bathroom remodel photos (finally)

So I have been talking about our bathroom remodel for months and although there are still a few things to complete it's pretty much done.  It felt like it took forever at times.  I think that's probably because my husband and I did it all (with the exception of plumbing and major drywall work).

So here are some before photos from when we bought the house.

And here are some photos after we painted and started the work.

We replaced everything!  The floor, tub (and added a shower head), toilet, vanity, we took out built in cabinets and made shelves and a closet, replaced plaster walls with drywall in some areas, updated electrical, and so much more.  It was quite the project.

I am proud to say that we bought just about everything on sale.  We waited for sales and deals on what we needed and we bought the items as we went.  It took us a little longer that way but we have a brand new bathroom with fancy hardware, granite counter tops, and more and we paid a fraction of the retail cost on it.

Ok, so you waited long enough.  Here are the after photos.

Here is the view as you walk in the bathroom.

 Each family member has their own basket.  I picked these baskets up at Michael's (with a coupon, of course) along with the frames and used chalkboard spray paint on the inside of the frame.  That way I can change them up later with some chalk.

 We framed the mirror and added beadboard half way up the walls. I love the contrast.

 Painting the wood trim on the window really lightened up the room as well.  See our fancy toilet?  It's a dual flushing toilet that saves water.

The medicine cabinet  pictured below still needs a handle but we will raise it up about 6 inches (like we did with other handles in this bathroom) to avoid little fingers from getting into bad stuff. 

Need some toilet paper?

I bought this dual basket set at Pier 1 and I love it.  Totally worth the money.  I could use it in any room if I ever can't use it in the bathroom.

We bought our lighting fixture and pulls/handles on E-Bay.  I love the brushed nickel.  Oh, and the vanity is a taller backsaver model which is such a nice feature (even for my short 5'4'' self).

 How did this picture sneak in there?

And one more for you.

Doesn't look like the same bathroom does it?  We loved our new bathroom and are so glad to finally be almost done.

Edited to add:
The grey-ish paint color is by Olympic in their zero voc line.  It took us a few tries to find the perfect shade so I don't have a exact name for you.  We did however start with the color Quill as our starting point and went lighter.  I do see there are some numbers on the can which I am guessing is the formula.  It's 101-5, 105-30, 107-8

mia & bathrooms?

So sorry to have left for weeks with no blog posts.  I have been busy making these:

and this

and some more of this

Well, you get the point.  I've been sewing and crafting away for my shop.  Actually, everything I've made/sold has been custom orders and not sold through etsy but I'm not complaining.

So after all that sewing (and did I mention a ton of canning) we've only had a small amount of time to work on our never ending home updates.  We have managed to replace the baseboards in the living room and my husband is in the process of replacing the baseboards in the hallway as well.  Oh, and lets not forget decorating for fall.  I LOVE fall and try to put out as many pumpkins as humanly possible.  If I ever finish before Christmas, I;ll share some photos. ; )

I think the most exciting new house project we've started since I went mia from this blog has been our bathroom renovation.  We are planning on doing a complete over haul of our kids bathroom.  Here is the bathroom before we moved in.

A whole lotta pink, right?  Well, everything (including the super heavy cast iron tub) must go and we plan on remodeling this bathroom this winter.  We started with a minor yet much needed new dual flush toilet yesterday.  We were hopiong to wait to put the new toilet in until we had new tile BUT the old toilet decided to retire early.  Here's my husband installing our new toilet.

and his assistant who is never far from any messy project.

We're still deciding on finishes, tile, colors, etc but we have decided on a few things so far.  The 1st is that our bathroom will never look like this photo.

ha ha ha...but I wish it did.  Atcually, this photo is my inspiration for our new vanity.  I love clean white bathrooms and we'll be going with a white vanity and a framed in mirror like this one.

Aside from that, we're still in the trying-to-agree-on-the-same-things process.  Luckily, we have a few months before any major decisions must be made.

stripes

I got the stripe bug.  What?  You didn't hear about it yet?  Yeah, it's going all around blogland and after you see a room with stripes that you adore you go out and purchase paint aind some painters tape and paint your own stripes. 

I hear it's very contageous.

Our hallways is kinda dark as you can see so we didn't want to paint more than one stripe and turn the hallway into a fun house plus my husband wouldn't let me.

We are thinking about trying track lighting in this hallway to lighten it up.  Not only would it lighten up the room but we can position the lights to shine on our pictures.

I'm considering trying the whole strip thing on some curtains next like {the Nester}. 

What do you think?

out with the old

We bought our home with some old and some not as old appliances.  The stove was newer but the door kept openning and letting out heat while it was cooking so we replaced that.  We later bought the matching black/stainless steel microwave and installed that above the stove.

The kitchen was looking better with matching appliances all except for the hideous and extremely old beige refrigerator.  It had to go but a new refrigerator isn't cheap so we decided to keep an eye out for good deals on a new one and wait to replace it.  

