A Bathroom for Christmas

So I mentioned last week that one of my favorite things about Christmas this year was the bathroom remodel that we gave my mom for her gift.

The bathroom turned out even more beautiful than I possibly imagined. And for once, one of our projects turned out just as easy as it was supposed to. We painted the room while we were home for Thanksgiving, (the paint job was a belated Mother's Day gift), so everything else only took a day, and one trip to Lowes & one trip to Home Depot to finish.

This is a quick glance at what we started with. Granted, the spackle wasn't there when mom bought her house. We did that before we painted in November. Nothing was in bad shape, it just needed some updating.

The finished bathroom turned out exactly how I hoped. Even before we finished it, I couldn't help but post this photo on Instagram.

I hated mom's shower curtain rod since it was spring loaded. I wanted one that screwed into the wall. So, we replaced that with one from Lowe's for about $13. 

The shower curtain (the curtain was on clearance here in my local store), towels, & soap dispenser were from Target. The rug was from my favorite store in the worlds, Homegoods. 

My favorite addition to the bathroom was the framed watercolors. Those were free printables from Young House Love that Sherry & Clara painted in honor of an aunt that had passed away. I loved incorporating those into the room. Mother-daughter art work for a gift to a mother from her daughter. They were framed with Ribba frames from Ikea. Graham even matted them himself.

 The most expensive change we made was the countertop, which was annoying. We had planned to order a laminate countertop from Lowe's like the one we ordered for our bathroom remodel. In Arkansas, the countertop cost us about $90. The Lowe's here wanted to charge us $221. RIDICULOUS. So, we bought the basic white one from Home Depot.

I also hated the faucet. Ugly, chrome & very builder basic. So, we definitely replaced that with a new one from Lowe's. Super inexpensive fix, and it made a huge difference. The other easy, inexpensive switch we made was switching out the hardware on the vanity (which we painted, instead of replacing and it looks great!). Before it just had knobs, and I hate the look of knobs on doors. So, we replaced them with new stainless handles from Lowe's. It made a huge difference. 

My favorite updates that we made were the light fixture & the new mirror. I got the mirror at a GREAT price from Target thanks to coupons & the Cartwheel app. The light fixture was almost free from Lowe's, thanks to Swagbucks.

So... Merry Christmas, mom. Hopefully it still looks beautiful next time we come home =)

Our house is finished.

Welcome to our home. No matter where we go, this little house in Arkansas will always be special to me. This was our first home as a married couple, and we transformed every inch of this place from a dark & dated 1976 house, to a bright & modern home.

Stick a (4 ft.) fork in it, this kitchen renovation is DONE!

When I left you last time (a week & a half ago...) the kitchen was still pretty much a disaster. It took a while for it to get any better. We exceeded our time frame by exactly a week, and exceeded our budget, but it is so, so, so, so, SO worth it!

Do you know how exciting it is to make dinner on a brand new range?

It also took 400 MORE dollars and a drywall man (who worked till 1:30am on a Saturday night that we found on Craigslist) for it to get any better.

We learned a few VERY valuable lessons.

1. Dry-walling a kitchen by yourself for the first time ever when you're in a hardcore time crunch is not the best idea.
2. Know when to ask for help when you need it (help from a professional & help in the sense of your boss giving you time off from work).
3. DO NOT put HUGE projects like renovating an entire kitchen off until the very last minute. 

Graham is leaving tomorrow for Texas and this has not been our usual pre-goodbye weekend. Instead of happy, fun, quality time together, we've been working till all hours of the night getting this house ready to go on the market. And I dare say, it's finally ready. There are still a few things we need to do, but the kitchen was the last big thing and it is finally, finally finished. 

So, I'm going to stop rambling and flood you with pictures of my beautiful kitchen and start wishing we had done this two years and three months ago when I moved out here. 

Ugliest Kitchen Ever.

Being a procrastinator isn't necessarily a bad thing. Being married to one isn't a bad thing. But it does make life a little more complicated.

Graham is leaving for training in Texas pretty soon (like, less than two weeks), and the kitchen is the last major thing on our house to-do list. He took the week off work this week to get it, done, but it's safe to say he has his work cut out for him. 

Hopefully I'll have some after pics of this transformation to share on Sunday, but for now I leave you with the ugliest kitchen ever.

