Another near miss for Trump; and a shower lighting dilemma.

Gods ding it, he's done it again. I had a nice, breezy little post planned for this week, and then Trump sucked all the air out of the room again by showing up at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and maybe attracting a shooter. So I will address that first, and then I'll add a shortish version of my breezy little post at the end. 

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I feel like the best thing I can do right now, when so little is known -- and when, let's be honest, we don't know how much to believe of what either the administration or the pundits are saying -- is to answer some of the conspiratorial questions I've seen online today.

• How did the alleged gunman (hereinafter AGM) get his weapons to DC from California? He took Amtrak. Security is just not as crazy on passenger trains as it is on flights. I don't recall ever having to step through a magnetometer before boarding an Amtrak train. (But you can bet your ass that will change now. Thanks a lot, AGM.)
• Okay, but how did the AGM get his weapons past security at the hotel? He was a hotel guest. Think back to the last time you checked into a hotel. Did you have to pass through a magnetometer at the door? No? Neither did I. If the AGM checked in sufficiently ahead of the event -- say, sometime Friday -- the security checkpoint for the dinner probably wasn't even set up yet. And he wouldn't have had to get past that until Saturday night. Plus which, guys, it's a hotel. They host a lot of big events, not to mention guests who have nothing to do with any of the scheduled events. Setting up a security perimeter at the hotel entrance would be a massive inconvenience to everybody with business there that has nothing to do with the correspondents' dinner. Now, I've seen reports that they have in fact done this in the past. If so, why didn't they do it this year? I have no idea.
• All that said, how did the shooter get so close to Trump? He didn't. The International Ballroom at the Washington Hilton is two floors below the main hotel entrance. The hotel's website has a fun interactive map that allows you to fly around their event space; click the Explore 360 Tour button on this page. It's been a few decades since I attended an event there (the Congressional Correspondents' Dinner used to be held there until it got too big), but I think I recall taking the escalator down to the ballroom. From what I've seen online, the security checkpoint was on the Terrace level, which is between the main floor and the Concourse level. Plus, y'all, the International Ballroom is huge. It seats more than 2,500 people, according to the hotel's website, and the dais is on the opposite side of the room from the doors that attendees come through. So the AGM would have had to get past the magnetometers on the Terrace level, down the escalator, past more agents who were no doubt stationed in the Concourse foyer outside the ballroom, and then past all the journalists at all the guest tables to get to the dais where Trump was seated. He was tackled outside of the magnetometers on the Terrace level. That doesn't seem that close to me.
• Was the whole thing staged? It's possible. It would have required TFGA's handlers to find a willing patsy, suggest he take Amtrak and stay at the Hilton, and do it all without bringing Trump in until the last minute so he didn't give the game away. Reportedly, it wouldn't have been the first time that Trump was kept out of the loop on an important issue.
• If it was staged, why? I doubt it would have been all about Trump's White House ballroom plans; he talks about them at the drop of a hat anyway. As a pivot from the Iran war and the Epstein files, and as an effort to bolster his historically lousy approval ratings, sure. As a commercial for his ballroom? Nah.

That's enough for now. Let's move on to my breezy little post.

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I went ahead this week and bought ceramic tile for the shower walls! I brought it home and loaded it into my storage closet yesterday. 

Lynne Cantwell 2026

I've also bought porcelain mosaic tile for the shower floor. I've been wanting to use the star-and-cross pattern on something for ages. Each of these little tile is 2"x2". (Note that this sample came chipped and cracked; I've checked the actual tiles, which were packaged much better, and they seem okay.)

Lynne Cantwell 2026

So anyway, yeah, the wall tile is dark, so the shower is going to be dark -- like a cave, almost, once the shower curtain is closed. Not that I ever want to be on trend, but maybe I am. (Go here and scroll down to number 5.) But it means lighting is a concern. A lot of people have can lights put in so that their shower is daylight bright. (Others do a sun tunnel, but guaranteed that my upstairs neighbor would not be amused.) But I want to preserve the moodiness.

