The Bathroom That Wouldn’t Die

One of my friends said it seemed like Love it or List it and that’s pretty accurate, except Daniel is way smarter than Hillary, thank The Lord.

We were on our vacation paradise when I saw a missed call at 11AM from Daniel, our contractor, which is like… Continue reading

I can see!

*Cue the Most Interesting Man in the World* I don’t write a ton of entries, but when I do, it’s all on the same day.

Ugh, so we’ve covered the fact that the bathroom is dark. One of the things I didn’t change last time was the overhead light, which needed it desperately. Not great lighting, y’all. It seriously is the ugliest light I have ever seen, save for the one in our hallway upstairs (there is totally a reason you have never seen a room up there).

old light

I went to Lowe’s and seriously could NOT find a light that I wanted that was small enough to fit there (the ceiling curves RIGHT after it, so a flush-mount wouldn’t really work. Nothing jumped out at me…at all. And the things I did like were outrageously priced compared to the stuff I’d seen at Home Depot. I wandered the aisles, totally annoyed that we couldn’t actually change the true problem, which was the lack of lighting, and I went and gazed longingly at the track lighting. As I was there, I noticed a light that just might work…except I had NO IDEA if you could just…do that. It was perfect, though, if it would work, and it was like $25 so totally worth the risk. Hubbin put it up tonight when he got home from work and viola!! It’s GORGEOUS and fits PERFECTLY and is REALLY bright (though I couldn’t really get a decent picture of it with the light on.

new lightI am SO happy with it!

Is that green paint in your hair, ma’am?

No sir, that’s Sea Sprite paint in my hair.

Here’s your other sneak peek, because I paint seriously quickly. Also, I’m nearly positive I found Patient Zero of the stinkbug epidemic. Like seriously. I took the lights off again and like a gazillion came out. I’m not even kidding you, I looked like this: Continue reading

Sneak Peek!

When I got home last night, Hubbin had assembled the new vanity. I ordered different hardware than it came with because I wasn’t wild about the pulls.

sink

These match the kitchen and I LOVE them. I also completely love the way the sink is. It’s not totally finished – obviously the drain isn’t put in and also because it’s sitting in our living room, but I am getting really excited! Yesterday I ran to TJ Maxx and grabbed a new shower curtain rod, hooks, a liner, and a decorative cup and soap dispenser, and then to Lowe’s to get a new light fixture and Satin Nickel spray paint.

IMG_1060

You see, we have these awful sconces in the bathroom right now, and Hubbin wants to keep them only because they also have electrical outlets on them. I could notreally care either way, but we do only have one other outlet in the entire bathroom, so I didn’t fight him on that. I wasn’t having dark sconces though, so I spray painted them. I figured the worst it could do would be to ruin them, and then I’d get new pretty ones anyway. Seemed like a win-win for me. It’s not great, but it’s not as bad as it could be. I need to pain and then decide. It’s hard to tell the way it is now.

Bathroom Renovation, Take 56

Ugh, y’all. Do you remember the month it took me to reno my bathroom last time? Well, it’s time again.

Hubbin and I have been in this limbo area for a while now, and it’s incredibly frustrating. Our house is small, at 1248SF, and there is ONE, TINY BATHROOM, y’all. There is little to be left to the imagination between a couple when you have to share a bathroom. And we have two girls. We are outgrowing this house so quickly. There are too many people in too little space. There’s not a single closet that exists outside of a bedroom – let that one sink in. Nowhere to put coats, or linens, or whatever people put in pantries. Nowhere for the vacuum cleaner or broom. There is storage upstairs, which consists of only two bedrooms, (and takes up room space to give you the closets), but it is hardly adequate for me and my shopping issue family.

We’re in limbo about where to move – we want a different school district, but we live in between two cities and one of us works in 45 minutes east and the other works 35 minutes west.

Adding to the frustration is the fact that our home is zoned residential/commercial, which is great if you want options and awful if you want to know if you should put any money into your house. I’m not opposed to putting money into the house, but I am opposed to just throwing it in the garbage, which is exactly what will happen if it sells commercial and they raze it for the awesome lot it’s on. But if it sells residential, it needs work. So we’ve been in this balancing act, wondering what is truly the “must do” stuff to get this place ready for the market.

