day 3

Demo begins! I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. We discovered mold today on the back of the closet drywall. I sprayed it down with bleach water and we will go ahead and replace it when we do the bathroom. I have also included a video of my version of demolotion. Enjoy!
I am dork. I know. But its funny

day 1

Sorry for the disgusting pictures but I thought you might want to see the ugly of bathroom renovation. All work done by Hubby with help from his helpful assistant



The inside of a 50 year old toilet. I think I'll go ahead and splurge for a new one.

Taking down the old glass door.

Sink is gone.

Ready for demo

My latest find from home goods, mirror for above the sink. I'm not sure if you can see it but it has a shelf at the bottom.


And my precious vanity. I haven't made up my mind about painting it blue. I am thinking distressed wedgewood? What do you think?

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
-Bethany

a little inspiration

I've been sick for the past couple of days, so lying around the house and blogging sounded pretty good. I started looking for some inspiration pictures for bathroom #3.

Hello beautiful! The wall color is a little bold for me, but I would love to paint my vanity that color. The problem is our bathroom is small and I am thinking it would be better if it was monocromatic. We'll see.


This one is a little too boring for me... I like the subway tile and beadboard, but it needs to be spruced up a bit.


Yumm another blue vanity


I really love this bathroom, but its probably not going to happen in this house. Maybe the next one : )




I'll keep you posted on my progress.

lucky finds keep me on budget

My mother has been sending me all these emails recently about how home renovations are failing to recoup their value, leaving me in quite a conundrum. It has pushed me to become more creative and more $$ savy in our renovations.

I began my search for the old sink replacement for bathroom #3. It had to be petite and fancy, and cheap. Did you know that wal-mart sells granite top vanities? I scoured the internet but in the end fell in love with a vanity from Lowe's. It was beautiful, with marble countertop, in my budget, and ... permantly out of stock. As in none in the state of Texas.


So I gave in and bought the floor model. She is a little gap-toothed, but we are going to get a replacement backsplash at the local stone yard. You are never going to guess what I paid for her...


That's right TWENTY BUCKS!


Ta dah! Will be perfect as soon as we replace the backsplash.

formerly known as the blue room

This room is a perfect example of how some paint can really spruce up a place.
It took me almost 3 weeks (while I was unemployed) to prep the room, strip the wallpaper, and then paint the walls, ceilings, and trim. Without the help of my mother, mother in law, and hubby, it would have been 3 months.

Before

I really wish I had a close up of the old ceiling fan. I could best describe it as Beaumontlicious.


After




I also wanted to mention that the cost of this room was about 4 gallons of paint. Luxury bedding was custom made from mother in law to hubby, as a law school graduation present(copied from Fendi) and all furniture was hand me down from hubby's lovely sisters. Paint color is Sherwin Williams Tavern Taupe.

bathroom #3

Sometimes it takes something to inspire me to blog. As we tackle our third and final bathroom I once again feel the same excitement I did on the first one. Picking out the materials, cleaning up the dust, and watching Hubby do most of the work. At first we thought we would just spruce it up a bit, new fixtures, remove the paint from the tile (yes previous owners painted navy paint on the trim), and some general elblow grease. The problem is that, once you live with a brand new bathroom, its hard to live with an old one. So, bathroom #3, we are taking you down to the studs.

Let me show you what we're working with.


No matter how hard I clean you, you still disgust me.


What lovely legs you have. I actually find this sink charming, but it is lousy for storage and trying to get ready on it is next to impossible.

Here is the progress we made stripping the paint of in about 3 hours. After all the fumes we inhaled we decided for the same amount of time we could gut the whole thing. Right. I'm sure it will be finished in a timely 3 months.

I will keep you updated on our progress and my shopping : )

-Bethany

for the love of toile.

My house and I were meant to be. Although we tear down walls and rip out tile, I am confident that if the very first owners who built it decades ago saw it today, they would be pleased. My proof? After deciding to tackle the third and final bathroom, we ripped down the pink wallpaper to find...


Blue and white toile! I am pretty sure it is original to the house and that it was papered over by the last owners.


My cheesy self in the mirror...


Now its in three rooms in my house... bathroom.... dining room


annnnd guest room.


I think I need to get a life...

living room lights - check

So I was skeptical about this whole project. But its done!!!! No more stumbling around in the dark, no more awkwardly placed lamps, and no more construction dust in the living room. Lights are up, holes are patched (and much to my delight they are PERFECT!) We are DIYers that do electricity... or rather, Hubby is a DIYer that does electricity.

Pretty snazzy. Bringing our house into the 21st century one room at a time. And just a little reminder of what it looked like before (below)

Happy Birthday Hubby!!! It's Hubby's birthday today and he is hard at work patching the holes in the living room ceiling that we made while installing the recessed lighting. I will post more about that when we have a finished product. Hubby's family came in this weekend to help and we completed the drapes and they are up! We sewed on 30 yards of trim. And by we, I do mean myself as well. I sewed, and I have pictures to prove it.

I just couldn't help myself, my precious little nephew Wesley

The beginning... only 8 more panels to go...

The proof... I can sew

The dining room/sweatshop. It's wasn't so bad, there was wine. Thanks Hilary and Carolyn

Ta dah! French doors in the master bedroom and the new curtains.

Beautiful
Hubby's pride and joy, the tv niche we had put in when we expanded the closet.

I am loving how tall the curtains make our ceilings look. Please disregard our lack of bedding... we will have something by winter...

Here is the only "before" picture we have. You get the point - it wasn't pretty

Master Bath

It's kind of hard not to jump around with this whole blog. The reality of it is, that's how things go around our house... we have 10 projects going at one time. Next weekend we hope to hang our curtains in our master bedroom, so I thought it was finally time to reveal the master bathroom. Hubby gave me a new master bathroom for a wedding present before I moved into the house. I can't think of a more perfect gift!

Here is the before. Obviously previous owner's stuff. One tiny sink. No storage and maroon tile. And that little light you see, was the only lighting besides a dingy ceiling fixture.

Right outside the bathroom there were built in drawers. The old school kind without rollers... we tore them out and made this area part of the bathroom so we could have a double vanity.

Props to hubby who did ALL the demo. The tile was layed in this concrete backed by mesh. It was really impossible to tear it all out.

Here you can see the studs that divided the bathroom and the little area with the built ins.

I won't miss that wallpaper

Time to get to work! We had a contractor do the drywall, but we layed all the tile ourselves.

Hubby working on the tub surround

Getting there. Tiling those niches was a major pain... but so worth it now that its finished.

Since we tiled to the ceiling, we went ahead and put in an extra tall shower curtain. You can really see how tall our ceilings are. We also added crown molding and grey paint.

Recessed cans. Not so dark in the shower anymore : )

Beautiful shower

Double vanity I purchased at: http://www.directtoyoufurniture.com/product.aspx?ID=195237&CatID=1393&s_cid=nxt195237 ... It's a knockoff of Restoration Hardware... a little scary having something that big shipped in the mail but it was flawless and 1/3 of the price.

Mirrors I got a Lowes, Sconces are from Restoration Hardware, and faucets are Delta Victoria widespread in chrome finish.

Quite a transformation don't you think??? We are so pleased with the way it turned out.