The only light in the shower right now is this battery-operated light, plus whatever filters in above the shower curtain. It would be fun to have a starry sky, and you can get kits that allow you to make one by sticking fiber-optic lines through a suspended ceiling; alas, they require a projector concealed somewhere that's not wet. Another solution I've seen is to have an LED light strip installed at the top of the tile. That looks like my best option, but it would require hiring an electrician. So I may just stick with my battery-powered light.

If y'all have any other suggestions, let me know. I've yet to begin shopping for a contractor, so I have lots of time.

***

Heads up that I'll be out of pocket for the next two weeks. See y'all back here on May 17th.

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These moments of bifurcated blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

Why it's important to get tile samples.

It's spring (it must be -- I finally remembered to swap the winter front door wreath with the spring one), and this old woman's fancy has turned to finishing the bathroom remodel.

Some people celebrate warmer weather by buying seeds and bedding plants; I celebrate by dreaming about ripping out my combo bathtub/shower and replacing it with just a shower. Alert hearth/myth readers will recall that I finished remodeling half of the bathroom (two-thirds, if you count the laundry closet makeover) last September. When I posted about it back then, I included copious photos; if you scroll down in that post to the pic of the vessel sink, you can see the tub/shower alcove in the mirror. The tiles are a tired beige. The grab bars are positioned weirdly and look like they belong in a nursing home. I'm pretty sure the tub had an apron front, but somebody covered it with a four-inch-deep extension in a tile that doesn't quite match the original tile color and that blocks the laundry door from opening all the way. Presumably the extension's purpose was to provide a wider seat for someone getting in and out of the tub. But then somebody later added glass shower doors, and the bottom track for the doors ruined the wider seat.

In a perfect world, I'd have a newly-tiled shower with a minimal threshold, a bench, and a nicho for shampoo and stuff. (In a perfectly perfect world, I'd make it a steam shower, but there is literally nowhere to put the steam unit.And then there's the installation cost and maintance and haha nope.) 

I could have one of those prefab acrylic things installed over the old shower tile. But I want a bench, and I can't add one until the tub is gone. And how, I ask you, would prefab acrylic shower walls look in the same room as my fabulous bespoke vanity? They would look stupid. It would look like I'd given up. And I am not giving up!

So I'm entertaining myself by haunting websites and ordering tile samples. The samples do pile up, but they're cheap as vices go, and supposedly you can do crafty things with them. And they are essential for planning a remodeling project over time. 

Take, for example, my kitchen countertops. When I first started looking online, I fell head-over-heels in love with a solid-surface product from Formica called Bottle Glass Quartz. (It's not actual quartz. That's just the name.)

Lynne Cantwell 2026

But no one would even sell me a sample, let alone make me kitchen countertops out of it. Okay, that's not strictly true; one local place said they would make me kitchen counters, but the price would have been astronomical. I realize now that most dealers were hesitant because they'd have to order a whole slab, and who else would want such busy countertops in a so-not-neutral? They'd be stuck with the remnant forever. So I sucked it up and ordered a different solid surface pattern from Lowe's.

Then last week, I was looking on websites for tile samples, and lo and behold, one place not only carried Formica Bottle Glass Quartz, but they had samples! I'm no longer in the market for countertops, but I ordered a sample for old times' sake.

Boy, did I dodge a bullet. Here's the sample of the love of my life, along with one of the Terrazzo Sea Glass I settled for: 

Lynne Cantwell 2026

The stuff I was dying to get would have been too gray and too dark for my windowless kitchen. The pattern I settled for brightens up the room and goes great with my oak cabinets.

The moral of the story: Don't fall in love with tile - or a countertop - until you see the sample.

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To be clear, I think grab bars in a shower are a splendid idea; I just don't like the nursing-home vibe of the ones in there now. So I ordered nicer ones this weekend.

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I did, in fact, find the perfect tile for my shower walls in this latest batch of samples. Somewhat unbelievably, the color matches my bespoke vanity. However, this is about the eighth perfect shower tile I've found over the years, which is another reason I just need to get the project done already.

And then I can figure out what to do with all those tile samples...

