Almost Finished

Bathroom Before (several before pics are available in previous posts):

Bathroom After:





I'm pleased how our little face lift came out. What we did:

- ripped out old shower doors & replaced with a vintage style l-shaped curtain rod
- repaired water damaged plaster
- replaced window
- sanded and painted all the woodwork & cabinet white
- repainted the walls to cover the institutional blue
- replaced the toilet with a new low flow model
- replaced the rotting mirror on the medicine cabinet
- replaced light fixture
- added beadboard

Still left to do:

- paint hall-side of door and reinstall vintage doorknob
- touch up of green paint
- paint new base under cabinet
- add robe hooks and large towel bar
- window treatment
- hem second shower curtain to complete the "surround"
- hang some artwork

:)

Yay.

Wainscoting

The wainscoting is coming out nicely. We still need to add the chair rail, caulk and paint it.

Let there be [bathroom] light

Before:



After:



I'm pleased. We discussed getting a new medicine cabinet, but all those we looked at were chintzy or too big etc. Instead we replaced the mirror and clasps on the old one, cleaned it out, and painted it. I'm glad we did.

In other news I'm still not satisfied with the bedroom window treatments. I like the fabric, but not happy with the style of the panel. I'm going to get a new double rod and put sheers underneath, then add grommets at the top for some rings. I think that will please me more.

Well, I'm off to prime some beadboard and to visit with friends...not necessarily in that order!

Journey of bathroom painting

The bathroom began blue. An institutional shade of blue. And it had a nasty spot in one ceiling corner from previous water damage (which DH skillfully fixed). We didn't like it.



And now came the question of what color for the walls? I suggested white, but we already went all-white route in the kitchen and DH thought it would be boring. So we discussed perhaps a light green. So after many moons of swatches hanging on the walls, we chose a very light yellow-ish green (after all the tile accents are yellow). Bad idea. It glowed. The room next to it glowed. Bad.



We quickly developed a new plan, a sage-ish green instead. I'd seen a lovely cottage bathroom in a magazine that had the white/sage/yellow scheme and I really liked it. And we are pleased. I love it.



Now I'm painting the trim and cabinet white, which looks lovely. Next comes the installation of the wainscoting. I can't wait to see how it will look!

Oh my it's February already.

I realized I never did post a picture of the bedroom after finished so here you go. Note my lovely birthday present from Gypsy Junk in the corner. It looks very sweet with the candle lit inside of it! I have yet to finish the curtains (they need hemming and I need to decide upon the tie back situation) but everything else is done and I think DH did a particularly good job on the baseboard. He gets better every room. He's talking about crown molding. :)

I painted the hallway as well since last I posted. There is no point posting pictures of that, because it's pretty much the same color it was before (off white) except eggshell instead of flat and nice and fresh. I still need to paint the doors, trim and baseboard there.

We've moved on in earnest to the bathroom, fully prepped, and painted and now being repainted. The first attempt was too hideous for words. Every time I went in there I half expected an alien to burst out of my chest. Tooooo yellow-green. But now we've moved on to a sage color and we're both excited. It's gonna look sweet. Some before, during and after pictures will follow in other posts.

On the resolution front I suppose I should keep my resolution to make monthly resolutions (doing fairly well on January's) and make one for February. My resolution for this month is to stretch at least 5-10 minutes every day.

Well - busy weekend ahead!

Endless Projects

So I have no pictures. Mostly because my home computer is acting up SO badly, that I can't seem to send them to myself at work for blogging purposes. I desperately need a new computer, which I think I just might order a new one this week. After all the warcraft expansion is released today, and I'm jonesing for some Wrath of the Lich King. Unfortunately with the way my computer is behaving I'm concerned that it won't be able to even run the new program. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed! I'm thinking of going through Dell again.

Hopefully the Lich King will not keep me too occupied to keep working on my endless projects! The bedroom trim is painted. I pulled the tape off this morning and it looks lovely. There are some touchups I need to do on the baseboards etc. Then I need to install some curtain rods to hang my makeshift curtains from until the fabric arrives for the new curtains. I'm thinking some type of roman shade or plantation blinds for under the curtains....but the windows seem to be an odd size and I'm getting concerned they may require a special order. The door replacements are outstanding, as are some questions about bedside lighting (i want sconces, but we need to think about a new bed)...but those things are small and can be done anytime. I'm just excited to have our clothes and furniture back in the bedroom again!!