Well, one year after moving into our home North Dakota offered a $150 tax credit for replacing your old refrigerator with a new energy efficient one.  At the same time we happened to run across a fabulous deal  (under $700) on this beauty and knew it was meant to be.  We pricematched Sears price and took advantage of Lowe's free delivery out to our home a million miles away.

 

While filling out the proper forms  for the credit we had to get some info off our old fridge including it's age.  We weren't sucessful in finding an exact age but did find a date on it from the 1970's.  Yes, 1970.  The fridge is old than me!

We were so happy to say goodbye to that ancient beige beast. 

easy peasy headboard

I'm finally getting back to blogging and have my programs download on my new computer.  I bet you thought I was never gonna post again.

My son's monster room was the first room painted in our home once we moved in.  This was his first time sleeping in his own room (couldn't get the kid out of my bed but I secretly didn't mind all that much) so we wanted it to be something fun and exciting for him to sleep in.  He chose a monster theme with colors that I LOVE.  It's easy to chnage the comforter when he's done with Monsters and still keep the walls and decor the same which was a must. I've shared pictures before here.

Although it was the 1st room painted it still isn't finished like every other room in our home.  We needed shelves, a headboard, and to paint the wood trim white.  Well, all but the wood trim has been done and the latest of these projects is the headboard my husband built. 

I saw some headboard ideas in a magazine and drew up my own version of what I thought would work in my son's room.    I went and had the wood cut at Lowe's and shared my vision with my husband 3 times  so he could build it for me. My husband is so great about helping me build my visions and all my projects I throw at him.  He's cool like that. 

Here's my drawing.  We used 1x8's for it and just cut them to fit his full size bed.  I wanta say 54in. wide but it's been a couple of weeks and I still have my mommy brain (hoping to use that excuse for at least another 4 months).  Our cost was under $20.

We chose orange to match his stripes on the opposite wall.

His room is really coming together nicely and it's a fun room which is important to us.  I love decorating but more importantly I want my home to be a place we want to live in.  My mom had a room when we were growing up that we avoided at all cost and I swear she would know if we even walked through that room.  I never want to have one of those rooms.

I'm linking to:

 My Backyard Eden

Fingerprints on the Fridge

It's fun to Craft

my personal yard candy

or the start of it anyways. We are planting lots of flowers and watching old ones bloom again.  This time of year makes all those awful winter days of sub zero temps almost worth while. 

When we first moved here I never understood how people could spend all their time and money on flowers and gardens when they really could only enjoy them for 3-5 months total a year.  After spending 2 miserable winters in North Dakota and buying a home here I finally get it.  Infact I have spent most of my day working in the yard.

Remember my mailbox post? 

the address has been blocked out for our privacy

We put the decal on the new mailbox, put the new post in (the green post is our newpaper box), and even started planting a few flowers.  I think I may add a couple more flowers.  Any excuse to go back to the greenhouse.  I LOVE that place.  Maybe living here will help me get that green thumb I've always wanted.

after much review

So my husband read my blog and saw the photos I posted of the headboard he made and he was disappointed.  He thought the wall color and the headboard were too similar in color.  After he pointed that out I completely agreed but was at a loss for what to do next.  Do we paint an accent wall, paint the whole room again please say no, or wall paper?  He liked my 1st suggestion so we ran down to our local hardware store and picked out a gallon of their finest only $27 paint.

I am glad he suggested that we do this because it looks a lot better.  I am even tempted to change some more stuff around to match the new color but don't tell him that.  Poor guy is always working hard for me and my crazy ideas.

So now you can see the difference in color between the headboard and the wall.

remember my must make list for 2010?

If not, you can read all about it here.  We (my husband and I) have been working hard and building items from this list.  My goal is to have them all done by the end of the year.  So far, I'm about half way done.

One of the items on my list was this headboard from Living with Lindsey:

She made it using a door and we just so happened to have an extra door laying around so I took that as a sign.  Here is our new headboard:

See the 9 piece square wall art on the side wall?  That was also on my must make list.  I bought the ladder shelf for $20 on sale locally and painted it black.  It's pine and so it's hopefully gonna withstand my children hold up over time.  I got the mirrors at Target for a whopping $5 each and used 3 because it's a decoring must that I learned on HGTV.  And the curtains are the ever so popular drop cloth curtains.  Yes, I bought a $10 drop cloth and cut it in two and make a set of curtains out of it.  We also made the headboard out of it.

My hubby did a fantastic job on the molding, didn't he?  Our room is almost completed.  We are considering changing the paint color or adding an accent paint color for the wall behind our bed but we haven't found a color we love for that yet.  I do love the light and airy color in the room now but think we need something to 'pop' a little.  You know, a little extra color. 

I love my new headboard and how it ties the whole room together.  And the best part is that it cost us under $30.