Getting This Done!

You know how getting a friend to workout with you makes you go to the gym all the time? We have that...but they are our "house-remodeling-partners". Every Wednesday, our neighbors Jeff and Keri come over to our house and we work all day on a project. Saturdays, we end up at Jeff and Keri's rental helping them with a project. It is really awesome!

So far, our list of accomplishments include: a full roof of shingles cleaned up, a bathroom ceiling taken down (including insulation), all the old molding taken out of both houses, our front porch pried off, old nasty pink carpets hauled away, and last but not least our whole second floor has the carpet and sub floor removed and is almost ready for some remodeling! Ready for the pics? Remember the bathroom before?

And here is is now...taken down to the old flooring and siding.

Gone is the acoustic tile drop ceiling. We will raise the ceiling back to 9" and add a bathroom fan/vent. If you look closely, you can see some of the smoke damage from the fire that occurred in the 1940's.

Also gone is that faux wood wall paneling! I think I have every right to say that I HATE THAT STUFF.

The master bedroom! No more pink carpet!!! This room is going to be so cool after we refinish the floors. The sun pours through the windows during the winter months and the trees block the sun during the summer months. Now we just have to strip through the layers of wallpaper...no fun.

Inspiration Alert!

Design*Sponge just posted this "Sneak Peek" on designer Jessica Helgerson. I am digging her style! What do you guys think?

We already have the tub...just have to paint it.

And that is the look I was thinking of for the sconces!
Love, love, love the hardwood floor color.

I am going to warm LJ up to this by showing him this room...because we have a total of 2 guitars, 1 ukulele, one drum set and 2 amps.
Don't know about the scary woman thing in the middle of the room but I do like the plants and glass bottles. The fixture is pretty cool too.
Photos by Lincoln Barbour

Let There Be Light

We are finishing up on the bath tear-down tonight and the questions are already coming from the guys. How many lights do you want? Where do you want them? What color are you painting the walls? Where do you want the fan? Are you sure you want all white? Don't you think that will be somewhat "institutional"? What is for dinner?

Oh yes. The fun part begins and I am feeling a little overwhelmed. LJ offers no feedback in the decor department and often times hates what I plan on doing until he sees it all come together. Hmm what to do, what to do? I am going to turn it over to you guys for feedback. Let's start with my recent inspirations...

I like white. In the bathroom it makes it feel clean and fresh but on the same note, I plan on breaking up the all white theme with some stained wood, plants, and other odds and ends. I am going for a look that you won't see in a typical bathroom. Keep your fingers crossed!

I have been searching for lighting that would go with what I am trying to do and I think I found some interesting options. Here are some that I like but don't know if I will use...

Bathroom Lighting Ideas - by mowe34 on Polyvore.com

I love the look of the Pottery Barn sconces (they match the dining room pendant lamps) but I am not sure if they are meant to be used in the bathroom. What do you guys think?

K. Mack Attacks!

A friend of our family's (affectionately now know as K. Mack) showed up early Saturday morning to help us tear out our bathroom. In previous conversations, we found out that he lists working on old Victorian mansions as his "hobby". Our kinda guy! While our house is hardly a mansion, he did get really excited when he saw our place and now shares our enthusiasm with the potential of it.

Plus, the man is a crazy work horse.

Our plan (strike that MY plan) was to start in the bathroom upstairs, gut it, see what was where, and draw up plans. Then I was planning on going to Home Depot the next day to place a tile order and get the ball rolling.

We didn't quite get that far. Instead, we worked on this:
I can hear my father cringing at the sight of this electrical box...wait Pop...how about this..
Just so you all don't think we are complete piggly-wigglies, I remembered to start taking pics AFTER we started tearing in to the ceiling and walls. The exposed wire you see hanging down at the top of the left side of the picture is a hot wire. Thank god K. Mack is a licensed electician with really cool toys that tell you when wires are HOT! I, of course, ran around testing everything with the pointy tester thing (or a induction tester as LJ just informed me) .

By the end of the afternoon, he had the box squared away and we were left with open spots on our breaker panel, the cardboard ceiling taken down, the weird little boarded up room torn apart, and a potentially dangerous non-vented-celullose-heaped basement bathroom fan gone.
Whew-hoo! On to the bath...when we last left it it looked like this...

Now it looks like this...I just noticed that the curtains are still up. Go figure.
We got the tub out...which we found was only painted "lemon meringue" on one side...
...and the paint-puckered vanity is now gone...
...and this lovely wiring job is now what is left standing from behind the mirror. We stopped right about there due to the fact that it was 7 pm. Time flies when you are having fun! Stay tuned for more!

Tile Samples!

We pulled up the carpet in the master bathroom today and decided that we are definitely going to tile the whole room. As you may recall, from a previous exhilarating post, I was debating between large rustic slate tile or small hexagon tile.

I decided to go with the hexagon but wanted something a little different...so I found the octagon and dot design. I was able to get a sample of the "white on white" tile (Thanks G.T. for the help!) and think it would look great with gray grout. I have clips of the other two samples...just in case. What do you think?


Tile samples for bathroom by mowe34

Inspiration: Bathrooms

Since we moved into this house, I have been madly collecting images for our bathroom remodel. Until now, I had a huge folder of magazine clippings that was getting pretty overloaded. Then I found Domino Magazine's Deco File. It allows you to "grab" picture off the internet and store them in an online file. It is and extremely helpful tool! Highly recommended! Anyways, on to the goods...

There is an ongoing debate in my head about using large rustic slate tiles


or small historic looking hexagon tile.

Photos courtesy of PointClickHome

I love the idea of a walk-in shower!

Photo courtesy of Remodeling Center


I really like how simple this room is and love the darker trim on a lighter wall.

Photo courtesy of Domino magazine

This sink is awesome! My mother-in-law found it a long time ago and my husband built the vanity.




This is a start! Any comments are appreciated!

Things To Not Do To A Bathroom

We have finally decided on the first room on the list of rooms to renovate: the master bathroom. I took a moment to really look at our bathroom and pick out the things I liked...and the things we definitely have to get rid of. First, let me show you what I like about this room.

The clawfoot tub is the nicest tub I have ever taken a bath in. It is extremely long (very important for this chica) and is in pretty good shape. I would love to find different "claws" for it and it will need to be repainted on the bottom. Right now it is a soft yellow with gold spray-painted claws.

The next thing I really like about our bathroom is the radiator. It is a hot water radiator so I use it as a towel/clothes warmer while I am in the shower. Unfortunately, while it keeps the room nice and toasty, it is not as aesthetically pleasing as it could be.

Now for the bad. I am going to use this opportunity to educate the masses (or just the readers of this blog) about what not to do in your bathroom.


First, do not EVER, EVER, carpet your bathroom. It is possibly the grossest thing ever due to the fact that you can not scrub the floors. Eww. Also, the teal, turquoise, purple, pink, beige mix really does nothing for me.


I don't know many people that have run across the next no-no. If you have a bathroom counter, don't paint it with a really thick layer of paint. Now, just in case you do paint it with a really thick layer of paint, whatever you do, DON'T leave a cup of water on the counter or this will happen:


The last item I have is not really a no-no so much as a design flaw. While the bathtub is the longest tub I have ever taken a bath in...the shower is one of the smallest I have taken a shower in. You can see by the picture below that the shower head was about 5 1/2" feet tall. While I have dealt with short shower heads before (every hotel I have ever stayed in), I have never had one so short with a shower stall so narrow. I will just say that this shower turned into a death trap during my pregnancy. We really need something bigger.

So now I am busy collecting magazine clippings and starting to make plans for this bathroom. Any comments or ideas are welcome!