  It's kinda hard to take a picture with one hand, and work with the other...)

 

 (New instructions:)  To allow the wreath to sit flat against the door or wall, place the circle against the side of a table at the beginning of the hook neck.  Bend it so the neck and circle are at right angles.  Then do the same just above the twisted part, making the hook parallel with the circle. 

Next, flatten out the bag and cut off the seam at the bottom and the handles.  Cut off the writing.  Save the handles that don't have writing on them.   (I don't know why some of these pictures are sideways.  Just cock your head to the left, or use your imagination...)

 

Fold in half  lengthwise and cut along the fold on both pieces. 

 Fold in half lengthwise again (this will be a different 'lengthwise' now.) 

I guess I could have said fold in quarters and cut all the folds.  That would work, too.  Just so you have pieces about this size.

(I made a second, smaller size by folding the long narrow pieces into 3 sections in this step.  Gives the wreath a bit of dimension.)

 Scrunch 2 pieces in the middle thusly.

Tie on the hanger and fluff out the ends.  (In the picture, only one end is fluffed.)  Tie all the pieces from the same direction to keep things neat.
If you chose to make different sized pieces, alternate them along with the handle pieces: long, short, long, handle, long, etc, etc, etc.

Your job is now to decide on decorations.  Have fun!  If you make one, please post a picture to share!

This is one made from fold-top sandwich baggies.  Cut the sides of the fold, so that both top pieces are flush, and not folded over.

UPDATE:  As I was surfing pictures of plastic bag wreaths, I came across this at Crafts n Coffee

Go ahead... make my day!  Tell me where you found the link for this post.  And are there any changes I should make to the directions to make it more clear?  Because I know what I'm doing, but you may not...  

500 hits!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Whomever you are that just this very hour made the 500th hit on my blog!!  It's 9:32 am EST.

I checked the numbers earlier.  499...  One more Lord?  It would be so cool to have it go over 500...

After reading about Kari's flat tire on A Grace Full Life it seemed appropriate to write about the angel and the gas can.

Then in an effort to check something on the blog, I noticed the magic number!

So, whoever you are, THANK YOU!  I wish you would leave me a comment so I know who you are!

UPDATE:

On Oct 13, Beckie from RoadKillRescue featured my brown plastic bag wreath, and the numbers doubled in 2 days!  As of 9:27 EST today, this blog site is over 2000 hits!  Thanks Beckie!

Update 2:

Dec 18, 5 p.m.  3333 hits!  fun.  I love numbers!

May 2, 2014, 5000 hits!  But what's more amazing is that for some reason I checked my +1 account and there are 49,299 hits!  Truly amazing!  May God use my scattered and feeble efforts to show someone the way Home. . .

Angels and Gas Cans

After reading Kari's post on A Grace Full Life about a tire blowout and a 'courtesy officer' I had to post a 'Watchin' God' story of my own.  After all, that's what this blog is supposed to be about, right??

 Sorry, no pictures.

Jamie (my really nice son whom a friend said thinks I'm pretty cool - back 10 years ago, and after having grown up with me as his mother [see book on right], so that's pretty amazing!) and I were driving from somewhere south to Hardeeville SC on I-95.  No idea where we were that would have both of us in the car, and heading south.

Oh wait!  I have a picture of the house we lived in then.  That's another story.

To the chagrin of my husband, I had (okay, still have) a tendency to cut the gas pretty close because I knew exactly how many miles my Honda would travel on the interstate.  When it's all on the interstate.  Which, evidently it wasn't.

We were just north of home, by maybe 2 exits and a few miles, when suddenly the car started to sputter.  Not a good sign.

It ran out of gas just feet away from the entrance to an exit - at the bottom of which was a gas station.  Jamie was busy playing a vidiot game (did I mention I hate vidiot games?  When someone else is playing them??  But if he hadn't been, there wouldn't be a 'rest of the story'.)

With wallet in hand (come to think of it, Jamie couldn't have used my debit card to purchase the gas can, more than likely...  Okay, you're off the hook here, Jamie) I headed down to the gas station.

