Modern Bathroom Renovation. DIY!

 




Hello Folks! Well, it's been awhile, but for good reason! What we thought would be a two week bathroom renovation, unsurprisingly, turned into 3 months. We spent our entire Spring Break tearing apart our main floor bath. Here is a photo collage of our process. If you have any questions about products or processes, feel free to ask!

We did everything ourselves, with support of the fathers. Our goal was to make it feel larger, modern, and calming. We needed to find a small vanity, and toliet in order to utlize the cramped space.

We picked our tile to help elongate and open the room. The light color and size leads the eye across the longest lines in the room. 

First, lets start with how it looked when we bout the house, about 3 years ago:

After buying, we removed all the wallpaper (UGH), the frilly stuff, the sliding glass doors, and painting it a lovely grey color.

Here we go!

The previous owners has glued and nailed a weird thin wood panel over the original plaster. It was h-e-double hockey sticks- to remove. There was no way we could salvage the walls, so they all had to come down. 

 The floor was a mess. Yucky linoleum, over some "classic" tile. It all had to come up too- bummer.

Have you ever tried to remove a cast iron tub. I CANNOT believe how heavy it was. Had to go out in pieces!

So much bigger!

After taking up 2 layers of flooring, plus concrete, we had no floor. We had to put down a new sub floor, as well as use self-leveling cerement over the entire bathroom. While more expensive, it worked awesome. 

 We used the orange membrane, which again, while more expensive, was recommended with our tile size and type.

 Might as well replace the window too! 

This was my first time tiling. My thought process was "get bigger tiles, it'll go faster". Not quite how it worked out. The tiles are 12x24, and heavy! So even though they covered a large area, the time it took to prep the wall, prep the back of the tile, and carefully line them up- was, well, exhausting.

The tile is porcelain. It has a linen, or brushed effect. Again, we used it around the tub to make it feel more spacious. We also found a tub the slightly bowed out at the top to feel bigger, but still had the same smaller footprint. 

 We chose a pretty ocean-y blue glass accent strip. Also used it in the nook.

We painted the back wall a dark grey-blue. The other three walls are a lighter blue that match the glass accent strip. 

 We decided to do two hanging lights, instead of the standard vanity light. We found this ones with a similar pattern to our tile at Menard's. 

 

 We bought the faucet from Amazon. Hubby's choice, it's pretty fancy. 

 The vanity and tall cabinet are from Ikea, as well as those spiffy auto-lights the Hub's installed (he couldn't resist adding some tech!). They only come on when it is dark, so at night you can use the restroom without being blasted by a bright light.

  

The edge and air duct are now covered in bright crisp white.

 

We are SO proud of how it came out. However, now that we've tackled such a huge project, we now know what we would do different (ex; HIRE someone to do the drywall mudding!). .... Now, hunny, what's next? That wall between the kitchen and dining room sure looks enticing! 

xo,
A

Thrift Store Floor Lamp Makeover

I've been contemplating a lighting solution for next to our couch- a weird transition space between living and dining. The last Salvation Army we visited was the charm. A very 70's table/lamp duo. Perfect.

The lamp was 20 bucks, and I spent about another 17 on the fabric and some purple spray paint. 

Here is the original lamp- it actually didn't look that bad- I liked the texture on the shade. 

The process was pretty easy. I used one of the random online tutorials about cover a lamp shade. We picked a pretty printed linen to echo the texture already there. The hubs help with this process. My original plan was the spray paint the entire base of the lamp, but the wood was in pretty good shape, and it actually matched with our floor pretty well. So, instead, I only spayed that off-white plastic part that seriously dated the lamp. 

Easy peasy!  

XOXO
A 

Pasties- Oh My!

The hubs, king of convenience, needs to ditch the junk that is in said convenience.

Better to make it from scratch. Plus, pasties hold a special place in us Michiganders.

Sunday afternoon was spent making about 18 breakfast burritos and 18 pasties. I would guess-ti-mate that the cost was around $6 for the burritos, and maybe $8 for the pasties (being a veg, I still snuck in a little meat for my manly man). 


14 bucks for 18 days worth of hearty, wholesome, REAL food. Not too shabby.

