since i don't believe in jinx, i will say that we've found someone to do the bathroom, and that i am confident that we will have a new, working, lovely bathroom in time for our move-in.

on saturday we met our builders, aka, some guys who are friends with the guy who did our floors (henry). they come over to take a look at the bathroom, we all discuss what we want, they give us a price for labor ($1300, including removing the existing tile floor, re-doing the walls and floor (for the walls, this includes insulation), re-tiling the walls and floor, re-doing the drop ceiling in the back of the bathroom, installing new lights and water fixtures, and priming the walls for paint. we'd buy the materials. they said they could start monday, and the project would take about 3 days.

we met them this morning at the house, and hopped into their van to go to the HouseDepot. in the van on the way over, we finally found out the name of their business, MTT, which comes from the first letters of their names, ming, tang, and tai. i believe they are vietnamese. only ming (or is it tang?) speaks a little english, and even then not much. for the saturday morning discussion, tai brought his son, who speaks nearly fluent english, to interpret.

at the HouseDepot, ming, tang, and tai were whirlwinds. i don't think they read english, so we often went part way up an aisle to see what was in it because they can't read the signs on the ceiling. but even still, they were pretty amazing, speeding down the aisles grabbing mortar, cement board, tile adhesive, trowels and sponges, etc. our input was only needed for choosing grout color (grey, to go with the faux-slate tiles we've chosen) and lighting (4" recessed lighting). oh, and what size spacers we wanted for between the tiles.

this trip was in stark contrast to our own trips to all the HouseDepots within 20 miles over the weekend. we figured we'd get a jump and pick out the tiles, and it was a good thing we did since it took us so damn long.

i had been thinking i wanted slate tiles on the walls and floor, but they are porous and it was recommended to us that we not install porous tiles in a bathroom. fair enough. so we found some ceramic tiles, 12"x12", that are made to look like slate. those are great, but only come in the big size, and we ideally wanted something smaller (6x6? 4x4) for the walls, and for the baseboard. but then they didn't have any smaller tiles in the faux slate. urg. but then we realized we could just cut the 12x12s in half, and voila! there are 6x12s for the baseboard. of course, this took us 3 hours and 2 different hardware stores to figure out.

moving along to faucets. we were introduced to the 8" widespread vs. the 4" deck types of faucet, then to the huge choice available. hokey dokey. we quickly decided on brushed nickel finish, but had a long time finding one that was simple enough for karl and lacked the silly bulbous bits at the bottom for me. we did manage to quickly find a black granite countertop with white undermount sink that we loved, but are having loads of trouble finding a table to go under it. i fell in love with this one, but can't stomach spending over $1000 for a bath vanity. a BATH VANITY, people. we'll probably just end up with a regular cabinet-style vanity, hopefully in that dark-stained wood, though.

so now, with everything but the vanity bought, ming, tang, and tai are hard at work.

uh-oh. just got a message that they've called karl to say that there's some floor damage. don't know what that means. fingers crossed!