I struck gold! With a toilet.

Yes, I know. How terribly exciting, a blog about a toilet. What you need to know is that I always find the best price on home improvement stuff. I buy generic, I buy from China and I am allll over eBay. Well I spent hours looking for a smaller toilet (from front to back) because in the old powder room you had to pee side saddle. No joke. A large man could not fit his legs in front because the wall was too close. So I found this Rialto toilet from Kohler that was 25 inches from front to back. And it was silly expensive, but it was the only one I could find. So hubby and I went over to the Kitchen and Bath showroom here in Beaumont prepared to slap down $300+ on this ugly toilet. But....

We found this instead!!! For less than $100. The man at the Kitchen and Bath showroom was so helpful. This toilet is also 25" front to back. It is a Vortens Vienna toilet with a round bowl. I am so happy. About a toilet!! I need to get a life...

Have a great weekend!!

-Bethany

Powder Room- In Progress

Here is the before picture. And by before, I mean when the previous owners lived here. We don't do fuzzy toilet seat covers. Yuck. You may notice that half of these pictures were taken on move in day... and the other half were about a year later when we finallllly got around to finishing it. Did I say finished? It's not finished. Plumbers shaded out and as I sit here today... it is still torn up. It will happen next week. I am confident.

Can you spot the radiator?

Die mirror.

Scoring wallpaper. I hate wallpaper. It was directly glued to the wall (the old school way) and it was a nasty disaster that took me days to strip.

They covered the bottom half of the walls with cork. Yes cork. I guess we could have used it as a cork board...

Look what we found! A yardstick in the wall. Nailed to the stud.

Ughhhh I hate you wallpaper

Avocado and mellow yellow. Lovely.

Rarrr.

And the last of the old bathroom.... now for the new

Gorgeous Gorgeous Gorgeous. And timeless. Honed carrera marble with black marble dots. I'm going with the basketweave because we are trying to be as historically accurate as possible. I am so stinking excited. And I got it off eBay, from the Mosaic Tile Wholesaler. It was a splurge but our bathroom is teeny so it won't be too bad.

Up close.

And here is my sconce... also fabulous. I am patiently awaiting its delivery. Sheffield two light sconce from http://www.bellecor.com/

This is the paint treatment I want to use, but probably using more of a grey/taupe color. Its called dragging. Its supposed to look like a linen kind of. I am thinking I may use a silver glaze to jazz it up a little, but that is tbd.

< Here is how you actually apply the texture. I have yet to do any fancy paint techniques so I figured a nice small room would be a good place to start.

http://www.valspar.com/do-it-yourself/steps/Painting_Decorative_Dragging_Linen.html

Well, thats all I have for now. If the drywall man comes next week we will be tiling soon!

-Bethany

Dining Room

This is the first room we worked on in the house. I was dying to start painting something... anything!!! So we painted the dining room.... twice. Here is the before:

This dining set was given to us by Eliot's aunt. I love free furniture. We found a fabulous blue and brown toile at Glicks in Houston and Carolyn (my mother in law) did the upholstery for us. Choosing a paint color is a challenge for me. In progress.

Hubby painting the ceiling. Me painting the wall - this would be paint color #1. Which was horrible.

Ugh. So much blue tape. We fell in love with the house because all of the architectural details and molding. I did not consider what a pain in the butt it would be to paint it all!!!

Chandelier Hubby bought me for birthday and Christmas of '08. It is an estate piece, originally made before electricity when they still used candles. You can see the wires they added afterwards. I found it at McManus, a lighting store here in Beaumont.

Here is the chair "after".

In love.

My AMAZING custom curtains. Thank you again to my mother in law who made them!! They are a coppery dupioni silk (the same color as my ceiling) with chunky aqua tassels. Tassels were a hobby lobby find (purchased with coupons!!). And, my newly refinished floors.

TA DA!!! The after. I haven't done any of the accessories yet but the rest of the big stuff is done. I am so happy with the way it turned out. The wall color is Sherwin Williams Contentment and the ceiling is Mesa Tan with a quart of copper glaze added to it. Trim is Roman Column.

Hurricane Ike

Ike hit us almost a year ago, but we are still dealing with the damage it caused in our yard and home. I just wanted to share a few pictures.

-Bethany

ps. This happened two weeks before Hubby was supposed to propose to me, and I was not living in the house yet. Can you imagine the stress?!!!


Our front yard and shredded gate.

Tree on the back of our house

Our First House

Welcome to my blog...

My husband and I have a passion for renovating our historic district home and have created this blog to share our stories with our friends and families.

We are newlyweds (April 2009) and are learning what it takes to live in a home under construction. We have had a few bumps in the road (hurricane Ike), but are excited to finish our beautiful home....

If there is such a thing as finished : )

I have gotten many ideas for my home from other bloggers out there... I hope I can inspire you as well.

-Bethany