More Dirt and Expanding the River of Rocks

 I started by trying to mulch under the new Mexican Plum.  But some sedum had worked itself into the bed around the Mexican Plum, so I took it out.  But I like the sedum -- it's a succulent, and requires little effort to grow.  So I wanted to transplant it.  But where?

The best spot seemed to me to be along the back wall of the house, outside of the back bedroom and bathroom.  The strip of land along the wall seems to get little water; I think it is shaded from the rain by the roof overhang.  And it gets a fair amount of afternoon sun.  A succulent should do fine there.

But the soil there has compressed, so before moving anything to grow there, I wanted to build the soil level back up to the rest of the area around it.  Which is mainly the River of Rocks, as it splits and goes around the Shin Oak.  So I brought in more dirt.  I found what seems to be good dirt at Home Depot, Texas Native Enriched Topsoil, 40 pound bag.  I started with 10 bags.

That got me about half way, so I bought 14 more bags the next day.  But that was not enough, so I got 15 more bags the next day. So 39 bags at $2.67 each (plus tax).

As I filled in with dirt, I noticed that I had some flat-ish rocks that could be used to widen the Rive of Rocks.  While the River of Rocks was fine when it was built, the Shin Oak has sent up suckers to try to propagate, and filled the space left for it and at least leaned over to occupy the space above the River of Rocks.  So it made sense to either scootch the River of Rocks over, to allow more space for the Shin Oak and it's offspring, or to add another row of rocks on the outside -- between the Shin Oak and the house. 

We moved some Monkey grass out of where we have dirt and put them along the outside of the new edge of the River of Rocks.

Fixtures for new Showers installed

 The fixtures for the new showers have been installed.

For the Master Bathroom, this involves a valve in the middle of the wall that turns the water on or off, and selects the temperature.  The water comes out of one of the two shower heads.  By default it would be the fixed head.  But there is another valve, under the fixed shower head that will divert the water flow to a hand held spray shower head.  The hand held shower sits in a holder that can move up or down a vertical bar.  So even if it is not used as a hand held spray, we can have two shower heads at different heights.

The Center Bathroom has a very similar set-up.  The primary difference is that the off/on/temperature selection is done at the front.  When the water is turned on it will by default come out of a spout into the tub.  The spout has a small lift button on it that will re-direct the flow of water to the showers, which then has a diverter for either the fixed shower head or the hand-held spray, which sits in a holder that can move up or down a vertical bar.

And since the demo work is all done, and there is no more tile to cut and set, the dumpster becomes of limited use -- there is not much more to throw away.  So the dumpster is gone.

Tile is Set in Bathrooms

We were gone for the month of January, and now all the tile has been set.

In the master bathroom, the shower has been defined.

including an accent piece on the back wall

and niches around where the shower head will be

The wall at the end of the room has been completely tiled to match the shower wall tile.

That wall tile matches the new floor tile for the part of the bathroom floor that is not the shower.

In the Central Bathroom, we have a different floor tile

And a new tub -- slightly taller.  It's considered a soaking tub.

And a redo of the tile around the tub. with a niche and new plumbing.