Bathrooms are next. I've decided that rather then getting totally hung up on doing everything at once I'm just gonna paint shit. Our tiny master bath will take a day or two to paint but I'd been putting it off thinking that we should do a new floor and toilet at the same time. But those are things DH must do and he has lots of things on his list aside from these. So why should that stop me from painting??? I have the paint for the master bath already - using the same paint I've been using on all the trim in the house. It will be white. I do plan on scrubbing the shit out of the floor, and making a curtain to hit the underside of the corner sink, and I think I'll replace the medicine cabinet as well. Then when DH has time we'll go ahead and do tile, a new toilet and some more lighting.

The main hallway bathroom we are going to get into pretty quick. I have talked DH into removing the yucky shower doors and I have ordered a shower curtain ring from a Vintage Tub company online. It should be here in a week or so. We are going to pull out the crooked tile baseboard, install new baseboard, install wainscotting to the level of the sink's tile (chair level) with a little trim on top. The trim, vanity cabinet and wainscotting will all be painted white. The walls and ceiling will be painted a very light yellow-ish green. This was at DH's insistance. I wanted a vanilla cream color or something else. But he put his foot down on this one....he wants green dammit! New towel racks, toilet paper holder, lighting and a low flush toilet are also in order. Not sure about the medicine cabinet. I'm considering adding trim to the existing mirror instead. It's still quite serviceable otherwise. We also need to regrout everything...ugh. I've ordered some new shower curtains that I think will possible go with the new color scheme *fingers crossed*. And I need new bath rugs desperately, mine are getting funky.

Soooo much fun! I'm really on a mission to have the rest of the interior of the house painted by new years. I want it all off my to-do list!!

Another fast moving weekend

What, monday already? The weekend was excellent. I finished Sophia's blanket on Thursday night. I can't tell you how relieved I am to be done with it. Incidentally, little Sophie turns 11 monthes old on the 1st of March. /sigh. Never again will I tell someone that I'm making them something until it's done and I hand it to them. But it turned out cute for the most part. I still need to wash and block it.

The Stitches West convention was fun. It was overwhelming the color and texture to be had every which way you turned. I saw gazillion things I might have bought, but I had given myself a budget and bought only a small necklace at a wonderful notions booth (by far the best set-up of any booth in the place) and 1100 yards of a gorgeous wool/silk/something blend in a warm variagated tone. The picture is a bit flat and doesn't do it justice. But it was a deal, as it was marked and priced as 400 yard skeins and when they weighed it up they realized it was 550 yards each, but still only charged me for the 400 yard price. I normally don't buy pricey yarn as I only dabble in the needle arts and I have a large stash of woolease and acrylic. But I plan on learning to knit this year, so I'm going to save this gem for when I'm ready for a solid knitting project. According to the girls there is probably even enough for a sweater.

Aside from yarn related endeavors, I had a pretty busy weekend. We had two lovely evenings on Friday and Saturday night hanging out with some friends. I worked on prepping the front door for painting...boy is that door screwed up - it really should be replaced but we have too much else going on right now so I'm just giving it a face lift. I need to caulk some weird cavities it has this evening and then it will be ready for painting. I also continued working on prepping the bathroom for painting. The first step is to scrape all the old paint off of the tile with a razor blade. I mean seriously dude...haven't you ever heard of taping things off? The previous painter of this bathroom has created tons of arthritis inducing work for me. WHO paints like this??? Sloppy!!

Ugh. I'm still debating on the wall color too. I've narrowed it down to a couple different greens that DH liked. You never can tell sometimes until it's up on the wall. One green I'm concerned might be too yellow and the other I'm concerned might be too minty. But I'm overthinking it. Paint is cheap, and if we don't like it I can re-do it. I want to get it done soon. Many rooms to paint still! And our spare bedroom has a strange odor and I'm starting to get paranoid that it's mold hiding somewhere. We might have a specialist come take a look.