Inside the store, I was looking for a gas can.  A skinny, scraggly-looking old guy asked if I had run out of gas, and how far away.  I explained.  He bought the gas can AND the gas.  Even filled the can for me!  Then offered me a ride back to the car.  I was a bit skeptical, but figured maybe God was being nice to me, and certainly He could protect me.  There were enough people and a video to identify the man if anything happened.  (Besides, I'm by nature a trusting soul.)

There was a road that ran parallel to the Interstate, and we drove in his ragged red pickup to a location opposite the car.  (maybe that was God's way of reclaiming the honor of red pickups.  Another few stories there...) The nice gentleman handed me over the fence, asked me to hold the gas can so he could get over also.

When we got up the hill to the car, he put the gas in the tank for me.  The southern gentleman all the way.  I'm not sure where Jamie was - inside the car still playing games, or outside watching.  I was hoping he was paying attention to such gentlemanly behavior.  (Yup.  He's grown up into a nice gentleman himself.)

Then, when I turned around to thank the southern gentleman - he was gone!  The truck was gone.  There is no possible way for him to have gotten down the hill and over the fence and driven away in that time!  No possible way at all.

Thanks Lord!  I love it when you send angels to take care of your kids!  It's soo much fun Watchin' God!!

Super easy no-knit scarf

Are you a bit confused by knitting needles?  Or even not so familiar with crochet hooks?  This scarf evolved from this project, but I didn't like it much. 

First things first.  Find something that will work to wrap the yarn into a hank.  This is a folding card table and will make a long scarf that will make two loops around the neck, as shown above.  The back of a chair would work well for a single length scarf.

     Instead of tying the hank with strips of leather, or as in another blog I cannot find, simply tying one end together with several wraps of yarn, I crocheted a coordinating yarn (or in this case 1/8" silver ribbon) along the length of it while still on the table legs. The ribbon was scrap, so the two pieces weren't terribly long, maybe a yard or so each.  I slip-stitched the strings together in two places on the scarf, maybe 1/4 crochet, 1/4 open, 1/4 crochet, with the last quarter open.  In the open places, I did use one short piece of the silver ribbon to tie in the middle of the entire bunch.  Make sure at some point that the beginning and ends of the hank are tied.   
     The crochet keeps the strands together so it doesn't make a tangled mess like the inspiration piece.  I left large spaces un-crocheted so the yarn would spread out and give more coverage when in place.  Keeps your neck warmer that way.
     This is the finished result.

There is no way to describe how the crocheting was done so it will require a video, which hopefully will be added before the night is over if I can get my husband to take one - also hopefully with a better camera than my phone! 

Alternately, for those who do not wield any kind of needle, you could simply tie the hank together in many places in 1/4 sections as above, not completely around the whole hank, but on one side in little sections at a time, thusly:

 Hope that makes sense.  It will be easier to visualize when the video is put in here.  I hope!

For having all the pieces, and being free and able to innovate, I must say it's so much fun Watchin' God!

Have YOU made anything like this?  Would you try this project?

Rambling for the day

Have you had one of those days lately?  You know, where there isn't anything wrong, but things are just -blah?  Yeah, I've been having them a lot lately.  Today is no exception.  It might help if I got up from this computer. lol

Sunday was a productive day.  PR and I went to church, expecting to be numbers two and three of the congregation.  Four, five, six and seven arrived to convince the visiting preacher that we really don't mind listening to him preach when our pastor is out of town.  Then we went to went to Lowes and acquired some stuff we needed to work on the trailer.  And worked on the trailer.  (That's a never-ending task.)  The evening was topped off by PR working on his cross-stitching and me making a baggie wreat - well, the baggie part; the decoration remains to be done.  This is last year's project.  (Naturally Me Creations has the tutorial that I used as a springboard for the one I made last year, and am working on as we speak.)

All that crafting was to the accompaniment of The Sound of Music.  Believe it or not, this is the first time I've watched it!  Pretty good movie, if ya ask me.

Monday - well this is what I looked like for a few minutes.

Under the trailer there was a patched hole in the underbelly cover.  It needed some spray foam to seal out the wind.  And my head/eyes needed protection.  Those large plain food storage bags just fit over my head.  Of course, one must be careful about getting it over the nose.

This is what I looked like last winter while fixing that hole.  Monday was a bit less dramatic.  No orange hat or Carharts.

