A Finished Project

I swear nothing gives me more pleasure and satisfaction then finishing a "long time coming" project, whether that be one of our home projects, or in the yard or even a craft project.

The husband installed the closet system over the Labor Day holiday weekend and it's a good thing we had the extra time because as I started bringing clothes back in the closet, I think we ended up re-configuring things at least three times, but finally found what is going to work well for us.

 

Taking the door off was the right thing to do.  Makes it way more spacious than it is.  Like I said in my last post, it's only 6' deep and 7' across which is small for a master closet.....both the closet and the master bathroom in this house were disappointing to me, but coming from a two bedroom, one bath bungalow, they weren't deal breakers, the other storage in this home more than made up for the master's shortcomings.

Of course, my stuff takes up 3/4 of the closet and my husband gets the rest but that works because his current job's dress code is t-shirts and jeans, so his casual polo type shirts are only worn when we go out to the movies, or out to eat, etc.   Even so, they are much more accessible and his shoes are underneath his shirts.  We also have a spot for the basket that has our shoe cleaning/waterproofing supplies in it.

While my stuff was out of the closet, I did another purge and pared it down some more, some went to my sister, the rest will be donated.  In another month, I'll be switching out seasonal clothing

In the meantime, I pulled all my black, white, and gray colored clothing from the rest and using the new space in the back of the closet where the built in was, put my white on the lower rod and the gray on the upper along with the small amount of purple I have.  We even have room to store my yoga mat (I do yoga in our bedroom) and our down comforter we use in the winter on the shelf between the clothes.

The rest was organized by ROYGBIV as best I could.  All my black and black prints are hung on the bottom rod along with pants and capri pants and I hung some of my Hawkeye gear to the front of the top rod.

Over on the top shelf of the husband's side of the closet, I have canvas storage bins with my boots, seasonal shoes, totes & small bags, and swimwear stored.

One the top shelf of my side of the closet, I store my gym bag, a basket of hangar clips, my blue felt fedora and purses.......my precious.  😀

My purses....sigh, I needed a way that I could see what I had.  Before the re-do, they hung on large S hooks on the lower rod of the husband's side, but the closet door swung in to the closet and was usually open, so quite a few of them were hidden from sight unless I stepped in the closet and shut the door.

Now, they are all out for me to see!

The two drawer unit we installed holds my undies and bras and the wire basket holds my various pajamas.  Of course, I had to give my Iowa Hawkeye purse the love and recognition it deserves.  

I needed a way to get some of the purse to stand up better rather than flopping over.  No way was I spending the money for purse shapers, they are expensive!

I have the satin bags that the Michael Kors came in but you can't see them if you store the purses in the bags, so they are folded away for safe keeping.  I didn't want to use tissue paper and my first thought was pool noodles!.....I could cut them up and stuff them in the purses, but unfortunately I couldn't find any pool noodles this late in summer so as I was wandering my local dollar store, I saw children's water wings, swim arms, whatever for $1 a pair and BINGO, the light bulb goes off and I think I'll blow those up and stuff them in the purses....

They worked perfect and it only cost me $8 bucks!

I also found this cool purse hanging gizmo on Amazon and I hung more of my purses on that.  I have a lot of purses, but I use them and like to switch them out frequently.

All and all, I'm really pleased with the makeover of the closet and wish we would have done it much sooner than we did, especially when I was still working, but hey, we can enjoy it now.  The husband even thinks it was a good idea now that it's done.  

Thanks for stopping by and letting me tell you all about our DIY home projects or décor!

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!

 

 

 

 



~**Let's Talk Bathrooms Part 2**~

Since I'm finally starting on our master bathroom update, I thought I'd share the guest bathroom that I painted a couple of months ago.  It was still the same Sherwin Williams "Dover White" that the contractor had painted the entire house in eleven years ago.  It wasn't horrible, but it was time for a fresh coat of paint.  This bathroom is only used when we have house guests.  It's has a doorway into the guest bedroom and another doorway into the upstairs hallway.

 

As you can see it's a pretty basic bathroom.........

Here's the bathroom in a mid painting state.

 

I did want a fun way to offer up various toiletries that I have collected in my many travels and are perfect for guests to use.   I didn't have a lot of room and I was keeping all the toiletry samples in this IKEA glass jar, so whatever I decide to use has to be able to hold the jar.

I came across this wooden bar stool that looked to work perfect for what I had in mind. 

So, after my husband assembled it for me, I put the jar of toiletries on top and rolled up some extra towels and used the rungs of the stool to store those. 

 

I had some cute chalkboard tags that I found at the Target Dollar Spot, so I used one of them for cute way of letting my guests know they can use what they want.  :)

I was thinking about framing out the mirror and getting a new light fixture, but figured that could wait.  I have the master bathroom to think about.  I can come back and do that later.

To save a little money and because I like to repurpose things, I switched the relatively new shower curtain from our master bathroom to this bathroom.  I think it matched the Sherwin Williams "Blissful Blue" pretty well and it's such a pretty blue.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek at another project that I fill my retirement time with.

*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!