DH installed a ceiling fan in our dining room on Saturday. It was a bitch from start to finish. Finding a fan that fit in the room and hugged the ceiling was a pain. We finally found one that we mostly agreed on. It took a while to install, mostly because it had a strange humming that was almost unbearable. It was fine until we'd put the base on and the base would rattle. We were on the verge of taking it down and returning it, when DH fashioned some little rubber braces that helped keep it steady. Also once the fan blades were on that seems to weigh it down a little. In the end, it is quiet and works perfectly and we like the way it looks, even though the oiled bronze finish was a little starker then I originally envisioned...I actually think it works with the kind of warm ecclectic decor we have going on. Note the skateboard gallery I hung on the dining room wall to please DH, in homage of his skateboarding skills. He could have been a pro skater had he focused on it - and I'm not just saying that because he's my honey. All his friends say its true as well. He is magnificant on a skateboard.

Well another week is here and I have a to do list. The weather should be clearing up today! Yay! Ciao...

Gonna have to face it...

...I'm addicted to blog!! Heh. I was real hesitant to even start this thing, but now I find myself wanting to post on it all the time, even if I don't have anything to say. Silly silly me. I've done no work this week so far. But that's okay, a few days of rest is good. DH is sick sick sick! Poor baby. Tonight I might actually pick up the paintbrush again to work on the remaining touchups in the dining room. And I've been making lists and spreadsheets! Woo! I love lists and spreadsheets. I'm trying to keep track of our home improvement spending, and trying to plan for exactly what we want done in the next rooms we are planning on working on - the main bathroom and the hallway! Yay!

The color in the bathroom is up in the air. We have some debate on the matter. Like the kitchen, the tile is 40's style - white with yellow trim. Well, we've not been wanting to just paint it plain old white, as it would be too much like the kitchen and we want it to have a little more interest. Right now it's baby blue (i'll post pictures later) and I guess it's not the worst but we want it different. I really wanted chocolate brown rugs and towels and some nice wood tones in there to warm it up, be we still were thinking it needed more. I thought we could strip the paint off the vanity cabinet and wood stain it, and DH loves that idea so we're definately doing that. But the wall color is still open. I had suggested yellow and white stripes - but he was skeptical. Then we were thinking very light yellow - but that might be too much yellow, and yellow isn't the most flattering color on the skin. We were also thinking beige - but, meh. Most recently he suggested green and I kind of agree.

I was thinking kind of a sunny fairy woodland kind of theme heehee. I have this nice poster that is matted and framed... it's a classic picture that you probably have seen before of a very green woodland with a maiden in old-fashioned dress standing in wonder over a circle of tiny fairies dancing. The fairies themselves have a very warm yellow glow - which would match the yellow accent tiles perfectly. Ever since he suggested green I'd been considering using that picture as our inspiration. When I finally showed it to him hesitantly (thinking it would be too girly) he actually liked it. I'm going to go get some paint chips this weekend to tape up for considering. And I'm thinking we could still use the chocolate brown accents with this color scheme. Maybe a nice light curtain for the window in a print that ties all the colors together. I actually was looking at some calico's yesterday at JoAnn's that might work. LOL, what a dork - I watch too much HGTV!

Anyhow, if I could really really have my way, I'd rip out the glass and metal shower stall and tub, install flooring underneath where the tub was, and put a nice claw foot tub in. Then install a ceiling or wall mounted shower curtain rod like the ones you can find here. I wonder how much it would really cost to do that. It's probably not in the cards, but it would make me sooooo happy. You can tell that this bathroom originally was tub only. The tub is built into a little alcove and there is tile running up the side of the cabinet at the foot of the tub. They installed the shower walls later - and consequently the wall butts up againt the foot-of-the-tub tile, with a tiny gap that dirt gets into. It's *filthy* and there is no way to clean it. UGH. Hmmm. I haven't let go of this pipe dream yet. I was eyeing clawfoot tubs when we went to Urban Ore this last weekend. Most were wrecked, but there were a couple that might have been salvageable.

Alright enough ramblings. I must work now. /cry.