After that I called a back friend who was returning my call...  I had to ask her something.  Well, after asking her how she has been.  Have you ever dropped something on your big toe?  And then everything in the universe seems to be strangely attracted to that exact spot on your toe?  Seems like my friend was having that kind of a day.  After a weekend of migraines.  So, I couldn't complain too much about the foam that got smeared around on my wrists.  At least the foam doesn't hurt.  Peeling it off for days is much less painful than a big toe that hurts every time you bend your foot to walk.

The reason I called was to get her opinion on an alternative medicine practice.  Her opinion was the same as my original reaction.  The reason I wanted her opinion is that it's really easy to justify something, and even say God confirmed it, if it's something you might want to do.  But her instant 'Oh, be careful about that!' was enough to convince me my initial reaction - the same as hers - was right.  Sometimes it's a good thing to get a second opinion, ya know?  And do ask someone you know will tell you like it is, not simply agree with you.  I'm glad God puts those people in my life. 

And today, it's 4 pm, I'm still sitting in front of the computer, havent' taken my happy pills, nor eaten anything.  Oh yeah... eating.  That reminds me... what shall I fix for supper tonight?  I saw a recipe for crockpot stroganoff - but no time for that.  Maybe I'll just thaw out the tube of organic ground beef, make up some stroganoff from that and the remaining sour cream, and put it over speghetti squash (the heat from the oven will feel very nice, I must say.)

For finding a place to live (that's a story I should tell on here), a place to get away from it all (that's a story, as well and actually, that's a better description of the place we live), for craft projects and good movies, and for friends who tell me what I need to hear, it's so much fun Watchin' God!

Have a won'erful October day!

Crocheted Pumpkins

A friend invited me to her church's craft fair, so I've been looking for stuff to make to use up supplies in my outrageously cluttered craft room/office.  Enter my subscription to AllFreeHolidayCrafts dot com.  And the most adoreable little crochet pumpkin!  http://livingthecraftlife.blogspot.com/2010/10/fall-pumpkin-or-halloween-jack-o.html

My version  

 

This is the inspiration piece. 

 Somewhere I have a whole huge cone of cotton yarn that nice color of peach.  But not where I could find it...  However, there was a skein of verigated boulce yarn just doing nothing.  And a recent addition of a skein of brown cotton yarn.  I wonder, says I to myself, what a pumpkin made with the boulce` would look like??  In my stash of stuff in the closet is a bunch of stuffing removed from a chair cushion, so that was taken care of.  I love my stash...

I can't count stitches to save my neck, so it's a good thing my little pumpkin doesn't show definition of stitches!  It didn't turn out so badly, huh?

Makes a nice pincushion for yarn needles and crochet hooks, too.

Perhaps next I'll make a rust orange pumpkin from cotton.  There is that craft fair coming up, you know?   My school teacher friend in the Philippines needs a lot of upgrading done to the building to keep the government happy.  Proceeds from the craft fair will go to her.  http://www.igmgo.org/nelly-hiquiana-philippines-good-news/

I needed several fast projects (considering the very short attention span of yours truly), the supplies were all here, and Nelly will get bookshelves!  It's so much fun watchin' God!

Trailer Kitchen

Trailer Kitchen Before and After

When I first saw the kitchen I loved it.  It was closed off from the living area (so no one has to look at my messy kitchen but me.)   U-shaped kitchens that are out of the traffic pattern are so easy to work in.  The only problem is the refrigerator is across the 'hall'.  (Hey, that's better than one house I had with a galley kitchen with doors at both ends and walls all the way around.  The refrigerator really was out in the hall!)  The cabinets have space over them, though not much since it's only a trailer, after all.  But every bit of storage/decorating space is a good thing.  And was on my 'list'.  The realtor was surprised I liked the kitchen, because that's the part everyone else didn't like.  Goes to show I'm not the average bear.  ;-)

Between the stove and sink, on that little 'L' is more drawer space than I have now.  The major problem is that the base cabinets had no shelves.  The heat vent runs under them, so that's a good reason, right??   We used a 1"x12" shelf we took off the wall and built a second shelf in the base cabinets on the left.  Made a lot of difference!

There is a nice shelf on the left on the counter, but it's really out of place.