One of them is that it is a huge downside to have a one-bathroom house. And on top of that, it’s a SMALL bathroom, because at some point, they gutted 1/4 of the bathroom to build out a closet for the room next door. Adding another bathroom really just isn’t an option because there’s nowhere to put it, so the result is that if we have to have one bathroom, it needs to be a good one.

And I am too tired to do this again and too unskilled to do much more than, essentially, lipstick on a pig. The last renovation/makeover of the bathroom was essentially lipstick on a pig but made a drastic difference and I’m super proud of how phenomenally different it looks and how I seriously did all of that pretty much myself (Hubbin did the things I asked him to and stayed out of my way for the rest). However, what you don’t see in the after photos is that the camera shots are incredibly carefully planned. Overall, I am happy with the last makeover, but there are things that just have to be changed. For instance, the shower surround constantly gets mildew no matter how much I caulk it. It just always comes back and it looks horrible. And, the super high-end flooring (aka a high class peel and stick wood “look-a-like”) is moving a bit and it smells like…bathroom.

Bathroom

And if one, tiny bathroom isn’t enough, there’s not a single window in the entire tiny room. So, while I still love that Blueblood color, it’s just too much for how small the bathroom is. Balanced with the floors, it’s too dark, even with the board and batten. We finally agreed that the bathroom needed a true renovation by people more skilled than myself, and chose the super-awesome Daniel Adams with Tentmaker Roofing & Construction, planning to pull the trigger some time in November. Then we realized that, um, when are we going to not need our bathroom for a few days so this can happen? Well, how about when we go on vacation, which was like…three weeks away. Because why simplify things and take your time when you can make serious decisions in totally limited time?

So our bathroom is being renovated while we are on vacation! I am super excited. I’d picked out the paint a few months ago. We picked out new rectangular tile flooring, glossy white subway tile for the shower (YAY no more falling down surround!!), a new vanity, new faucet, and new shower faucets. In addition, I grabbed some glass mosaic tile that I scored for $3.27/sf to add accent to the top of the shower. We are ready and elated.

Then we realized that we had to get ready for Back to School (The Oldest One will have to miss the first two days, since when booking our vacation for August 10th, I didn’t consider that school would be back in session. Why? Because HELLO IT IS STILL THE SUMMER LOOK AT THE CALENDAR!), order and receive all the supplies that we chose to purchase separately, pack for a family of four for vacation at a Castle in the Sky (no, literally), work full-time, paint the bathroom, prep the bathroom, fix the bathroom fan, assemble the vanity, and, as a plus, I’ve been in a walking boot for the last 3 weeks because I have ignored Turf Toe for the last six months instead of taking care of it and I’m like half-crippled now. (I’m actually out of it as of yesterday, thanks to properly treating the injury by consulting with Dr. Google and her partner Dr. YouTube (yes, her – Google knows everything so obviously it is a woman), which really solve everything so I don’t know why I bothered with the orthopedic surgeon in the first place, who wasn’t sure what it was and thought I should wait it out because apparently six months of pain is not enough. I’m walking fine now and essentially threw in the half-crippled part for dramatic effect and I think it worked well.).

I am tired, y’all. I cannot wait to leave for vacation and I cannot wait to get back from vacation to my actually remodeled bathroom. Because this post is long enough already, I am not adding links to all the fun things I’m putting in there. We’ll save that for another post.

And for anyone that might be interested in buying our home, all the things I said above are totally exaggerated, it is a sprawling mansion and there is so much room we cannot find each other half the time and I haven’t seen Grumpy Toddler in a month but I’m nearly positive she’s here somewhere.

Yes, one of those differing accounts is a great exaggeration. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which one.

Also, just for fun, look at the view from the private pool at my castle:

Yeah…that’s JUST ours.

Is it time to leave yet?!

The Oldest One’s Room

I saved this one for tonight because I know y’all have nothing better to do on a Friday night than wait for a new blog of mine.

Last year, when she went to camp, I did a room makeover. Shockingly enough, I cannot find any after pictures. The room makeover actually started around this specific chair, and the entire room was planned around it. Then, when I went to go get it, it was…gone. Last one, too, because it was custom made. I had a complete meltdown. I never did get another chair. I did take pictures before this newest makeover, in her ridiculously messy room – here is what the newer configuration looked like, but believe me when I tell you that it did NOT look like this when we did our big reveal last year. Continue reading