Bathroom Artwork Update

I have slowly been de-cluttering my house and getting rid of anything that was not useful or beautiful. I tend to keep things "just in case" and find that I store them for years and years instead of wasting them.

The reason I'm telling you this is because when I was going through all my things, I found some artwork that I had done when I was in high school. I actually used to paint quite a bit but I haven't touched my watercolours in a few years now.

After looking at my paintings, I decided they were pretty good and needed to be used. The colours were perfect for my bathroom!

A nice picture of my blank wall.. and my toilet! TMI?

I'm terrible for just eyeballing where I want to hang pictures. Thankfully I didn't need to make too many holes in my wall before everything was just centred. I need to take all those handy tricks they have for hanging pictures and start to use them!

I bought 3 frames for a total of $11 (they were on sale! Yay!) and framed my paintings. I'm happy with how it turned out and it freshens up the look of my bathroom for cheap! Gotta love that, right?

If anyone is interested in knowing, my cabinets which I updated a year ago are still in great shape. My kids slam the doors and put their grimy hands all over them and they've held up quite well! You can see my original bathroom update here.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. 

I'm so excited for what Heidi and I will be up to in October!

Let There Be Bathroom Light

Sometimes I think that our home renovations will never get finished. At least for my basement, and deck, and pretty much every part of this house. Part of the problem is that I have two toddlers and it's hard to get things done, and the other part of the problem is that my husband is rarely home to be able to do those things for me.

My bathroom has been a storage room for a year now. Kind of depressing.

It's a little frustrating but I know it's a part of life, right??

Over the weekend, we did get a few things done. We were wandering around Home Depot (love that place!!) and found a deal on bathroom wall sconces that we couldn't pass up. All the way to the checkout and home, my husband joked about how we would set the box in the unfinished bathroom and in about a year or so, he would have time to get them up. I joked along thinking to myself that it was probably more true than not.

We got home and later that afternoon, my husband surprised me by taking them out of the box and installing them for me!

No one is more surprised about this than me and I think they look fantastic!

They look a little off in this picture, but I promise they are straight!

That is one less thing on our to-do list. Here's what the rest of it looks like:

- find a mirror
- install the sink, countertop, and faucets, and hardware on the cabinet
- install the toilet
- touch up the paint on the walls
- finish putting the trim up
- install a drop ceiling and pot lights

So really, there are more things on the list than we've accomplished. But in my mind, every little bit helps!

Have you finished any little home renos lately? Tell us about them!

C'est Fini!

Translation: our bathroom is finally finished! There are two minor details that still need wrapping up - a new shower rod and taps for the sink, but we can live without those being updated until the funds are back in town. 

Before I show you pictures, I do have to apologize on the lighting. Not our new fixture, but the lighting of the pictures. It's kinda gloomy here today, but I couldn't wait any longer to show you the final product! 

We kept the same shower curtain and it works great. I haven't seen any others that have caught my eye, so I probably won't change it. Like, I said before, we are going to look for a new curtain rod though, since this one has edges that the hooks catch onto and then you can't pull the curtain across without a lot of tugging. 

We did get new fixtures for the shower and I love them. The shower head is large and similar to a rain shower fixture, without all the extra plumbing hassle. I frosted the windows with stick on film that we bought from Home Depot. Not too shabby for peel and stick. 

We found a really good deal on shelves and after being worried that they might be too much for the space, we both decided that we really liked them. They add some much needed storage to our tiny bathroom and a place for little decorative items too. 

I filled two plain black frames with some pretty scrapbooking paper and pulled out of our linen closet the pretty containers that I knew someday would be on display again. 

If you look in the mirror, you can see the opposite wall where we hung four hooks for towels. Now they don't have to be draped over our bedroom door to dry! Everyone has a place for their own towel.

And now the best part, before and after pictures!

We are so happy with it being done. Now we can actually enjoy having a clean space as we get ready in the mornings. No more worrying about mold issues or cracked tile. Everything is clean and fresh. 

