One Project Leads to Another

Last fall I published a post about a long time project regarding our master closet had finally come to fruition that you can read about here.  Since then I still get a bit of a thrill when I go into our closet, we've kept it neat and organized, but that's easy when the space works for your needs.

The one thing we hadn't done at that point was new carpeting for our master suite which also includes the closet.  We still had the old cheap contractor grade carpet in there.

It took me a few weeks to find a carpet I liked and then find a carpet installer, but finally in late October we replaced the 13 year old cheap carpeting with some beautiful griege Mohawk carpeting with a premium pad underneath.

Well, once that beautiful new carpet was installed, I could see how badly the room needed a coat of paint.  We had only painted the wall behind the bed as an accent wall in the 14 years we've been here, but the rest was the same contractor white; SW Dover White.  Our challenge in painting this room is we need at least a 10 foot ladder to get to the peaks of the bedroom and we don't own one that tall, so we had to rent one (little did we know that a very good friend had one that we could have borrowed.)

I decided to stay with the griege that I've painted the majority of the house with; Sherwin Williams Repose Gray.  Because of the woodwork, a gray with hints of beige works well in this house.

So, the painting project took up another weekend while we were still sleeping in the queen sized guest room bed and maneuvering around bedroom furniture and stuff stowed in the hallway and that guest room for at least a week.

Once we were able to put things back into the room, I needed to find a new headboard.  Our bedroom furniture is very heavy solid wood pieces and I wanted to lighten it up a bit with a wrought iron look plus it would match the black wrought iron drawer pulls on the furniture.  After a long search, I found this one at Birch Lane.

We also needed to lighten up our linens.  I stayed with the same gray and plum that we both like but found a new comforter set at Bed, Bath & Beyond for a really reasonable price.  I don't like to spend a lot of money on our bedding because our pets sleep with us and well....pet hair.  😀

I found the windows and clock above the bed at Gordman's and those bendable lights at each end of the headboard are clip on reading lights from IKEA.

The lamp on my night stand is also from IKEA as is the paper ball lantern hanging above one of my book shelves.  Funny story about that "book case".....15 years ago we used it for a pantry in the bungalow we lived in and when we moved here I took the door off and have used it as a book case ever since.

Here's the entry door to the room on the left and on the right is our master closet (we took the door off and are storing it in our basement), we like it better without.  It you look beyond the entry door, you get a peek at my craft room.

This is my dresser and on the top is where the jewelry I wear the most is stored.  I have four different jewelry hangers, a beautiful gilded one that looks like a tree branch with a small bird in the middle one I got on clearance at Pier 1, another tree branch hanger I found at Urban Outfitters, a small tree branch style that sits in a saucer I use for my most worn earrings.  I found that one at Target and behind that door is a hanging armoire for my costume jewelry I don't wear that often nut not quite ready to get rid of.

Here's the view from the entry door where you can see the bay windows, window seat and high beamed ceilings.  That ceiling fan is never leaving, we upgraded it years ago but it's a necessity for me during summer time and even some times in the winter if the air is stuffy.  The beams are lighted and look really nice at night.  

I really didn't want to buy new pillows for our window seat because they can get pricey and I still liked the ones we have, so when hunting for new bedding, I kept those pillows in mind.  They all came from either Pier 1 or Target and they did work perfect with the new bedding.

Here's another photo of this view that you can see the tall book shelf I purchased at IKEA last fall.  I also bought a nightstand for the spouse to use.  They are part of the HEMNES series and I chose a gray washed finish to again break up all the natural wood.  The spouse's lamp came from Target.

This is my nightstand.  There is just enough room for a cat to sleep on it, like our Tucker does sometimes.

We both love the way it turned out and how cozy it feels both in the daylight and at night.

Thanks for stopping by and on to the next project, but that one is outside.........

FINALLY...our Master Bathroom Update!

First of all....I can't believe that my last blog post was July 8th!  That is almost two months ago and I have lots to share.  I'm going to try and stay on a once or twice a week schedule this fall.

Second....I'm finally ready to share our master bathroom update that we've been working off and on since the end of May.   I was dealing with both a herniated C7 disc and a fractured ankle during the remodel so between those things, a couple problems we encountered and coordinating with both my husband and our plumber for time, it took twice as long as I should have, but we weren't in any hurry other than having a mess on our hands in our master suite for a while.