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* Nicho is the Spanish word for niche, and a common term around these parts, especially for folks who lean Southwesterny in their decor. 

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These moments of bloggy design fatigue have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Happy spring!

The bathroom is done, huzzah!

I had something else in the queue for tonight's post, but I'm putting it off until next week for this BREAKING NEWS: As of this afternoon, the bathroom renovation is done! 

Lynne Cantwell | September 2025

Well, as much as I'm going to do right now.

As a reminder, here's what it looked like when I moved in. This is lifted straight from the listing when I bought the house. It was ... very white.

I forget the realtor's name. Anyway, it's from the MLS listing.

Note the builder-grade mirror and the 72-inch, same-as-the-kitchen-cabinets-but-not-as-high vanity that were installed in 1987. The countertop and sinks, I've learned, weren't very old, but I didn't like the dark green tile, plus I couldn't open the laundry closet without moving Tigs's litter box. Those round knobs on the laundry closet doors were installed throughout the house; I replaced all of them some time ago. The shelves you can see in the mirror on the left were actually part of an over-the-toilet thing that was broken. And the vanity light turned out to be a track lighting fixture that wasn't damp rated (horrors!).

My inspiration for the new color scheme was this photo that I apparently stole from Better Homes and Gardens. 

Stolen from the internet in 2023

It reminded me of a house I used to see from the school bus window when I was a kid. The house stood at the top of a dune, right across from Lake Michigan. It was painted white with black trim, and against a clear blue sky, it was just so pretty. That has stuck with me for 50 years. And when I saw this photo, I thought, "Why mess with perfection?"

Then the llamas got in there, and I needed little hints of yellow to go with the bits of yellow in the backsplash tile, and then I started buying art for the space, and things got complicated. But the blue, white, and turquoise are still there. And the vanity is shorter by a foot, so I don't have to move Tigs's box anymore to do laundry -- yay! 

Lynne Cantwell | September 2025

Our lives have improved by about a thousand percent on that basis alone.

Wrinkles:

1. As I mentioned last week, I had the plate-glass mirror cut down to fit in that frame. I had the glass shower doors taken out at the same time. I dunno why, but I hate glass shower doors -- and I like my llama shower curtain a lot better. 
2. There was zero flooring under the old vanity -- just the subfloor -- so I had to have more Saltillo tile installed. Of course it's virtually impossible to match Saltillo, as it's handmade and so on. (The tile guy laughed when he was done and said, "It's Santa Fe. Nothing matches!")
3. I thought at first that I wanted the sink in the left corner so the plumbing would be hidden inside a cabinet. The cabinet installer suggested that it would look dumb there. He was right. Unfortunately, I'd already had the plumbers set up the connection in the corner, so I had to pay for them to come back. To hide the plumbing in the center section, I went on eBay, found a llama shower curtain to match the one I had, and made the little curtain from it.
4. The sink is wood-look sandstone that I ordered from a place in Wisconsin. The countertop guys were a little freaked out by it. They thought at first that it was actual wood. 

It's sandstone, I swear it.
Lynne Cantwell | September 2025

Anyway, I painted the room yesterday (I woke up so sore this morning). I was thinking I'd have to paint the medicine cabinet, but with the fresh coat of paint on the walls, I think it looks okay. The shower tiles, however, now look more dingy than they did to start with. I'd really like to do a tub-to-shower conversion someday, but it won't be this year. I might just get the tiles reglazed for now. We'll see.

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These moments of bloggy home improvement have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

A late summer roundup.

A view from my porch.
Lynne Cantwell | August 2025

I'm back, having never been away.

I can explain!

In my last post two weeks ago, I said I would be having carpal tunnel release surgery on my right hand on August 8th, then traveling to greater Chicagoland this past weekend for my high school reunion. Neither of those things happened.

I decided to put off the surgery because of the portable swamp coolers. I wrote about them earlier this summer -- you can go here to refresh your memory, if you like -- but the problem relating to the surgery was that I use a two-gallon watering can to fill them, and I realized I wasn't going to be able to lift it with just one hand. And it has been too hot to go without using the swamp coolers. So the surgery has been rescheduled for the end of September, which hopefully will not conflict with our governor's reported plans to call a special legislative session within the next few weeks.