Happy Friday! 

Renovation News...

If you have ever done a renovation at home, you understand that things usually don't go according to plan. We had planned on having the bathroom all ripped out on the Friday night of the long weekend and then Jesse would have Saturday and Sunday to repair walls, lay down the tile and then he could grout on Monday. Easy peasy. 

And then this little girl was born on the Thursday night before the long weekend.

Faith's new little girl, Eve! Jesse really wanted to visit her in the hospital after he was done work on Friday night, so we brought them supper and enjoyed snuggling our new niece.

There is nothing better than snuggling a newborn right? That meant though that the bathroom demolition plan was a bit delayed, but that was okay. There was time to catch up. But little did we know how bad things were underneath the surface. (You can read here about the mold and all the other problems that caused our plans to be delayed)

So, as of right now, we have been able to use our bathtub (yay!) and can see ourselves in the mirror to make sure there is nothing stuck in our teeth and can look upon our nicely painted walls, but there is no use of the shower yet and the floor is covered with tools and grout buckets. 

When I look at my bathroom though and all the beautiful tile work that my husband has worked late into the night on, I get so proud of him! I never get to see his work that he does for other people, so now that I'm able to see the perfect lined up tile and the nice grout lines, I can understand why people love what he does so much. He has done a beautiful job and is so excited about it! (Sappiness is over. Sorry.)

Tonight he plans to grout the shower and then {hopefully} we can start getting our bathroom back in order...and decorated! 

In other news, another small renovation is in the works.

We are all so excited about this new little arrival coming sometime in February! 

I'm sure in the future Melody will be writing about different DIY baby things and I'll be sharing my favourite children's bedrooms and all that other fun stuff. :)

Happy Wednesday everyone! 

Real Life

I would love to show you pictures of our finished bathroom; sparkling tile and freshly painted walls. But I can't. Because it's not done yet. 

Real life reno problems hit when Jesse and my brother started ripping out the shower and found mold everywhere. 

 (sorry for the really bad quality)

We can't say that we were surprised with the mold, because we knew that it was there. It just took longer than expected to tear everything down, clean, and start repairing everything again. 

The floor also needed a lot of help, because after the tile was ripped up, they found a small patch of mold underneath a section of the tile. Jesse had to deal with that and then lay down new subfloor to get things back up to par.

He kept trucking along though and by Sunday evening, Jesse had the floor tiled and grouted and the shower prepped for tile.

 (Tiled, but not grouted yet)

We could see the vision! Slowly. 

Monday was the holiday, so Jesse worked on the wall that held the toilet and sink so that we could at least use that part of the bathroom. 

 He's speedy. 

Yay! A working toilet and sink! And one beautifully tiled wall.

The light fixture was also installed and I {LOVE} it! 

So as it stands today, our bathroom looks like this: 

As you can see, there are no showers or even baths being taken at our house right now...I may be knocking on one of my sisters' doors later on today with some soap and a towel. 

The shower isn't even grouted yet and I love it already. Jesse always tells clients that if you love it when it isn't grouted, you will love it ten times more when it is grouted. 

That is our real life reno. Slowly, but surely it's coming along!

How about you? Have you ever done a renovation where unwanted surprises kept popping up? The fun part of this reno is keeping Gavin out of the mess and tools that are lining the hallway upstairs...Yup. Fun. :) 

And the Countdown is On

Well, the tile is officially waiting in our basement for this weekend when Jesse and one of my younger brothers can install it. Jesse brought it home last night and we decided on a pattern that we both loved. 

I didn't take a picture of it when it was lying on the table (of course), but this is the very similar layout:

{source} 

Now that we have the tile, my next job was to go and buy a mirror so that Jesse would know how high to tile from the top of the sink to the bottom of the mirror. 