Custom Double Desk

Problem: Two teachers who need workspace in a limited amount of space.

Solution: Build a double desk!

Our "master suite" houses our bedroom and an extra area that we have turned into our office. We customized our desk to fit perfectly into our nook.

While pursing one of my favorite blogs, YHL, I saw this amazing workspace. It's large and roomy. However, we don't have a large-roomy place. So we modified.

I don't have step by steps of this project, because we basically modified our farmhouse table into a desk, and added a few conveniences for the tech-hubby.

Note: the color in the images is way brighter than what it is in person. In person it's more Creamsicle, then hazard-wear orange.

 

We added a snazzy lattice trim around the edge to give it pizazz! We also created a custom spot in the middle to perfectly fit a file cabinet. That was probably the trickiest part.

Finding chairs that matched were quite a suprise! I was sure we were bound to ugly black desk shares. Stumbled across the pair in the clearance section at IKEA. One was a little dirty, but they both cleaned up nicely and are super-duper cute.

This image shows the color a little better. I know it looks drastic, but it contrast with the blue walls, and once covered up with our working supplies, looks great!

Hubs added the monitor shelf, and also (not pictured) electronic cord management holes.
We also used L-brackets to attach the legs, because this sucker is not coming down the stairs in once piece if we ever leave our first home.


So, ta-da! We are very happy with it. Hope everyone enjoys!

New Year : New Projects

Well, hello again. It's been a while. I apologize.

One of my resolutions for this year will be to finish more projects.. and boy do I have a pile of nifty things to revamp!

To-Do List:

• Share images from Double Desk project.
• Metal Rolling Cart into Planter/Storage.
• Ornate Telephone Table re-vamp.
• Three Small Stools Makeover.
• Ceramic Pillars into.. ??
• Main Bath Renovation.

I'm running out of room to keep all my cool stuff, perhaps I will start selling them.



Next post, coming soon!

Rustic Farmhouse Table

Hi all! I know it's been quite a long time since I have posted, but teaching has been taking up much of my time and mental capacity lately. I look forward to more posts in the next couple months (summer vaca)!!

This is our newest build. A rustic farmhouse style dining room table. A little back story first: when we first moved into our house we had a el-cheap-o IKEA 4 person table (with chairs pictured). Don't get me wrong, I love me some IKEA, but this table was dinky. After about a year, we received a hand-me-down table, which was the exact opposite: huge, real wood, ginourmous. This was great, except it was super wide, which made trying to walk around it while others were dining almost impossible. 

What I really wanted was a farmhouse table. The cost? $800.00+. My budget? $200.00.
Solution? MAKE ONE!

After searching the Internets, I came across this plan from Ana White. 
We decided to alter the length, and leg type, choosing 4x4's instead for a more sturdy look.

We have never built anything from scratch before, so it was intrimdating at first. But, after using my handy graph paper for my visual brain, the shopping and cutting were a breeze.

 

We choose Pine Select Boards from Home Depot. This was the most expensive wood available, however it provided the least warping for us beginners. Using less expensive wood would have added more of a rustic feel though. The legs we had to purchase from Lowe's, as non-pressure treated 4x4's are hard to come by. They are Fir, but were similiar in tone.


Here is just a breif play-by-play of our experience. For specifics, please visit the link above.


Framing Up Apron & Screwing Boards
*tip: lay out your planks for the top before hand. Number and flip correctly to achieve your desired effect. 

 

Flip & Screw in Apron:

 

I sanded the top and legs separately for the sake of ease. Then screwed in the legs.

The longest part of this project was the staining. One coat of Charcoal Grey from Minwax, and two coast of Satin Polyurethane. The Grey turned out pretty blue, but we still loved the color!

 A close up of the stain:

And Ta-Da! A brand new table!

This cost me just around $200 bucks, a good part of my weekend, but valuable learning and creating time. 
We really like the pop of color. We were on a wood tone overload with wood-on-wood-on-wood, floor, paneled wall, and brown table. Now some blue to add! We can also fit 8 comfortably with room to walk around!

Please feel free to ask any questions about certain steps. And, don't be afraid to build! 

Till next time, friends.