After almost three years, the Master Bathroom is finally finished! We literally put the last touch on AFTER we closed on the house (I forgot to caulk around the shower handle). With about $3000 invested and lots of blood, sweat, and tears, it was a total transformation. A view of the empty closet area. If we hadn't sold the house, we would have built custom storage for the closet, including two or three built-in dressers, space for shoes and accessories, and poles to hang shirts/dresses. However, the new owner will be able to layout storage in the closet as they see fit. The soffit in the closet hides a giant pipe coming from the other bathroom. I think it turned out pretty well! Apparently it was difficult for me to get the entire shower in one shot... I really wish my pictures were better quality, but since we were in such a rush to finish, I only took them on my cell phone (and apparently not great pictures at that). I wish we could have styled the bathroom with pretty flowers and towels, however these final pictures were taken at 1 am the night before we closed. To remind you, here's a quick before and after picture taken from the hallway: A recap of the materials used:
Luxury Vinyl Tile - Lowe's @ $1.00/square foot Vessel Sinks - Lowe's @ $99.00 each Faucets - Lowe's @ $89.00 each Delta Shower Kit - Lowe's @ $129.00 Swanstone Shower Pan - Lowe's @ $350.00 Wall Sconces - Amazon @ $25.00 each Vanity - Craig's List @ $30.00 Vanity Top - Ikea @ $99.00 American Standard Toilet - $179.00 Shower Tile - Floor & Decor @ roughly $175.00 total Beadboard - Lowe's @ $20.00/each (although I don't remember it costing this much) Shelf above toilet - Hobby Lobby @ $25.00 (on sale) Mirrors - Hobby Lobby @ $60.00 each (on sale). I spray painted them oil rubbed bronze to match the lights.
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So we wanted to keep the master bath remodel under $5,000, and a huge expense in bathrooms is the vanity. Honestly, I think we spent under $3,000 total (!!), which included all drywall, beadboard, faucets, sinks, light fixtures, the toilet, cement backerboard, floor tile, luan, new exhaust fan, bath accessories, paint, shower tile, and the vanity (and everything else that I missed). So, the vanity. I am in LOVE with Ana White's website, and I had all of these plans of building my own vanity to keep costs down. And I DID build my own vanity! However, when two years go by from the time you start something until when you decide to finish it, sometimes things get repurposed (i.e. a vanity turns into a desk that fits perfectly in a little window alcove). We put the vanity that I built back in the bathroom to see how it looked with the beadboard, and I really liked it, but I was pretty nervous about the storage situation. The "spa" feel of the vanity seemed nice at first, but the thought of no drawers and no cabinets really started to bother me. Where would you store extra towels, or toilet paper, or makeup?! Plus, then we'd be down a desk! So my search continued until I found a 72" builder grade cabinet for $30 on Craig's List. Unfortunately, I don't have a "before" picture of the vanity, but if you can imagine a 20 year old dark brown cabinet with 1980's handles, then you'll understand what we started with. To spice it up, it got a nice paint job, some furniture feet (I made out of 4x4 scrap lumber), and some new hardware. To add height to the cabinet and some extra spice, I built furniture feet for the base. I first demoed the existing base (think of any typical "built in" cabinet with a toe-kick), then added a scrap piece of wood to level the base with the plywood sides, and then fixed the furniture feet to the bottom of the cabinet with L-brackets. I was originally going to buy some fancy furniture feet for the vanity, but they were really expensive and didn't really match the existing cabinet. You can't really tell in the picture above, but I had initially painted the cabinet a dark navy blue. Once we settled on the Ikea Ekbacken countertop in "concrete effect," the vanity looked too dark for the space. I decided to mix a bunch of colors I already had to create a custom blue-grey color. The pictures on my phone make it look almost like Carolina Blue, but in reality it is more of a light grey with a blue undertone. We went with the Ikea countertop for a variety of reasons. First, it was cheap ($100) and looked great. Second, it was long enough to fit the vanity AND we were able to use one of our cut pieces as a backsplash. Third, it was a thinner countertop than other ones we saw, which was perfect since we were using vessel sinks. And since they have been in a bunch of photos already - my lights! I LOVE my lights. They were on super-sale at Lowe's, but unfortunately they were sold out! I ended up finding four of them on an Amazon Warehouse deal for only $25 each!!!! STEAL! My sinks are Jacuzzi Anna Farmhouse vessel sinks, also available at Lowe's. They are pretty wide but narrow, and aren't too tall. Nice price and look great! I love them!