The yellow was a bit brighter than my usual yellow.  The one everytime I paint a kitchen with --- I move!  So I wasn't going to use that color this time!  However, if you look close at the walls you will notice that the masonite has a huge chip in it.  So at least that would have to be dealt with.  Speaking of masonite... it has had a gold crackle finish.  Remember those of a few years ago. Speaking of old decor in this 1966 top-of-the-line trailer - the hardware is copper, my current favorite metal.

I tried just adding a light over the sink.  (To be quite honest, Paul did that.)  The curtain helped a little, but as you can see, it looks too long.

Hmmmm...  Not working for me.  (notice the cow picture over the toaster oven?  That used to be an electric fan vent.)  Took off the doors and painted the cabinets a willow green.  Don't recall the actual name of the color.  Sorry.  For the doors, I debated painting them the same color or a few shades lighter.  See door on counter.  Still debating what to do with the walls.

Maybe a two-tone gold stripe ala Friendly's Ice Cream Shoppe?  I had some of that from another project.  (I'll post pics of that project later, and link here.)

I decided to think about it a bit, and painted the doors.  Well, the upper doors.  By the time I finished with those, I was pooped!  So now I have to debate what to do with the bottom, as well as what to do with the walls. 

Just work and inspiration will come.  Or God will remind you of something cool you saw at the local thrift shop and the stuff you have stashed in your house.  I opted for stashed brown corduroy wall paper on the walls.  I like it!  And the curtains - they were once a sofa cover that I couldn't convince myself to buy.  When I thought about them as curtains, there waas the hope they would still be available.  As you can see, they were!  Thanks Lord!  In this picture the curtains are just stapled to the frame, but now they're on cafe rods.  The thing about curtains is that I can change them with the seasons or my mood.  Always a good decorating scheme!

The canister set I picked up at a yard sale a year or two ago.  (I tend toward collecting canister sets, even though they're usually not holding food staples.)  The lamp in the corner was on sale at Lowe's (did I say I love Lowe's??) after Christmas for $3.  The sign was painted by a friend of mine as a test of her lettering skills.  She gave it to me for a housewarming present.  Nice friend, huh?  Thanks Robin!

 

The masonite around the sink area above the window was in pretty good shape, so I left it alone.  The best thing about the window is the trim I've been waiting for an excuse to buy for years (like, since 1996!!) 

And here is the kitchen now.   The pine shelf is moved across to the other counter and sits over the toaster oven.

I like it.  Some day we may get another sink, but it's not a big deal.  Some day we may even get new base cabinets, but that will be quite a projects, due to the heat vent.  Not to worry.  It works.  

Finding the pieces to make it work was another Watchin' God project!  He's good like that!  Thanks Lord!

Trailer bathroom Renovation

Good afternoon fans!  Well, I hope there are some fans out there eventually.  As of this posting, no one even knows I'm here...  That will change soon.  

I'm going to start with the current Watchin' God story:  toilets and sinks

My husband and I bought an old 1966 Rollo Townhome trailer because we would be able to pay it off before he retires in 4 or 5 years. (And that's 'trailer', not 'mobile home': in 1966 they were 'trailers'.)  When I decided to see how much it would cost to replace the standard water heater with an on-demand water heater the fun began.

It was determined that the old tank wasn't grounded properly and also may have had water leaking from a pipe directly into the wiring.  Maybe.  But the guy wanted to sell me a new water heater, so who knows.  It's a given that it wasn't grounded.  So out it came.  Should have been an easy thing to replace it with a smaller, shorter version so I could use the space above the tank for more storage.

'Should have been'.  Do those words strike fear into your heart?

Before the new heater could be installed, the contractor insisted that we fix the wiring - which would require an electrician if my husband didn't want to do it himself.  I don't mind wiring outlets, but getting into the service panel - not up my alley.  But first things first.  Let's get the old heater out.

Before the old heater could be removed, the contractor insisted I remove part of the closet wall so there would be a reasonable amount of access.  .... give me a break!  How many water heaters do you suppose have been installed in that spot in the last 45 years??  Since the lowboy I wanted to put in would require that work anyway, I contemplated how to remove a section of the wall.  And discovered that the floor was very soft in front of the heater.