 The green counter tops are ugly, but they're in really good shape. Pretty much the only thing that is... 

The geniuses that lived here before us covered the wood paneling with wallpaper... but didn't go all the way up. Instead of doing it right, they attached an ugly piece of trim to the top to cover it . Eventually, someone painted over the wallpaper... Anyways, Graham ripped all of this down and is putting up new drywall.

 

Hideous, ancient appliances... 

By the end of day one, this is what we're left with. I honestly thought this kitchen couldn't get any uglier. Although now as we're going into day four, I realize I've said this every single day.

We're reusing the top cabinets, just making new doors. He does have to build new bottom cabinets, since a certain puppy I kind of love chewed them up during her chewing days... My job in this was removing the multiple layers of hideous, really sticky shelf paper that they used.

 

Graham actually decided to remove the bulkheads and open up the tops of the counters. It makes the room look so much more open & now that the sink isn't boxed in it looks so much brighter.

 

Since we're removing the bulkheads, we have to add on to the wall behind the cabinets. There was nothing there before, just paneling behind the cabinet, and the cabinet was bolted into the bulkhead. No now he is extending the wall, which means our pretty wedding picture display is temporarily gone =( and the living room is a mess too. The couch & our new chevron ottoman are covered in sheets to shield them from dust.

Day three looks even worse. The old paneling was gone, the back splash was gone, the counters are gone (they actually are getting resurfaced as I type this) and it currently looks like a war zone. We have no water, no stove, no microwave and I was forced to get take out last night since we couldn't cook anything.

I'm hoping to see a big difference when I get home from work today. Our new appliances come in today, and Graham started dry-walling last night. Hopefully the kitchen has hit rock bottom, and we're heading up to our new, bright, cheerful, modern kitchen. 

Master bathroom DONE!

This weekend we were able to mark a very significant item off of our big ass house to-do list: the master bathroom is finally finished.

You guys have NO idea how amazing it feels to have this bathroom finished. It has been sitting in shambles for almost a year. In January we finally started working on it again, and while it took a longer than we anticipated, it was absolutely worth it. The bathroom is small, and I wish it had a tub, but despite the tub, it is one of the most beautiful bathrooms I have ever seen.

I'm going to stop rambling now and let the beautiful bathroom speak for itself.

Graham had to custom build the vanity. If you remember from my original bathroom post, the floor is unfinished under the vanity. And of course it was an odd size. So our options were to finish the floor, or build a custom vanity. Graham loves woodworking, so he built this.

Doesn't even look like the same bathroom, does it?

Framing out the mirror made SUCH a huge difference. I think that this is something small and fairly simple that makes such a huge difference and makes the room look and feel so much finished.

The cubby hole is probably my favorite thing in the bathroom (other than the quatrefoil wallpaper). The cubby hole is a massive waste of space, and if we had more time and an unlimited budget, I would have liked to knock through the wall, dry wall it up and put in a bathtub. But, that wasn't in the budget or the time frame that we're dealing with. The door that Graham built looks absolutely beautiful. I love the glass, I love the hardware. I love that it makes it look a little bit bigger and gives you a focal point other than the teeny tiny shower.

The shower door was cracked and busted before, and was potentially going to shoot our budget through the roof, when Lowe's quoted us $600-$700 to have one custom made. But by doing a little research, we found a company online that made one for about $150.

Love the light fixture! 

 

And I love having this view from my bed. 

I absolutely could not be happier with this bathroom. It is so beautiful and Graham did such an amazing job! Now, onto the kitchen...

Bathroom Business

I freaking hate our bathroom. 

*sigh*

It's been almost a year since we first started on the bathroom. Then life got in the way (you know... deployments, vacations, holidays, laziness and other projects...) and it sat unfinished for quite a while.

Then January rolled around. And we realized that we're moving to Virginia sooner rather than later, and we needed to stop being lazy and get busy. So, we picked out pretty wallpaper and naively thought we'd be finished in no time. But, the universe likes to keep giving us the middle finger when it comes to this stupid, tiny, aggravating bathroom.

So, a month after we started wallpapering, we are so close to being finished I can almost taste it. And of course we run into a problem. Well, two problems. One: the piece that makes the shower door fit, doesn't fit. Two: the toilet has a crack in the tank.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhh!