The bathroom is pretty large, but very poorly designed, lots of wasted space.  Unfortunately, we didn't have the budget to move plumbing around, so since we couldn't do that, there was no sense in spending money on new vanities, we just needed to update the ones we have!  About six months ago we replaced our toilet with a taller model that flushes quietly, yet strong, so we didn't have to worry about replacing that.  I also decided not to replace the vanity tops as there was nothing wrong with them, they are fine and a neutral off-white, so again, no sense in replacing.

I had half assed painted the bathroom in 2005 but I only did two walls and then did a paint effect around the ceiling parameter with small square sponges.

Here's some before pictures -

 

The tall white cabinets at the end of each of the vanities were purchased at IKEA a couple of years ago and the storage they provide comes in handy. 

We were still using the cheap ass light fixtures the contractor put in (I priced them....$13 bucks a piece) and the only nice thing I'll say about them is they give off good light, but their days were numbered.

 

Our vanities, although well built didn't come with hardware, so this update job includes new hardware for both of them.

 

 

and see that ugly sheet vinyl flooring?  It's history.

I'm pretty loyal to Sherwin Williams for paint, we have a store in my small burb, they have an awesome website to check out paint colors and I like it's durability.

 

For the bathroom, I chose SW6547 Silver Peony for the walls and SW6254 Lazy Gray for the cabinets and mirror molding.   The walls were done in SW Duration Home and for the vanities I used SW ProClassic Interior Acrylic Latex Enamel.

 

Here's a list of the things that we did -

 

1.  Painted the ENTIRE bathroom this time rather than just two walls.

2.  Painted both vanities and added hardware.

3.  Painted molding and framed both plate glass mirrors above the vanities.

4.  Replaced the light fixtures.

5.  Replaced the faucets.

6.  Took down the two towels rods and installed a bar of towel hooks instead.

7.  Replaced our shower head with a rain shower head and bought a new corner shower caddy.

8.  Installed new light switch plates.

7.  Installed new flooring.

 

Here's a few progress pictures of the priming, painting, installing, etc. that happened over couple of months.

 

 

I lined all of the drawers and the bottom of the vanities with really cute paper I found at the Dollar General for $2 bucks a roll.

A closer look at the light fixture.  THAT gave us a bunch of issues from me not finding anything I liked to having an electrical issue spring up after we took down the original fixtures that needed to be corrected.  After searching for several weeks on the internet for lighting with no success, I finally went back to Lowe's where I had seen a section in their lighting department that was a "build your own" type thing and I found the right size fixture in the right finish and the perfect glass globes.  I wanted clear and I love that these are seeded.

 

The flooring was a whole another issue.....my husband was dragging his feet for weeks on this, so I compromised and said it could wait until I returned from a girl's retreat in Colorado.  The weekend after I came home, we started and although just a couple spots that were tricky, we were both surprised how easy and quick it went down.  Total time = about six hours which included breaks.

This is fabulous flooring if your not looking to use ceramic tile in a room that gets moisture.  It's vinyl plank flooring and I found it online at Home Depot.  The product is TrafficMASTER Allure and it comes in 6" x 36" planks.  The online reviews were what convinced me to use it, plus it was affordable, especially when DIYing it.

 

There's my handsome husband.  :)  

 

 

Here's the finished product!!! 

 

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out since I couldn't have the 20K luxury gut job I would have liked to have. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The faucets were found at ATG Stores online and the vanity hardware at Menards.  Funny story about the hardware.  I ended up picking the exact same knobs as I did when we added hardware to our kitchen cabinets.

 

 

I'm not completely happy with the shower curtain I found, but it will do for now.  The picture on the left shows the color brighter than it really is, it's definitely more of a muted lavender.  The print above the toilet I found at ArtFest Midwest earlier this summer and framed it using a discounted brushed silver frame from Michaels.

 

I also made the decision to get rid of the two towel bars.  One was over the toilet where the framed print is now and the other was over on the wall where the tower hook bar now hangs.  That space is really completely wasted, so I thought we might as well take advantage of it and just hang our towels.