God seems to have a list of things I'll need, and he drops them in my lap at the right time.  Under the trailer, an unknown previous owner left a few pieces of plywood that would be just the right size to lay in front of the water heater so the gorilla who came to remove it wouldn't fall through the floor.  I took down a 2' section of wall beside the closet door.  That made a nice size opening to remove the water heater. 

When the gorilla came and went, this was what I saw:

Dollar signs floated in front of my eyes for days.  Especially when the contractors came to offer bids.  We decided to do the work ourselves.  Are you cringing yet???

I drew up a floor plan of how I wanted to utilize the space.  Didn't follow it exactly, but mostly.  I know a bit about building, but think I know more than I actually do, to be certain.  God was the technical advisor and extra hand more times than I can count.  Thanks Lord!

The closet on the top left didn't turn out that way because I couldn't remove the wall between the existing doors. 

Here is what the bathroom looked like in the beginning:

I did try to mitigate the ugly 6' countertop with some contact paper.  It was beautiful, but... the sink was rusted out, so we didn't even reuse it.  And what a waste of space - only one sink in the middle, and no storage underneath, as there was a long drain pipe that goes through the wall at the end of the counter, and a heat duct.    Where the yellow wicker shelf is on the bottom right is a 24"x30" space for a washer - not deep enough to do any good, and if a washer were there the door wouldn't open all the way.  That door to the left of the shower was access to the water heater and shut-off valves.

The plan was to move the sink to the area designated for the washer, and bump the original sink area 12" into the (already too small) bedroom and put the laundry area and a closet in that 6' space.

The first project would be to fix the floor.  That would require removing 3 other walls and the tub.

With all the drafts, I knew there was a hole in the floor somewhere!

This is how much floor had to be removed.  Under the tub, water heater and 2 feet into the closet. 

This is the wall the vanity was on, from the bedroom side.  Notice the wiring for the light fixture!  And the 'studs' are 1"x2" - laid flat!  So, the wall was 3/4" thick, plus (real) wood paneling that gave me more than one splinter as it was being removed gently, so as to be able to reuse it if necessary.  

Now for the repairs... When will it ever end???

First the floor

The wall separting the bedroom and bath.  It was almost perfectly plumb.  Almost.  That bothered me some at that point in the project, being a perfectionist who has come to realize that frequently 'almost' is good enough.

The extra 2x2 is because the wood paneling didn't fit the studs.  PPP.  Notice the long wall on the left butts up against the plumbing wall.  On the other side of the plumbing wall there is a 6" wall that encloses the water heater closet just a bit.  I totally messed up on the sequences of building the wall.  The plumbing wall should have butted up to the long wall, which should have gone the full length.  However, that turned out to be a blessing later, because the water heater was a bit too large to go through the space, and I had to remove that 6" wall!  God was watchin' out for me, even in my sloppy planning!

We paid a plumber to run new pex water lines, and do this plumbing.  Another thing I wasn't up for, and Paul wasn't feeling brave about the pex just yet.  (He finished the job with the water heater later, though.  I love my husband!)

Tub back in.  Would that it were as easy as that.  Suffice it to say we learned a few things with the help of Al and a few off hand comments by other people.

Tub surround.  An exercise in precise measurements - not something I'm noted for.

Sealed the window with foil tape.  Hope it lasts for a while.  The original method of covering the window was simply a framed screen.  I'm sure that contributed to the water damage, since the water from the shower would drain right down inside the walls - for 45 years!

Paneling and the shower tree (you know, the pipe behind the wall that has all the plumbing for the water.)  Picked up this shower kit for $40 on sale at Home Depot.  God just sends us the right stuff at the right time!  The original price was almost $200.

The closet in the bathroom to the left of the laundry area.  (Remember, there was 6 feet of counter and I only need 57" for the laundry area.)  Notice the toy tool my husband let me purchase when we got started on this project - after we did the floor patch with a drill.  Actually, that's why we got the compressor, because I was not going to be a happy camper doing this whole project with a drill and hammer. 

Paul spent a lot of time designing and rebuilding the heat vent that necessitated raising the floor for the laundry area.  And then I forgot to take a picture of it in my excitement to be able to put the platform up.  Suffice it to say it was good.