That explains the surgery delay, but what about canceling the trip? That's because of the Bathroom Vanity Project.

The original vanity was the one the builders installed when the place was built in 1987. It was the same design as the kitchen cabinets, except shorter in height. It was also so long that I had to move the litter box every time I wanted to do laundry. Some previous owner had replaced whatever the original countertop was with Talavera tile: countertop, backsplash, and matching sinks. I like Talavera tile, but there are lots (and lots) of designs, and I wasn't wild about this one. Here:

Lynne Cantwell | 2023

The tile was inoffensive (which was part of my problem with it, to be honest) and some of it was dark green, which clashed with the laundry closet door after I painted it turquoise blue.

I spent a lot of time looking at replacement vanities online. The ones in my price range looked like boxes; the ones with a little style to them were over my budget. So last fall, when my friend Kim was in town, we checked out consignment shops and found this: 

Lynne Cantwell | 2024

It had started out life as an entertainment center. I knew I wanted a vessel sink; this was the right height and definitely did not look like a box. So I bought it and had it delivered, and it sat in my storage closet until last month, when I contracted with the cabinet makers down the street to put it in.

Well. The top is not flat, which I knew, and the thing is not square. Plus I had to have more Saltillo tile put in because the people who installed it didn't pull the old vanity to lay it underneath. (It turned out there was nothing under the old vanity but the subfloor.) Then there was the miscommunication about the sink; I'm going down to one sink from two, and I had the plumbers put the new connections in the wrong place, so that had to be fixed.

Anyway, the bottom line is that it's not done yet. The floor tile and vanity are in, the new countertop will be installed tomorrow, the backsplash will go up Tuesday, and then I can have the plumbers come back. Hopefully it'll be all done by the end of this week. Then I get to spend Labor Day weekend painting. 

The joys of homeownership...

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This post is already pretty long, but I wanted to mention the death this week of James Dobson, who founded Focus on the Family in 1977.

Dobson -- along with Jerry Falwell, founder of Liberty University and creator of the label "the Moral Majority", and Pat Robertson, who founded the Christian Broadcasting Network and what's now Regis University -- were probably the most well-known promoters of evangelical Christianity in the 1970s and '80s. All three of them espoused the sort of "family values" that include opposition to abortion and the claim that LGBTQ+ people are misled and should undergo conversion therapy. (Conversion therapy doesn't work, has been proven detrimental to those who undergo it, and is now banned in 23 states and DC.) But Dobson in particular is vilified by a lot of people whose parents ascribed to his harsh, abusive childrearing techniques. One blogger began his post with this: "JAMES DOBSON, 89, died this week after a long battle with children." He goes on to say that Dobson's philosophy on raising children was in reaction to that of Dr. Benjamin Spock, who said kids do best when disciplined with love and understanding: "Dobson contended that children were born sinful and must be beaten without mercy in order to secure their bond to their parents and the church, and, of course, to save them ... from damnation." 

A charming fellow. But he, Robertson, and Falwell insinuated their hateful brand of Christianity into the highest echelons of government in this country, and for decades, conservative candidates have appreciated their followers' support. Ronald Reagan courted the evangelical vote. So did George W. Bush. And I'm sure you've seen the laying-on-of-hands memes featuring the current occupant of the White House -- a man whose behavior is in no way Christian, but whose supporters claim he was sent by God to save the nation.

Dobson, Robertson, and Falwell are all gone now; Falwell died in 2007, Robertson in 2023. But the poison they introduced into our national discourse has become deeply rooted, and it needs to be uprooted from our government before we can recover from the mess we're in.

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You could argue that I conceived of The Pipe Woman Chronicles partly as a response to the damage evangelicalism was doing to the nation.

I used to say that I thought Falwell was the Antichrist until Robertson came along. Then I realized that Falwell was the anti-John-the-Baptist.

I hope they're all enjoying themselves now, wherever they've ended up. I'm pretty sure it's not heaven.

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These moments of deconstructive blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!