So last night, Gavin and I (Jesse was busy) went out to get a mirror. We first tried Home Sense, but no luck. Winners (which is the same company as Home Sense) was right across the street, so that was our next stop. 

And success!

 (I just propped it up on the faucet)

Because the bathroom space is not large...actually it's really, really tiny, I knew I wanted an oval mirror so that we could still see ourselves as we got ready in the morning, but wouldn't overpower the space. 

 

(Gavin's favourite past time: throwing the extra toilet paper out of the basket) 

Here is the purchases checklist as it stands: 

1. Tile 
2. Curved shower curtain rod
3. Mirror
4. Hooks for towels
5. Light fixture
6. Shower head fixture 
7. Paint 

We did pick up a light on Saturday afternoon! 

Of course there is all the not-fun, but necessary stuff, like drywall, grout, mud, etc. I'm leaving that up to Jesse to get though, because he's the professional after all. :)

We're excited to see things come together after all our planning and dreaming since we moved in two years ago. I'm not really excited about the toilet and shower being unavailable to use for the whole weekend though...

Bathroom Details

Yesterday I shared the exciting news that we finally get to renovate our bathroom. We've been living in less then desirable conditions in our bathroom. No matter how much I clean and scrub, I still can't get over the broken tiles, mold, and drywall that is missing by the bathtub. 

We've purchased our tile and it just needs to be picked up from the store. We decided to go the subway tile route, but instead of plain subway tile, it has a beveled edge. Ooo fancy.

The tile is going to go along the bottom half of the bathroom walls and continue into the shower. A piece of chair rail tile is going to finish off the top edge in the main part of the bathroom. 

A while ago, my parents renovated their basement and put in a bathroom downstairs. They had some floor tile leftover so we'll be using that for our floor. Cost: free!

Next up is lights: Gavin and I went window shopping at one of the big box stores to price out light fixtures and to see what was available. These are the two contenders that we need to decide on. I'm leaning towards the one in the middle, especially since it is cheaper at $55.00 and the other one is $69.00 (give and take a few pennies). 

So those are our plans so far. I still need to decide on paint and hooks, towel holders, fun stuff like that. These are some of the pictures that inspired these decisions. Remember, like always, don't pin from this post. Click the link and go to the website. 

 Birch and Lily, 320 Sycamore, Holly Mathis Interiors

The Lettered Cottage, source unknown, Houzz

To say I'm excited is putting it lightly. Jesse will be ripping out everything next Friday if everything goes well. It's a long weekend here, so it's the best time. That also means we won't have a shower for a few days, but hopefully we can get the toilet in sooner than later. :S 

Happy weekend!

Exciting News

Are you ready for it? 

We are renovating our bathroom! Yahoo! 

Our bathroom is gross, terrible, disgusting. Not because I don't clean it. I keep a pretty clean bathroom. 

No, our bathroom is old. Moldy. And just disgusting. 

Broken tiles on the floor. Drywall that is chipping away by the shower. Mold growing in the window frame that is in the bathtub (don't get me started). 

Sounds like a horror house doesn't it? Here are some pictures:

So maybe you don't think it's that bad. You've seen worse. Okay, but it's still gross. 

But the day has finally arrived. Fresh drywall. New tile. Paint. A non-rusty light fixture. No more mold in the window frame in the shower. Goodbye old plastic shade. 

We aren't going to replace any of the fixtures in the bathroom. The toilet, pedestal sink and tub are all staying. They are in good shape, so we decided to keep them. Plus the tub is cast iron, which means heavy, and we aren't in the position to carry it down the stairs and lug a new one up the stairs. So it's staying. 

I have been scrolling through Pinterest for a while now, drooling over the gorgeous bathrooms, getting ideas for our bathroom. Our bathroom is the size of a postage stamp, so we can't do anything crazy with vanities or constructing a lounge space in one of the corners.

I am going to make up a moodboard with some ideas that we're hoping to incorporate into our bathroom. That will be for you to see tomorrow! 

