Finished Bathroom

Our upstairs bathroom is the final room to be renovated in our house and I am happy to say, it's finally complete.

We finished the never-ending grout sealing and Jason hung up the towel rack just the other night.  I never knew how good it would feel to be able to shower and get dressed for work on the same floor each day.  I know it's a small detail, but to me, it's a luxury! 

No more trucking downstairs to shower with a load of clothes in my hands to get dressed . . . or worse, no more traipsing through the house in a towel to run upstairs to get dressed, all the while worrying that my neighbors might sneak a peak through one of my windows!

To say that this upstairs bathroom was disgusting when we first moved in would be an understatement.  It was downright filthy and, although it worked, we never used it. 

For a short time, the upstairs bathroom became Maggie's crate.  We literally shut her in there every day before we went to work and let her have free reign.

Here is the bathroom before:

My plan for the bathroom was to tile the whole thing, like I had seen so many times in many of the fancy hotels I stay in when I travel for work.  It was a small space, so I figured it wouldn't cost too much to do.  Since Jason is a perfectionist, I knew the tiling would come out great.  I also wanted a shower with clear glass and a shower floor of pebbles.

Here is the finished shower:

And here is a close up of the shower floor:

The sink:

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention . . . we've decided to stay in this little cape after all.  More on that in my next post!

Linking up with;

House of Hepworth's

Blue Cricket Design
Transformation Thursdays
Strutt Your Stuff Thursdays
Show Off Your Stuff
Fingerprints on the Fridge

Never Ending Grout Lines

Whose idea was it to tile the ENTIRE upstairs bathroom? 

After Jason finished tiling, which was an ongoing process for about a year, I was super excited to order the clear glass for the shower.  But then Jason reminded me that the grout still needed to be sealed . . . each and every line of it.

Oh, and did I mention that we don't like the spray sealer?  Nope . . . Jason prefers the kind that you roll on the grout lines.  But since we had to grout the walls, the roll kind would make a huge mess, since it would likely drip down the walls.  The solution? 

Paint it on with a teeny tiny brush. 

Since Jason tiled the whole bathroom pretty much on his own, we had decided early on that sealing the grout would be my job.  So a few nights ago, while Jason and Imani watched a movie, I decided I would get to work.

I sealed

and sealed

and sealed some more.

As I painted the sealer on each and every line, I thought about what this bathroom used to be.  I thought about how my husband had carefully created each of these grout lines, making sure they were perfect, to give me the bathroom I had envisioned.

Before long, Jason and Imani had finished the movie and I wasn't even a third of the way done with sealing the bathroom.

Suddenly, there were three paint brushes and we all were sealing the grout lines together. 

If Maggie could have grabbed a paint brush, I'm sure she would have joined in the fun.

With all three of us working together, the job became much less overwhelming. 

But did I mention the lines on the floor and in the shower needed TWO coats?!

Nature's Gifts

Last weekend, Imani and her friend Kassie were playing kickball outside and the ball went in the weeds.

Imani ran to get it and was shocked by what she found.  She came running in the house to get me and Jason. 

I made her promise it wasn't a snake.

I made her promise it wasn't a nest of snakes.

Then I made her promise it wasn't snake skin, or anything else that had to do with snakes.

Once we had that finalized, I put on my flip flops and ran outside.

Here's what she found.

A newborn fawn.  It was just lying there all curled up and peaceful in the tall grass.  We could see the mother in the distance. 

Imani and Kassie begged us to let them pet it.  Since we knew that the whole idea of mothers abandoning their young if humans touch them is an old wive's tale, we agreed to let them pet the fawn briefly.

It was a moment that made all of us stop and appreciate the miracle of life.

The mother returned to her baby later that afternoon.

Vinyl - A Good Project for Kids

As a mother, I'm always reading magazines like "Family Fun" to try to find creative projects for my daughter.  But what I've come to realize is that the projects Imani enjoys most are projects that make her feel like she's grown up.

She is nine, after all and gluing macaroni to construction paper isn't really her thing anymore.

So in all of our home renovations and decorating adventures, we try to include Imani as much as possible.  It is her home too, and I hope that by being a part of it all she feels as much pride as we do when we look around our home.

I also hope that by being a part of it all, she grows to develop a good sense of style in decorating her own home some day.

Recently, when I ordered a few pieces of vinyl from Shelley at Wonderfully Wordy, I decided I would let Imani complete one of the vinyl projects on her own.

It was nice to just sit back and watch.  She started with these salt and pepper shakers that I found at Hub's Place a few months ago for $1.

Next, she removed the backing and placed the letter in the center, rubbing it onto the shaker.

She slowly peeled up the paper to reveal her finished product.

How cool are those? Not bad, considering I didn't have to do anything except order the vinyl!

Guest Room Re-design

A few months ago, I decided we were going to give our guest room a face lift. 

What originally began as a full-room makeover was halted when we decided to sell our house and move out to the country.

The room still made it through a re-design, but not as drastic as we originally intended. 

When we first bought our house, this room looked like something from the Barney cartoon.  The window sills were painted purple and dark green.  Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of this room when we first moved.