 

Platform walls painted (with $2 mistint paint from Lowe's) and 3 shower rods in place.  The one against the wall is for a shower curtain to cover the non-waterproof window.  The middle one is for hanging wet clothing (definitely have to screw that one into the wall.)  

After this I didn't take as many pictures.  The closet has 4 shelves and is divided: it didn't seem logical to have a 12" wide x 36" deep closet. It now opens from the bathroom and the hallway.

As I was trying to put that 6" wall back up after cutting the paneling so it could be removeable (against the eventuality of having to replace the water heater) one thing lead to another, and a 50 amp breaker fell off the service box and landed on a full can of spray foam...  You know what silly string looks like?  uh-huh...

On the plus side, Paul asked me what we could do with all that stuff, and several brilliant ideas came to mind, the best of which is to use it in concrete stone walkway molds to make a stone face for the shed we need.  You know, kinda like the heavy carving on buildings that is really plaster?  As with plaster, you have to paint the foam, but I've seen it sprayed all over trailers in Alaska, so it stands a decent chance of being suitable for what I have in mind. 

Okay, back to the reno...

On a trip around town looking for good junk, we saw an end table, minus one leg.  It had good bones, so I picked it up.  Another trip netted the brown dining table legs.  Put the two of them together, painted it with a chalk paint recipe I found at I Heart Nap Time  (here) and a $10 gallon mistint from Lowe's (I love that place, and they know us by name and project!) and used a colored poly (wiped off) on the top and 3 coats of clear on the top and  the legs.  Cut out the hole for the new sink.  Didn't take pictures.  Dropped the cutout on my foot.  Didn't say bad words (nor even think them, contrary to what some people will think.)

And here it is now.

Closet: double rod on one left; high single rod in center with a shelf above and space for a short shelf below.  Pegboard for accessories.  Only 6' of closet space, but at least it's accessible.  The closet depth is only 22", so you would only be able to see that's directly in front of the door.  I opted to trade visibility for overall space.  Keeps me from collecting too many clothes. 

I'll take a picture of the water heater area with storage later.

And here's the bathroom.

A new sticky-vinyl floor in the bargin.  The vanity is only dry-fitted right now, and there is a gouge that I put in the top by being stupid with a circular saw, but it's getting there.  We have a second half-bath, so this isn't a rush project now.  The hole in the wall to the right of the vanity is the back of another hall closet that's too deep.  We plan to make shelves facing the bathroom, thereby getting two storage spaces for the price of one.  The trim work has yet to be finished.  One thing at a time.  The bathroom is put back together and we have a shower and laundry!  What more can one ask??

Paul put in the water heater and we had two retired contractor/handymen come to do the electrical service work and the dryer vent, because the vent had to be cut through the outside wall. 

We'll go visit our favorite old-door junk man for a vintage door, as the one in place now is falling apart.  Besides, it will give some good character to the hallway.

The really good story is in the fixtures.  The original sink was rusted out, so we didn't reuse that.  The original 'melted ice cream' tub (so Behr calls the color) was in good shape and replacing it with a shower would have cost about $600 (plus shipping!) at Mobile Home Parts Store, since it's a special order.  The toilet that was in place was white, and the hexagon vanity seen above is Kohler beige of some specific shade.  In the process of redoing the floor I wanted to replace the toilet with one to match the color of the sink.  So I got on craigslist and found one immediately! Thanks Lord!

We picked up the sink, complete with faucet, at our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $25.  The new price of just the faucet is roughly $900!!  Haven't priced the sink.  The toilet cost us $50, don't know how much it is new, but a whole lot more than what we paid.  It's also Kohler, and the tank is insulated.  It flushes so quietly that I wouldn't hesitate to flush it in the middle of the night right beside the bedroom!  Never knew a toilet could flush quietly!

I'm not sure how much this whole project cost.  The plumber was $800, removing the water heater was $175, the two guys who did the last major bits charged $320.  Lowe's....  I'd be afraid to add it up!  But that included a lot of supplies and toys tools.  If you add up the price of the fixtures it would certainly be over $1500, closer to $2000 says the cashier at Lowe's, and then look at the $75 we paid, well...

This project definitely made me say 'It's so much fun watchin' God!'