Bathroom Update

Things have been rolling over here….at a snail’s pace. Last we met, we were removing the sink. Got that done, and then it was on to the floor…the messy bit. Messy bits take awhile..OK?

So after removing the tile, the mortar bed and wire mesh embedded within it…we are down to subfloor…wheeeee!

That brings us to this mess…we’ll deal with that later.

Subfloor of cement board was laid and now we’re on to laying the new tile.

And that’s where we still are.

We’ll finish that by this weekend and then we’ll start focusing on the sink/slab situation.

In the meantime, I did order the stencil I plan to use on either one or maybe 2 walls. The paint will be Behr’s Granite Boulder as the base layer, with Martha’s Precious Metals Silver Leaf on the fishscale stencil. Apparently the Martha paint is fiddly, but the dude at the Home Depot said it’s just like the Ralph Lauren metallics. I used Ralph without problems in the past, so I’m hopeful.

Why use Home Depot paint? Maybe it was the time I painted over a glossy chocolate brown with a pale grey satin in ONE COAT with Behr’s paint and primer in one line?  I don’t buy Ben Moore or Farrow and Ball, or other expensive paint, as my personal experience has not proven these to be worth the price tag. I don’t need interior paint that will last 10 years because I guarantee that I will be sick of it and wanting a change well before then anyway. That’s just me.

 

I’m still shopping toilets, and while I really wanted the Kohler Persuade…after looking at the installation instructions and reviews…we are gonna give it a miss. I’m in the market for a modern looking one with an apron to the floor (no pipe shapes showing in the porcelain) for less than $300 which I think is totally doable. We are still sad we couldn’t have the wall mounted model, but we’re holding out hope we can have it for the master bath, whenever that happens!

Half Bath

Longtime readers might remember the previous post about the half bath here. I’ll give you this final glimpse of the “before”, since I’m happy to report that we are finally getting around to dealing with it.

So there’s the difficult as hell to photograph, 23 square feet of 70’s deluxe bath action we’ve had going on. For its day, I think it was probably quite snazzy, and as I mentioned before, the tile is pretty groovalicious, but it can’t stay, since we will be removing the cabinet. (run on sentence much?)

I will be saving the brass pulls from the cabinet, don’t worry. The rest must go.

My Pinterest page for the bathrooms has been a great way to show the CC where my head is with materials and finishes. He wanted to pour another concrete counter like we did before, but my heart was in slabland.

Both images from Pinterest without source linked. If you know, please share, so I can credit properly.

 

I found a guy on Craigslist selling wood slabs, and while we went looking for Walnut, they were not wide enough, so we came back with a piece of White Oak.

The plan is to under mount the stainless steel sink. We are trying to keep costs really low, so we opted for the IKEA Grundtal faucet instead of our fantasy Arne Jacobsen Vola in yellow.

We are sanding the slab, as it is still rough from the milling blades. Once we get it to the right smoothness, we will oil it well to finish.

Another reason we need to redo the floor is because we had planned to put in a wall mounted toilet. No more, since an exploratory session under the house showed we’d have to reroute the intake of our central heat and air, and that’s not happening.

We did find a high impact, lower cost option for the new floor…Quartzite. It’s hard to photograph, but it has an iridescence to it with greenish and grey tones. This was the sample board taken in the tile store.

This below is a little better representation of the color.

Hopefully the sheen of the stone will work with the stainless steel components, and the wood will warm it all up, funkylike.

I need a great (and inexpensive) pendant fixture, and I’m still deciding on how to paint the walls. I also need to decide whether the “wall of mirror” should return. Since it’s such a tiny space, it might be nice to bring it back all the way down to the wood to double as a back splash, but I have to think on it.

Onward. No looking back now. Adios yellow laminate!

Wish us luck!

Friday Flea

If you keep up with my friends at My Interior Life, Chateau À Gogo and The Insane Domain, then you already know we had fun day at the flea. Sorry I couldn’t get this up for you on Friday as a preview, unless you were following on Instagram in real time.

Here’s what caught my eye.

This velvet sofa was the big regret of the day. One of us should have gotten it, though none of us needed it, it could be a great rehab project. I was too hot to think straight.

This is the piece I almost brought home. So much storage, solid wood, a little dinged, but good lines and fab pulls. Oh well. I went home empty handed this month.

This kinda sums up the South in a very sterotypical way….spicy food, sweet tea and a whole lot of Jesus.

 

End of Summer

The new August 1st start date for school ended our summer a little early this year.  When we got back from Maine, we hit the ground running, and I feel like I’m finally starting to get a handle on things as we settle into the school year. Here are a ton of snaps from the end of the summer..mostly the magic that is Maine, and a few back home taking Otto to his first concert…Woofstock.

Continue reading “End of Summer”

Q & A

Hey guys, I know I’ve been very lame and MIA. I’m annoyed with me too. I haven’t even downloaded the pics off my camera from Maine, so yeah, I’m a deadbeat.

In my meager defense, I have volunteered to be webmaster for both Thing One’s school, and our local community pool, and between those two (and this being the first full week of school) by the time I finish that work, I want to run far away from the computer. Things will settle down soon, and I’ll get back to the business of oversharing stuff no one cares about, I promise. Teaser: I think we’ll be starting to redo the half bath very soon!!!

To hold you over, I am featured over at Life À la Mode by the fabulous Tabbulous, Tabitha Tune. This girl knows her food as well as she knows social media, and I always learn something cool from her culinary adventures.

Click here to see what I had to say about learning how to be a successful thrifter/renovator. Thanks for having me Tabitha!

Tag Sale!

I just returned to Nashvegas last night after being MIA for a few weeks… I’ll update you soon, but I needed to pop in and tell you locals about Brandy and Melissa’s tag sale this weekend!  You might know them better as Chateau À Gogo and The Insane Domain, and if you click through to their blogs, you’ll see previews of a lot of the great items they will have up for sale!

Bar carts, lamps, pillows…both vintage and newer items…looks like there will be some really good stuff!  These ladies have great style!  They are also cool, nice chicks that I’ve loved getting to know over the last several months, and who I’m proud to call my friends, so shop on decoristas….See you there!