Our story so far: As reality has caught up with this blog about converting a 126-year-old Methodist church into our home, I’ve run across a few odds and ends that occurred after I wrote about the subject initially. That’s how it goes with a real-time memoir. Sometimes stuff happens after publication. So this week, I’m sharing a few little stories that will ultimately be integrated into the relevant location in the memoir. Think of this as the time in the novel—especially a mystery novel—when you page back to reread a few passages to remind yourself about what’s going on. Here’s an update for Chapter 20.

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Those cute niches flippers always build into the shower wall on HGTV look so pretty when the house is staged with candlelight and floral arrangements, but in practical use the shower niche is an eyesore of mismatched face wash and deep conditioners.

In the initial design of our custom shower, we intended to hide our extra-large shower niche in the corner, mostly hidden by the wall to which the glass door would be attached. At least our shampoo would be mostly obscured to looky-loos poking their heads inside our master bath to get a look.

But then we discovered the pre-engineered insets wouldn’t fit between the studs on that wall. You-Can-Call-me-Al offered to create a custom niche, which was a reasonable solution until Tyler discovered the inserts would fit neatly inside the glass-door wall. Even better, our niche would only be visible from the shower. Ta-da! No more ugly shampoo cluttering the impressive view of the shower.

Happy accident.

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Tomorrow: What do you mean, balcony swoop? Check it out here.