progress post: a bedroom update.

We’ve been navigating through a variety of life happenings lately and our house, per usual, takes the back seat. So I thought I’d update on another room, that like our bath, that has been finished up until the fun decor part!

Aside from the second upstairs bedroom which is currently a giant storage space, our newly appointed master bedroom had the least drastic of changes. We did have to remove two exterior facing walls in order to add insulation to our insulation-less house. New drywall, mudding, priming, painting, new window frames, and new trim. While extremelyyyyy tedious- mostly just small cosmetic changes in the grand scheme of things. We decided to take on this project shortly after we got married. For the most part, the mess could be quarantined in this situation. And we set up camp in the living room for a couple months.

While not completely without drama- our bedroom is the reason why we hired out a painter for the front half of our main level. We tried our hand at a paint sprayer and felt like we were wasting A LOT of paint… so either the tool was broken (which we did call support and they were very helpful, but couldn’t 100% solve our dilemma, so it’s possible!) or user error. I’m going to assume the later. But don’t you worry, we definitely had a nice little photoshoot in our initial blissfully ignorant pre-painting state.

The master bedroom closet was a slightly bigger project, as we increased the square footage by four. Not quite a standard size walk-in, but much larger than it was in 1960. We opened it to an adjacent closet from the third upstairs bedroom, which we have since removed. We then bumped the back wall of the closet out about an extra 18 inches. We are using Ikea’s Algot system for organization and will have a post about that too.

So all the heavy duty stuff has been done! And we are living in a world of white. The bedroom and closet function, but they are begging for color, organization, and new furniture! I cannot wait for those to be the focus someday. It’s hard for us to keep the mess in one designated area. As we work on the kitchen, everything accumulates in other rooms… dust, papers, food, stuff. I hate it. So we don’t want to add more, albeit new, stuff. But we’re also still in love with watching our house evolve. And eventually we’ll have much more storage that we are severely lacking now.

By the way, you can find our initial ideas for the bedroom here and the closet plan here.

So about that photoshoot…

One of us may have been a bit more into it than the other…

date night selfie.

james from rivertown woodcraft helping us with our new window frames.

mike the drywaller, our vip.

mike's right hand kitten.

lavender walls and (once) teal trim. #glam

our short lived careers as professional paint sprayers.

mitten house swag.

bye lavender walls!

contemplating fixtures.

this is so aesthetically appealing to me.

♥

space claimed.

progress post: a bathroom update.

Update!

I have so many posts to finish about various areas of the house… but ya know, editing vacation photos just wins me over every time.

Remember the plans for our little baby bath? Well, we're sticking pretty close to it so far. We've got all white mostly everything. A beautiful custom vanity by our friend, James, at Rivertown Woodcraft. And the signature Ikea mirror. I purchased that like... pre-demo. Everyone puts this mirror in their bathroom, do they not?

We did not however, pull off the hex tile floor. Just wasn't going to work out. We contemplated the flooring forever, per usual. But I think sticking with a simple grey stacked mosaic ended up working out well. We'll bring in unique elements elsewhere- in non permanent ways. It also took us forever and a day to decide on a vanity faucet (because the round mirror hung down and out from the wall so much), and light fixtures (I wanted your entire face lit, not just from above.) The struggle with balancing modern and functional with midcentury and appropriate adds to our decision making delays too.

Pro tip: Make sure you measure ALL pieces and parts. I was convinced the light fixtures were not evenly spaced around the mirror and in relation to the vanity. But we kept measuring and realigning, and almost put new holes in the wall! The measurements were telling us everything was evenly spaced and aligned properly, yet the whole placement felt off. Last thing we thought to measure- the round mirror. It wasn’t perfectly round and the nail holes on the frame were not centered!! So we eyeballed that and it looks much better now. #ThanksIkea

And now some things we tried, things we learned, and things we redid.

Things we tried

We initially tried to cut individual tiles to create a custom floor pattern. I love our creativity and blind ambition. However, it would have taken much much longer to finish and the saw blade kept chipping the tile edges. We probably didn’t even have the right tile to be cutting like that anyway. But look how fun our idea was!

Things we learned

Another failed attempt was mudding and taping our drywall. My exact thought was, “Hey I went to art school, I know how to sand things! Dustin works on vehicles. This is just like bondo, I’m sure. We got this!” Absofrickinlutely not. One attempt at a corner and I was done; again fearing we were ruining the house. So we called in the pros! For the first time we hired out work and I’m so glad we did! MikeTheMudder, our OG VIP came in to save the day and has since returned to do our bedroom, closet, and living/dining/and kitchen area.

This was big because we learned when it’s necessary to call in people who already know what they are doing! DIY is F-I-N-E until it’s not. Mike saved us time, and in-turn money, because we won’t have to redo his work. No ripply bubbles in our walls! He also uses like five different compounds! There are specific reasons for each separate layer. Some are sticky and strong, intended to hold. Others are thin and easily sanded. We had purchased one… newbs.

us.

pro.

Things we redid

Like the DIY tile and drywall mud, we’re not going to get everything right the first time. That was the case of our trim. Our first plan was to match the trim in the rest of the house. The rounded edge style common to all our grandparent’s homes. Our friend Drew, who has helped all throughout our renovation process, worked with Dustin to install the trim in the bathroom. The new toilet was set into place. I even got the new trim painted. After a couple days Dustin decided he didn’t like it. He wanted something thinner. We’ll end up replacing the trim throughout the rest of the house, so it reallllly wasn’t necessary to match anything at that time.

