2021 Fall Home

Page 26 2021 Fall Home Improvement LINCOLN DAILY NEWS Sept. 23, 2021 The hardest part of the project was designing it. I picked out all the materials, including the sink and tub fixtures. Contractor-grade fixtures are superior in quality to the box- store selections, so expect some expense for better materials. Again, you get what you pay for. Deciding what color fixtures, vanity, mirror and paint was almost overwhelming. Shades of white made the room look larger, brighter, and clean. It was a good choice for our project. The project was expected to take a few weeks. It took a month. The cost was over what I budgeted for, but I expected it and made sure we had enough saved up to cover it. It was so worth having somebody else do the work. I joked with the contractor that this was the first time in my life that I actually paid somebody to PAINT. He was great to work with, and it turned out exactly as I wanted. My parting advice: Bathrooms are tough. Hire a contractor to do a professional job, and you should only have to do it once. Work out your expectations ahead of time with your spouse. The smart ones say “Yes dear” and will be grateful when the project is finished. I lost a lot of sleep over that project, sometimes thinking the worst or questioning the choices I made. Popeye was pretty much hands-off. He had no vision, and once he figured out it was getting done and I had already done all the homework and saved for it, he just stopped arguing about how he was going to do it. The contractors made it clear it wasn’t quite so easy to fix what needed to be done. Glad it’s over!” In the cartoon ‘Popeye,’ Olive Oyl is his love interest. Getting into dilemmas she makes him her hero saying, “Oh, dear! Help! Popeye!” His humble response on settling things is, “I yams what I yams, and tha’s all I yams.” And everything always worked out for the couple in the end. Find your cartoon hero model, maybe it’s Wonder Woman, and enjoy the process of making something better. Remember as you plan and work, you are making a life together and you want your mate to enjoy the process and the success too. CONTINUED u