 

Want know how much we put into our update?  Here's the breakdown (round up or down):

 

1. Paint and Primer = $157.00
2. Light Fixtures = $116.00
3. Bathroom Faucets = $178.00
4. Curved shower rod, shower curtain, showerhead and shower caddy = $122.00
5. Framing the mirrors = $45.00
6. Vanity hardware = $29.00
7. Light Switch plates = $24.00
8. Bath Rugs (IKEA) = $30.00
9. Flooring = $168.00
10. Miscellanous = $40.00
11. New linens (Target) = $85.00

For a grand total of $994.00

 

Thanks for stopping by and seeing what took quite a bit of my time this summer!

 

 

 

 



*Dining Alfresco - Getting our deck ready for the season*

It's that time of the year where I bring out the things we use on our deck.  Cushions, pillows, planters, lanterns, candles, etc. and once the threat of snow passed, it's time to clean up and bring the stuff from storage.

We waterproofed our deck last year and I hate what it did to it, so I'm really hoping that it wears off this year so that next year, we'll do it right and with a better product.

I bring out the deck rug, cushion to my lounge chair & my deck poof as soon as I can but it's far from finished.

 

We keep our gas grill out on the deck year round and have been know to shovel a path through the snow in the winter to use it.  Those three container pots in corner are going to hold herbs soon.

 

I have a wire rack that I use out there and because it stays out there over winter, I usually have to touch it up with a few squirts of spray paint every year......this year was no exception.  I store a tote full of things that I like to display on that rack along with containers I plant with flowers that go on it.

This year I decided that I wanted to do something to the shelves of the wire rack besides touching it up with spray paint.  Since the shelves were wire, some thing were hard to stand up on them and I thought it could use some more weight.

I came up with the brilliant idea of thick wood pieces to act as shelves on top of the wire shelves.  So off to Lowe's I went and I came back with exactly what I was envisioning.   I found a 2 inch thick board that was 8 foot long, had Lowe's cut it to the dimensions I needed and I hauled the pieces home.

Here is one of the boards unfinished and one of them after I stained it using Minwax's Mission Oak.  It's a product that is both a stain & polyurethane.

 

 

After I was done staining, I also sprayed them with some Thompson Water Seal since they'll be outside.

 

 

I let the boards dry for several days before I went forward with the project.  In the meantime, I re-spray painted the wire rack and let it dry.

 

Once everything was dry and with the help of our son, I was able to move the wire rack back out to the deck and set the boards on the shelves of the wire rack.

 

Here's the rack filled with the planters and garden things I love.  There is a scented geranium planted in the owl planter and you can catch whiffs of it when you walk by.

 

 

This year I decided to dedicate this corner of our deck to mostly herbs with a container of petunias thrown in.  I've got chives (they survived the winter in the pot and started growing again), dill, basil, flat leaf parsley, thyme and mint growing here.  They do pretty good....lots of morning and early afternoon sun, but get a break from it in the evening.





New this years is my Hawkeye planter!  I had never seen these black & gold petunias until I was out at Canoyer Garden Center and saw them there.  I paired them with some yellow daisies.  This isn't the best photo of the planter and I think it will look better once it fills in.  I made the Hawkeye plant post myself using a post finial, black gloss spray paint, Herky stickers and sealant.....total cost...probably around $5 bucks.

 

This is a huge dish planter that I scored at IKEA years ago and I use it for herbs also.  I have Rosemary and more Thyme planted in it this year.

A view of where I like to camp out on beautiful days.  Because the deck sits on the east side of our home, it's can almost too hot and sunny in the mornings so I have to use an umbrella when sitting out there.  After 2:00pm, the sun is over the house the it's shaded the rest of the day and evening.

 

Here's where we like to dine when the weather cooperates.  I bought new chair pillow this year in a blue, green and yellow color scheme and they are just the right thing to support your back if needed.



Of course our deck wouldn't be complete without paying homage to one of our favorite things in the world.......cats!  Found this guy (made out of salvage auto parts) at our local farmer's market years ago and he still makes me smile with I see it.

Enjoy your week!  I'm heading to Texas to see some long time friends and whoop it up a bit!