So while it isn't finished, I was determined to start off the week with pictures of the bathroom and darn it, I'm going to do it!

It's not finished yet, but the before and after pictures of the vanity and the cubby hole completely blow me away. Have I mentioned how completely amazing my husband is? He has done all of this by himself. I've helped with some painting, caulking, sanding & picking out the pretty stuff, but he's done EVERYTHING. He built the vanity, he made the new door for the cubby hole, he wallpapered, he installed the new light fixture, faucet & moved the plumbing. He. Is. Amazing.

Hopefully I'll have a full bathroom reveal soon. I'm so excited to have it almost finished!

A weekend filled with cats, food & wallpaper struggles.

Hope everyone had a good weekend! I took Friday off of work, and other than an excruciating headache, it was a wonderful weekend.

 We started with some cat cuteness, as Buddy & Charlotte investigated the pineapple.

I made really delicious dinners.

Roasted Brussels sprouts & carrots, garlic & herb tilapia, & greek orzo.

Roasted broccoli, grilled pork tenderloin & hasselback potatoes.

I baked. A lot. I blame hormones. And headaches. And the fact that chocolate does cure any & everything that ails you.

Whoopie Pies with strawberry cream cheese frosting

Rolled in sprinkles for added festive-ness =)

Homemade brownies with Grater's Mint Chocolate Chip

 

Saturday, we had a date night at Sushi Cafe. 

Wasabi steamed pork dumplings. Amazing.

We devoured this platter of sushi!

And 9 months after we initially demo-ed the bathroom, we finally did something else to it. And keeping with tradition, nothing went smoothly. FYI: check batch numbers very carefully when buying multiple rolls of wallpaper. 

Oh well... it'll be really pretty when it's finished. 

Wallpaper going up... (and no, those are not stylized rain clouds =))

LOVE the pearliness of the lines in this.

I absolutely can not wait to see it finished.

It was an absolutely wonderful weekend! I hate that I feel like I'm wishing away my life, but I'm so glad we're already one day closer to Friday!

A semi-productive Sunday =)

So it was a decent weekend... at least as far as weekends go these days (only three more till Graham is home!!!).

This past week I bought a bunch of clearance autograph frames from Kohl's. They were $8 a piece, but thanks to coupons, I got six of them for about $20. The frames were black, and that's way too dark to hang in the guestroom. So today I spray painted them the same champagne color that I painted the quatrefoil mirror and framed some of my favorite instagram pictures of the animals and hung them over the bed. LOVE how this turned out.

But first, my mirror... I can't believe I never shared this!

Original mirror from Hobby Lobby

Much better thanks to a can of spray paint =)

Anyways... today those frames got the same treatment and the guestroom feels a little more finished. It still needs some type of window treatment, and new carpet. And I think I want to do something fun to the back of the bookcase. But it's starting to feel like a really nice room.

Looooooove this. I really love the bedding.

I also cooked some ridiculously delicious stuff today. I made a Chipotle inspired burrito bowl that was absolutely delicious and so easy to make. I'm not even posting this as a recipe, because it's just layering stuff. Mine was brown rice (cooked in chicken stock), spicy black beans, 1/2 a grilled chicken breast (marinated in this stuff), a little homemade salsa, pico de gallo & cheese. This was SO good! Oh my gosh. It wasn't as good as what I get at Chipotle, but I usually get the steak there, and all I had here was chicken. I did feel better about eating it though since I had brown rice instead of the white they serve. 

Oh my gosh, this was good.

So since I had a healthy dinner, I of course had to treat myself to a yummy dessert. One of the agents in my office LOVES my cupcakes and has been bugging me to make some for about two months. I promised I would by the end of July. Well July is almost over (yay!!!) so it was time for me to ante up. I made one of my all time favorites: chocolate cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting. These are so good. And the frosting is so incredible. I kinda sorta wanted to do frosting shots with what didn't get used on a cupcake. I was actually worried about the frosting, since Hermione ate the shortening that was supposed to go in it. But it seems to be holding it's shape pretty well.

The frosting tastes like an orange push pop =)

And of course, all of my weekends involve epic Buddy & Hermione cuteness.

 

 Hope everyone had a great weekend!