Anybody else have any other crazy/disgusting/sad-looking bathrooms? How about the window in the shower? Who decided that would be a good idea!? 

Chaos and More Chaos

I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend! We had decided that Monday was the day to get things done off our list that we had been wanting some time to do.

Seth tried to finish more of the downstairs bathroom which he says is all ready for me to install a toilet, sink and faucets. I've never tried that before but it can't be too hard, right?!

I got more of my bathroom finished by reinstalling the toilet paper holder and getting the towel rack back up on the wall. I didn't realize how important that was, but after two weeks of picking up wet towels that had been dropped on the floor, it was time.

I also got two coats of stain on my kitchen. With Seth's help, I got all of the appliances out of the way and everything taped up. I find that is the absolute worst part. It's so boring to me. There's none of the good results, just cleaning. My garage is full of kitchen cabinet doors everywhere and it's like a game to try to get through without stepping on anything important.

So, instead of showing you anything that was completely finished, I decided to show you what a house looks like that's in the middle of renovations:

Pretty bad, right? I just keep thinking that it will all be worth it in the end! I have one more coat of stain before I start putting coats of urethane on. My dad has picked out a wonderful countertop for us so I have that to look forward to as well.

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Bathroom Cabinet Redo

I've had a very good week for getting things done. Last week, I took apart my bathroom cabinet and started to re-stain the whole thing. I'm not going to lie, it was a lot of fun! I love the process of DIY-ing and the fact that I saved a lot of money for a whole new look for my bathroom. I'm still waiting to order some new hardware since the old hardware was completely awful. What were they thinking with gold and wood tones?!

But now I love the cabinet. I don't even mind the counter anymore! The dark espresso of the cabinet pulls more grey and white tones out of it instead of the green.

I know the pictures aren't wonderful, but today it rained for the first time in a month and the lighting in the bathroom is terrible. When it's all done and put together, I'll (hopefully!) get some really good pictures. But just trust me when I tell you it looks wonderful!

I would have loved to have ripped out all the cabinets and put in beautiful new ones but after having a good conversation with both my dad (who owns a high-end kitchen company) and Faith (did you know she's a designer??), we all agreed the cabinets were in really good shape and there wouldn't be any new radical look that could be accomplished in either that space or the kitchen. Sometimes it's just better to re-use what you have instead of throwing it all out. In this case it saved me a lot of money! Instead of a few thousand dollars for a new cabinet, I've updated it for about $50. Not too shabby!

And yes, if you've noticed, in the pictures my "handles" are bits of painters tape. My dad always puts on painters tape while you're waiting for your hardware. That way you can still open the doors easily!

Next week, I'll be starting on the kitchen which will probably take me a lot longer than the bathroom did. For the weekend, I'm headed off with my girlfriends for a weekend of fun! I'm so excited! 

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The Bathroom Vanity

On the quest to make my bathroom a much nicer place to be, I have been pouring over the pictures on houzz.com of all the gorgeous bathrooms. Some of the bathrooms are bigger than my bedroom - I'm not even kidding!

Contemporary Bathroom design by Dc Metro Architect Lori Shaffer

Since I can't change the square footage of the room, I've been trying to focus to the things that I can change. The vanity is on my current list of things that I am trying to accomplish.

Traditional Bathroom design by Denver Interior Designer Chalet

I found a wonderful tutorial from this website about how to stain my cabinets espresso. I was a little intimidated to start but now that I'm near the finish line, I'm so excited! I'm at the "waiting for it to dry" stage and it's almost killing me.

Traditional Bathroom design by Toronto Photographer Buchman Photo

Hopefully I'll get the last two coats of polyurethane on before the weekend so that I can find some gorgeous new hardware to put on it. Thankfully the weather has been so wonderful that everything is drying so much faster than it says it should! 

If everything turns out right (fingers crossed!) I'll have some pictures for you by Monday. Have a great weekend everyone!