Like Daughter, Like Mother

Unlike most mothers who got breakfast in bed or a day at the spa, my mother came over to the house on Sunday and was promptly put to work installing flooring and shoveling manure.

Which are just a few of the reasons why my mom deserves a capital “A” for Awesome. For example:

1. She basically spent her entire summer break last year painting the exterior of our house. Well, the part we managed to get siding on, at least.
2. She thinks that donkeys are a perfectly acceptable substitute for grandchildren, and spoils them as if they were.
3. She brings us lunch during “working days” on the weekends so that we don’t starve or get low blood-sugar and start throwing hammers at each other.
4. She willingly shovels donkey manure on Mother’s Day. (Seriously, it was totally her idea and I could not talk her out of it.)
5. She still loves me even though it took me eight months to build one little 12″ cabinet for her master bathroom.

And that’s just in the last 12 months. Multiply that by thirty-ish years and you can see why I am a very grateful daughter.

Speaking of cabinets, however, we did finally finish the cabinet I built her just in time for installation on Sunday. Here’s the final product:

You can see more about how I built it here.

This small cabinet was necessary in the first place is because of the odd shape of her bathroom. There is space for a 60″ vanity, but it would basically have to be built in place because the Laws of Physics wouldn’t allow you to actually maneuver a cabinet that size into place. Believe me, I tried.

The next best thing to giving myself an aneurysm trying to make a solid cabinet move through a solid wall, was to order the next size down for the main vanity and then build this 12″ filler to fit in next to it.

We’re thinking it will be good for rolled up towels or a couple of storage baskets. It was incredibly difficult to match the stain to the original vanity and it turned out a smidge too dark, but we’re still pretty happy with it. I also toyed with the idea of cutting a small arched detail into the base of the cabinet to match to original vanity, but Mom wanted to keep it simple so we left it square.

Now I just need to get the MDF cut for the base of her counter and install some beautiful slate tile to finish it off. Which is the first thing on my list after moving out of this garage.

We made some progress on that front this weekend as well…

I know you think that’s me, but no, that’s my mom and the Makita securing the straps for the radiant floor heat. I think she’s starting to like that drill as much as I do.

Here’s the end result of our efforts:

Getting this heater down was the last step before tile. I chose to use the SunTouch WarmWire since it didn’t make my piggy bank cringe the way the pre-wired heating mats did. It was a little more manual of an installation process, but totally worth the couple hundred we saved DIYing. As soon as it’s wired in I’ll post an installation tutorial, but you’ll have to get your own mom to help you with the drilling, mine’s taken.

And lest you think we actually let her take a break and put her feet up on her special day, we also took advantage of the warm weather and cleared out more of the flower beds I was planning a couple of weeks ago.

Much better than where we started.

But don’t worry, it wasn’t all work. She got some donkey hugs as well.

Donkey’s love moms.

Here’s hoping the rest of you mothers out there got plenty of donkey kisses as well.

Thanks Mom, for everything!