Alpha Mail: A Bungalow Blog: Search for the Great American Faucet

We had to choose our bathroom hardware this week. The vanities, bathtub, showerheads, you name it: everything bathroom-fixtures is now decided. And best of all, when I asked Rory what we needed to be looking at next, he told me "tile." Wow--tile! That means an actual room-looking room is in the near future, as opposed to walls that you can walk through or that are made of mud. I can't even imagine...

Why are faucets such a big deal? Seriously, Abby and I aren't picky about them-- if you can imagine-- and thought it would be a cakewalk to choose. Simply go to Lowes.com or HomeDepot.com, click on shower hardware, narrow down by those that come in nickel... Wait. Do you know how many kinds of "nickel" there are? Brushed nickel, antique nickel, brushed antique nickel! And about twelve other variations. And no way, on several websites, to just say "NICKEL-- ALL OF 'EM!" Okay, so once we've got that, we want shower controls with one handle, and nothing that looks like it would be in an old-folks home, a dorm, or a bed and breakfast. Should be simple, no? No. We're still left with hundreds of choices. Death by overselection. Okay, how about nothing where the handle looks like a penis? (Seriously, that took about half the choices away.) And nothing too incredibly modern, and nothing that, if it should fall off the wall for some reason, is so big that it would give us a concussion. And, wait... we have to choose ones for downstairs too? Aw, screw it: let's just get this one. Click!

In the end, we actually chose two identical sets, one in nickel and the other in chrome. And the chrome one was because we had known all along which bathroom vanity we were buying, and the vanity we wanted came with a choice of faucets. I liked the one that was chrome-- not because it was chrome, but because it was rounded-- and Abby liked the one that was squared, which just happened to be nickel. And you can't have some chrome and some nickel in the same bathroom. In the meantime, we had to click over to open a new window to make sure shower enclosures came in both chrome and nickel, because what it we chose one and the enclosures were only available in the other? (My head is spinning a little now...)

ANYHOW, it's nice to know we're looking at little stuff like that now, and that tile is on the horizon. Our summer plans are approaching fast-- I only have 12 more days at work until I leave for the Olympics!-- and once my two summer trips are over, I was really hoping not necessarily to be moving in, but at least to be moving stuff into rooms that were completed or nearly so. It's only six miles, so we were thinking once it came down to moving stuff, we would just do so gradually to avoid having a huge rush all at the end-- and also to make it much easier to fix up our current house for its future as a rental. I know my timeline is not exactly going to work-- there's no way we're going to be in by September-- but I also know our absolute drop-dead must-be-done date is November 18, and there's not a huge gap between September and then.

I'm just hoping it's not as difficult to pick out the kitchen faucets...