Guest Bathroom Makeover

I know some of you have been waiting for these posts.  It is of our bathroom renovation that started at Christmas time with demolition and it slowly grew to be a bigger project than we originally anticipated.  Also, since we had a little one in the mean time, everything pretty much was placed on hold till recently as we finally finished adding the last minute accessories.  We are glad that we did it and that it is for the most part done!

Here are the pictures of the whole process.

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After:

Here is the evidence of all the work that went into the bathroom. :)

We started this project with the intent of just replacing the tub with a stand shower and linen closet in the corner.  Since the bathroom was so small and we have another tub already, we can do without one here and stand to make this bath feel a little bit bigger, or at least give a bit more room.  After tearing out the tub, we found out that we had 16 inches of dead space behind it that is extremely valuable in a really small bathroom.  With that discovery, our project doubled in size.  Now, we decided to tear down the wall and make a new one farther back, but in order to do that, we had to empty all the blown-in insulation that had fallen from the ceiling (since they didn't know there was a whole there).  That little space took bags, and bags, and bags full of insulation.  Poor Andrew was itchy for several days.  We didn't rush too much on it, but simply worked a couple nights each week and Saturdays here and there.  I wonder if the people at Menards recognize us, as we ended up there many times after realizing we need one more item or the item we got, wouldn't work, etc.

Once we were able to clean out the blown insulation, we tore off the rest of the drywall, cleaned out the rest of the insulation, and old subfloor, as it was rotting in a few places.

Here you can see fresh insulation, a fresh 1/4" OSB subfloor, and new plumbing for both the shower and sink.

You can see here that the new vinyl floor is already in.  The new shower stall is placed on top and they are starting to hang the new drywall up.

Here is the beautiful, but not yet complete, shower base and walls.

Taping and mudding all the cracks and corners.

I realized I didn't end up with any pictures of the painting process, but you can see the results in the final outcome.  We do certainly enjoy our 'new' bathroom and also the larger floor space for comfortableness in dressing, etc.  I also have another linen closet to use, which was great a necessity. 

A Fresh New Look!

My dad does maintenance at our church's local elderly manor and came home with this beauty!  Apparently it didn't work anymore, so the lady had him hang a new light fixture in its place.  So he brought it home to see if anyone wanted to use it or play around with it.  When I saw it, I immediately asked if I could have it!  A can of paint, some new wire, a new chain, and bulbs brought this light fixture a long way to looking much more appealing!

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A Change of Headboard

Here is a view at my painting project that was started in the fall, but then it got too cold to be working in the garage, so was put on hold till now. I finally have been able to complete the headboard and am currently working on the matching nightstands. White spray paint, glazing tinted with black and lots of sanding with a fine sandpaper is what transformed this piece of furniture.

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Our Painted Kitchen

Here are some pictures of our painted Kitchen. You will get to see it with the winter/christmas garlands (which are coming down soon) that I have displayed on top of the cabinets.  These pictures also give you a better idea of what the new laminate looks up against the cabinets compared to the original vinyl.  There are other things we would like to do in here as well, but due to cost, we are holding off on those things till later.

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Future Projects:
You see that wall between the Kitchen and Dining Room? We would like to eventually cut that in half and open it up a little more between the rooms.  Also we hope to put in a new counter top, sink, back splash, and lighting.

Living Room & Dining updates...

I can't say that the carpet we had in our living room and dining was bad or anything, but the vinyl in the kitchen floor definitely needed to be replace at some point.  Well, we decided to replace it all with a walnut wood laminate.  It is much easier to take care of with pets.  We chose a laminate because real wood was more expensive and wouldn't last under the toe nails of our lovely girl, Roxy, who loves to run around the house.

Completed floor, next on to painting...

We also chose one wall in our living room to be the accent wall, which I wallpapered.  We painted the walls a soft neutral, so as to not fight with the wallpaper and other accents in the room, like my red sofa! :)  Things are still a slow work in progress, as I would love to change out the area rug and a few other items in the room, but that will have to be for a different post.  Major things first and minor accent adjustments will happen later.

Painted, but without the wallpaper on the white wall

 Finally able to hang my clock and other accents

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Now to focus on the kitchen...

Master Bath Remodel

Since the tile around the tub was the big factor I had to work with (from the previous home owner), I searched hard to find a shower curtain to compliment the tile, which is also what I used to pick out my paint color. At first we were going to just repaint our master bath an actual color instead of white, but we ended up switching out the toilet into one of those nice dual flush toilets as well. Here is the bathroom transformation!

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