I’m stating right here, right now, if you’re ever contemplating changing something out in your house and get cold feet- call me in. I’ll rip off the bandaid for you. My mom can attest. I will tear down that strip of wallpaper, carefully remove the newly installed trim, roll on that scary bright paint color. I’ll do that initial scary step for you. You’re very welcome.

So I stepped up on the latter and said, “Yeah? You don’t like this anymore?” And popped off the first piece. Second time around we had a paint sprayer and painted the trim ahead of time. Our caulking skills had improved by then too. :) So it wasn’t the worst project to have to redo.

Round two!

not as fun once the toilet is in place...

Ongoing bathroom debates and projects:

Frost the windows. We have yet to come up with a privacy screen. We removed the lace contact paper and have since taped towels over the windows. So we obviously need a better solution, it just has not been the first priority. As a reminder, this window looks out into our garage, which through garage windows looks into our neighbor’s windows and into their house. Hiiiiiii.

Update the shower hardware. Still working with those plastic gems, guys. Need to find a stainless steel option to match the rest of our fixtures. We just haven’t yet because pickiness… are you surprised?

Decorate!!! Oh my gosh, I CANNOT WAITTTTT. We’ve avoided stores and antique malls for awhile. I didn’t want to decorate the finished rooms because of drywall dust and general construction woes. But we’re getting there!

Organize the vanity. My OCD tendencies can’t wait to make a trip to the Container Store for this specific reason. Kind of waiting to do this and the linen closet right outside the bathroom at the same time.

Refresh caulk and grout. Eh. ya know, eventually.

keys, please.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016.

We've officially owned our home for TWO YEARS. It's still in a state of disarray but it has also come so far. We love it.

Just a casual stroll down memory lane.

See all the before photos here.

first time homeowner!

my dad's face.

My parents came down to sit with me during the closing and visit our fixer upper!

I surprised Dustin with the bar in the basement. He was actually away being army man when I closed. So it was fun to walk him through the house- OUR house when he got home a couple days later.

Anyway, the bar came with the house, but I told him the sellers had taken it. So he was happy to see it still standing- for his future basement parties. Sitting on the bar was a card that I had purchased the past November at an artist market. I was SO excited I found it and held onto it for so long. It had little keys printed on the cover. I knew someday we'd have a house, and I'd be prepared with the perfect card! Propped up behind the card was a "SOLD" sign. Dustin was bummed the realtors never posted a sold sign out front- like the shows on TV. But this little handmade one came into play five days later...

progress post: green beer and gray tile.

Saint Patricks Day 2017.

We went to a friend's house and drank beer, ate delicious food, and played darts. Then we came home and tiled our bathroom floor. Very productive day!

Tile drunk, grout sober. That's how the saying goes, no?

The hexagons lost out to this gray mosaic. Happy to have a stacked neutral / bummed about the hexagons. But those cement tiles were just too inaccessible for us at the time and would have created a height difference from the wood floor.

so long to seeing this!

moo moo the construction cat, helping.

you can kind of see my green eye shadow in this photo.

subfloor > mortar > waterproof membrane > mortar > tile > grout > sealer

RIP old green spatula, thank you for your sacrifice. thankful for new wedding gifts!

All in day's work! If only all projects would follow the Friends, Food, and Finished-by-the-end-of-the-night approach.

Stay tuned for the two things we tried/redid in the bathroom. Because who doesn't like doing things all over again...?

progress post: tile that tub!

From about October 2016 to January 2017 we used my sister's shower, work, ... or the gym on very rare occasions. Thank goodness they 1. live less than a mile and a half away and 2. weren't working on their shower at the same time. 

notes.

waterproofing

first tile! that yard stick we're using as a spacer against the tub, we found in our walls.

decided on a schluter trim piece vs a bullnose tile for the edge.

home depot pattern. #sponsored lol jk.

like the fancy raincoat i made for dustin?

faux wood tile to match our floors throughout the rest of the house.

last tile!

family affair.

fresh grout film.

preparing for caulk. in which, i cried heavily after our first attempt.

Don’t do it this way- with the tape. At least I wouldn’t recommend it. Also, cut a SMALL hole in the caulk nozzle, you can always make it bigger. Do thin layers and smooth out with your finger.

One of meltdowns where I thought, for sure, we ruined our house. We have definitely improved our caulking skillz. There are some areas we will be redoing… someday.

sweet sweet satisfaction peeling that plastic wrap off.

finally!

water has never looked so beautiful. hah

You probably noticed the floor tile isn't done. Of course not... that was a couple months later. You can see it here, though. Luckily, we knew what tile we wanted for the tub, but that floor was a wholeeee other decision!  Remember this idea? Anyway, we secured plastic over the subfloor and showered with the door open and fan on for about two months. #glamorous.

Also, don't get me started on the faucet knobs. I was told we could change those out later and we have yet to find a new set we like/works... so in the meantime, we're stuck with these default, yet period appropriate gems. Decisions are hard, guys!

But hey- after about three months, we could finally shower in our own home!