River House Diary

We ordered two ceiling lights for Bath 2 from Home Depot. They were from the Home Decorators Collection, a company that makes designer knock-off home goods. The quality of their products was always hit or miss but I assumed that would improve after Home Depot bought the company. I was wrong. Bath 2 ceiling lights; courtesy of Home Depot When the electricians unboxed the 13" 4-Light Semi-Flush Mount with Crystal Ball Shade  lights, they discovered about half of the crystal ball mounting hooks had fallen off the balls. As they were assembling the fixture, several more hooks fell off and some were missing. Crystal ball with broken mounting hooks; personal collection Of course, since we'd purchased the lights in April of last year, returning them was no longer possible -- one of the dangers of purchasing items one's self instead of through the contractor.

I'm not sure how a manufacturer ships a mirror without all the necessary hardware, but that's what Pottery Barn did when they shipped the smaller Vintage Pivot Mirror for the Bonus Bath. I ordered it in mid-December to correct the first bathroom mirror mistak e I made. Mirror issue; courtesy of Austin Bayliss Pottery Barn has a 30-day return policy so we own the larger mirror we can’t use. We’ve cannibalized it by taking the hardware and hoping it works on the smaller mirror. Hopefully it will work and I don’t have to by a third mirror!

Yesterday I had a plan to use the capiz shell mirrors we already owned in the Master Bath because they were more narrow than the too-wide mirrors that had to be hung off-center from the faucets in order to fit. When the mirrors were propped up in the shower, they looked like the colors matched the tile. On the wall ... not so much. I thought they looked too yellow in relationship with the bronze translucent tile in the glass tile mosaic backsplash. And the mirror on the left still looked jammed into the corner. So on to Plan C. Capiz shell mirrors in the Master Bath; personal collection

Apparently the answer depends on how many bathrooms there are in her house ... or my house. To date, I'm batting 750% -- three mistakes out of four bathrooms. And that's only because we haven't gotten to the last bathroom yet. My two previous mistakes were: Oops! The Mirror Is Too Big Bath 2 (Guest Bath) Screw Up My third mistake was in the Master Bath. Again, like Bath 2, the mirrors were too wide. 30"x40" Hamilton Hills mirrors in the master bath; personal collection If I would have taken this photograph from a straight-on position, one would note the left mirror isn't centered on the faucet because there wasn't room. It's about a half-inch off center. The mirrors that were too wide for Bath 2 are more narrow -- 28" wide by 40" high. Would they work in the Master Bath? Capiz shell mirror option; personal collection Yes, we decided they would work in our bathroom just fine. They will still be too wide in my opi...

You may remember I took advantage of the Cyber Monday sales to purchase an area rug for the Den and a mirror for the Foyer . The boxes arrived undamaged and we transferred them to our storage unit until our contractor needed to hang the mirror. And today was the day. They opened the box and discovered the mirror was broken. Broken mirror; courtesy Austin Bayliss I purchased the mirror from Wayfair . I read their return policy and learned it was 30 days but exceptions may be made in the case of damage or defective merchandise. I used the chat feature to send the above photo and within a few minutes, a replacement had been ordered with expedited shipping to arrive tomorrow. It’s hard to provide better customer service than that. Thank you Wayfair!

As a cost savings measure we chose to go with a stucco foundation instead of one faced with brick or stone. I very much wanted to use tabby concrete , but apparently it is a lost art as our builder couldn’t Locate any cement contractors that knew how to make and apply it. We chose the Driftwood color for the final finish coat of stucco and it was applied last week while the hardwood floors were being stained. Foundation stucco applied Saturday; personal collection

We've been locked out of the house this week as the floor guys sand and stain our hardwood floors. As a result I've spent too much time on the Internet shopping. A new discovery is the Seashell Company , which has a lot of coastal decorative items. My latest acquisition -- a "treasure" box. Seashell box; courtesy of the Seashell Co.