This was the room that Imani, Jason and I all slept in for the first several months after we moved.  The house was in such disarray that we moved both of our beds into this room while Jason worked on the upstairs bedrooms.  Nothing brings a family closer together than sharing a bedroom for a few months!   Let's just say that we could never be a "family bed" kind of family.

The guest room also was a place of refuge for a good friend who lived with us for a month while she separated from her husband.  At that time, it had a single bed and Dora the Explorer bedding.  It has certainly come a long way.

Somewhere along the way, we bought shiny bedding from TJ Maxx and decorated with dark browns.  We used to have a thing for anything shiny.  I didn't realize it until my sister pointed it out to me when she came to stay with us one Christmas. 

Our bedding was shiny,  our shower curtain was shiny, and a number of other things were shimmery and shiny throughout our house. 

Anyway, here is the room as it was before the redesign in all its shiny glory:

The computer/office area was also housed in the guest room before we created the office nook under the stairs.  It was a major mess with the printer just sitting on the floor!

The main goal in the re-design was to lighten everything up and make it feel more welcoming for guests.

First, we changed out the light fixture.

We replaced this:

With this:

When Jason first hung the light, he wasn't sure he wanted to include all of the light's "female parts" (his word for all of the chandelier's crystals), but now that the chandy has been up for a while,   I think they've grown on him.

We moved the desk, computer and accesories out and created a new office nook under our stairs, which I hope to reveal soon.

We replaced the dark brown curtains with lighter, white ones, which were purchased at Target.  We also pulled out the old shutters that were in the basement, gave them a fresh coat of paint and put them back on the window.  

A word about the curtains:

I was stressing out about what kind of curtains to buy when, one night when I was quilting with my friend Claire and Jason called me because he found the perfect curtains at Target.

Claire was in disbelief . . . "Seriously, your husband shops for curtains?!"

Yes, he is a keeper.  To all the single ladies out there -- pick a guy who actually cares about how your house looks!

See that picture on the left?  That is the fireman's certificate from 1890 that we found in the house.

 

In the corner, I propped up the mirror I bought and some of our antiquing/junking treasures.  The nightstand that we got from Sally Ann's is placed next to the bed.  The iron wall-hanging was spray painted white.

The bed was given a fresh coat of white paint and we purchased new bedding from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

One more time:

Before

AFTER

 

Cloche Revisited

Although I was happy with my spray-painted cheese dome, every time I looked at it, I remembered those I'd seen on House of Hepworth's and Thrifty Decor Chick's.

To make matters worse, on the day I  published my Cheese Dome Cloche Club entry, one of my readers, Suzanne, emailed me to tell me she had done the same project and had posted about it on the EXACT same day.  I headed over to Suzanne's blog, "Mommy Moves Again" and wouldn't you know it. . . her cheese dome had a pedestal too!  That was it, I knew I needed to get a pedestal for my cloche to complete it.

After many trips to Sally's, I finally found the perfect pedestal that would become the new base for my cloche.  What I liked about it is that the base has a square shape, which I felt would add contrast to the circular shape of the cheese dome.

It was only 99 cents, and it's a good thing considering how disgustingly dirty it was.   It took some scrubbing to get this baby clean. 

I brought it home and cleaned it up, took it outside and gave it a few coats of spray paint.

I removed the little feet from my cheese dome and contemplated filling the holes with wood putty, but who is going to be looking at the base? 

I spray painted the base again to cover up where the feet had been.  Next, I applied wood glue to the pedestal and placed it in the center of the cheese dome base.  

 I put one of my three pound dumbells on it and let it dry.

Now I think I'm officially in the club.

Sally Ann Goods

I keep telling myself not to buy anything until after we move in July.  My  friend Lori keeps reminding me that every time I buy something, that is just another object that needs to be packed up and moved.  I keep telling her that if she'd finish her darn foyer already, I could blog about that and I wouldn't have to purchase anymore objects for projects!

In all seriousness, I like Lori's advice and use it all the time when Imani asks for something in the store.  It works perfectly.

Imani:  "Mom, can I have (insert any random toy or object here)?" 

Me:  "No, sweetie, anything we buy now is just another object we have to pack and move in July."

But unfortunately, I haven't followed Lori's advice for myself as much as I should.

We're definitely not doing any home improvement projects around here since we are preparing to move (as I'm sure you've noticed by my limited number of posts lately) and I have certainly slowed down with purchasing stuff lately. 

But on a recent trip to Sally Ann's, I couldn't pass up three things.

First, I found this brand-new lamp from Target. 

 I was so psyched because it was only $4.50!  Did I mention it is brand new . . . as in, tags are all still on it and the cord is still all wrapped up?

I plugged it in at the store and it worked!  I was so thrilled because it is similar to the lamps I have in my sitting room, which I think I paid $17 for about two years ago.

Next, I found this scummy wooden dish/planter that I am going to use for another project, which I'll post about tomorrow.  It was 99 cents.

Finally, I found these little framed pictures.  Imani has been begging me to get her two frames for a project she is working on for the computer nook.  These are perfect for what we have in mind. 

I was a bit disappointed with the price, $1.50 each, but I liked that they were real wood and that they matched.  I also liked the design in the wood and they are the perfect size for Imani's project.  Hopefully, I'll be able to show you the finished project this week.

Linking to: