After all the complaining I’ve made you listen to, I figure you guys have earned a look at the glorious freestanding chrome shower, faucet and drain we FINALLY have installed and working properly. It’s a beauty….you know how a piece of real silverware feels decadent and fancy compared to a plain old cheapo fork? That’s how this shower feels. Those pretty porcelain handles are substantial and weighty beneath my fingers.

I love the white porcelain ring, it really adds something to the setup. The two metal braces are screwed into a stud, so we won’t have to worry about the riser pulling out of the wall.

This is the Sunrise Specialty Freestanding tub filler and shower enclosure, along with a Strom tub drain and overflow. We totally have one of those rubber stoppers like in What Lies Beneath. I’ll have to practice removing it with one half-paralyzed toe.

Who knew supply lines could be so beautiful? Or such a pain to line up perfectly? But it was worth the work.

As you can tell from our Flickr photos, we tried to document the installation as we went along. Teague will be writing up a post on the process, since it was certainly a process in every sense of the word and he’s the one who had to labor through most of it. Because plumbing? Not so much my thing.

I will say that installing a clawfoot tub and shower is not what I’d consider a DIY job. Teague has quite a bit of plumbing experience and still had to adjust things a few times to get everything to come together perfectly. But, it is doable – we’re living proof!

I’m saving some bathroom pics for a big reveal, because we’re THIS CLOSE to actually being done. As in, done-done. Not, done but needs trim and hardware and some paint touch-ups. Because this time around, we have not allowed ourselves to start using the room in a half-finished condition. We did that with the kitchen, and it’s still not completely finished 2 years later. We’ve found that is the kiss of death for any project. Once you start using it day-to-day, those last little finishing touches just fall completely off the radar.

As always, many more photos are available on our Flickr account.

Stay tuned for more bathroom goodness. The only things left to do are hang the shower curtain rod, finish painting the door, and give everything a good spit shine. Then I’ll let you see the whole thing AND I’ll post the befores so we can all reminisce about what a total dump the original bathroom was. Is the suspense killing you, or what?