After 4 weekends, the first floor bath is *officially* (but not really) finished. I know, I know, you're probably wondering at this point "What do you have left to do?" Honestly, I swear I am almost done; just one more coat of paint on the baseboards and moulding! Just as a reminder of where we started two years ago.... To now.... I love, love, LOVE the shiplap walls, but I felt like the white walls needed some color somehow. I went on a search to find a colorful shower curtain and World Market had the winner! The bird shower curtain was about $25 with a coupon, and I replaced the old tension rod with this $8 one from World Market as well. I put down the floor almost two years ago, but I tried my best to really clean it up. I scrubbed away the grout haze and swept, vacuumed, and scrubbed the floor some more. I also spray painted the rusty old floor vent cover oil rubbed bronze. One of the smallest (but biggest) changes in the room was the shower fan. New fans are pretty expensive, and mine was working perfectly fine but it was pretty gross. A couple coats of spray paint and it was as good as new! Brian's grandmother painted the watercolor on the wall. Its so beautiful and fits right in with the beach theme! I love it! We picked up the frame from Marshall's for $10, and spray painted it oil rubbed bronze. The original color wasn't great, but for ten bucks, I decided it was something we could easily change. I ordered both the hand towel ring and the toilet roll holder from Amazon. The mirror is from Lowe's, and the vanity and light are from the Home Depot (although I'm not sure I would recommend the vanity anymore). The vanity is beautiful and sturdy, however the laminated wood is peeling off in some areas on the doors and drawers. This vanity literally never gets used so I don't understand why it is peeling off. The adorable shelf above the toilet is from Hobby Lobby. I snagged it on sale for $25. I love it! And look at those plinth blocks! No more giant gaps!!! Woot woot!! I have to admit, I LOVE this bathroom! I am so happy it turned out so well, and I am so happy that it is finally done. So, what do you guys think?
One of the issues that bothered me for a while in the first floor bath was a giant gap between the floor and the door moulding. When I first bought the house, every inch of flooring had been covered in carpet. Yes, carpet. Even in the bathrooms (cue the throw-up noise now). Fortunately for me, the bank had removed the carpeting before I closed on the house (yay!). When I finally installed flooring throughout the house, most of the gaps created from the carpet went away, except in the bathroom. Hence, my dilemma. I went through many options to cover the gap, from replacing the trim to installing quarter round, however quarter round is not meant to go in front of door trim, and replacing the trim is too much work. After doing some research, I discovered the "plinth block." A plinth block is simply decorative moulding that is placed at the bottom of door trim to make the moulding look more substantial. Perfect. Although I wasn't sold on the plinth block available at The Depot (see above), it was the only option they had so I bought it. At around $4 each, it wasn't a huge investment but made a big impact. To install the block, I started by using a door jam saw to cut the current trim at the correct height. I then pried it out, being carful not to split any wood. After I removed the trim, I cut the plinth block down to size on my table saw and installed it. I hated it. It looked too dinky and the victorian style of the block just didn't match the rest of the bathroom. I did more research online and decided that I could just make my own simple plinth block on the table saw with 3/4" MDF. Luckily, I had enough leftover from a pervious project to create 4 blocks, so I cut them to size (a bit wider than the door trim), and ripped two bevels into the sides to make it a bit more decorative. Simple, easy, and they solve my gap problem. I even tried my best to scribe one plinth around the base moulding. It isn't perfect, but for doing it on the table saw I'd say its great! Now I just need to caulk and throw on another few coats of paint! The bathroom is almost done!
I'm just going to put this out there - Joanna Gaines makes me want to cover everything with shiplap. And DIY network makes you think you can do anything on your own. And as I've learned over the past two years, all in moderation. With that being said, I'm renovating my first floor bath (again), this time with shiplap. The above bathroom isn't actually the first floor bath, however both guest bathrooms were essentially the same. Awesome 80's wallpaper, wonderfully disintegrating melamine cabinets, some pretty great lights, and no flooring. Above is the first remodel, which really was a huge change from the 1980's melamine. I never really fully finished this remodel though - the vanity isn't attached to the wall and I still don't have a mirror for above the sink. After living with the brown walls for about a year, I decided I hated the color and painted it a bright blue. When I was almost finished painting it blue, I decided I hated that color as well and stopped. The bathroom has been like this for the past six months or so. It's been a sad six months for this poor bathroom. Well - time for an update! Again! More pictures and updates soon!
I'll keep this post short and sweet and let the pictures do the talking! Now, with the fridge and microwave installed... And now for a view of the entire room!
Well, this has taken a while. The cabinets have been sitting in my first floor bedroom for about a month and a half now. Whoops! Although we probably could have done this a little faster, I'm glad we have taken our time to do this right. We started by sanding the base cabinets really well. I think we may have over-sanded, however better safe than sorry. We basically took the finish off and went down to the natural wood. Almost. After sanding, I vacuumed the cabinets really well and then ran a tac cloth over them. This just ensures that all of the little dust particles that can ruin your project are picked up and out of the way! Next, I primed the cabinets twice with Zinsser Oil Primer. Oil primer is a must when painting cabinets! DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! We weren't particularly careful with the sides of the cabinets, as each of these will not show. Again, I sanded and ran a tack cloth over all of the bases before applying Benjamin Moore's Advance in Chantilly Lace. I choose this particular type of paint after doing tons of research online. The paint is latex, but acts like an oil, giving it self-leveling properties that help eliminate brush strokes and roller marks. The bright white color and beautiful! I can't wait to see them up! We recently did a dry fit of the cabinets in the kitchen. Here's a sneak peak (including what the cabinets look like primed vs. with the final coat on them. EEK!
Saturday marked the day that I realized I can tolerate painting a room for 10 hours with oil primer. If you have never experienced oil primer before, just stand at a gas station and pour gas all over the ground. The fumes are roughly the same. I also learned that I HATE whoever the bank hired to paint the walls of my place. Apparently, my entire condo was covered in wallpaper, which the painters removed, but instead of removing the excess wallpaper glue, they just painted over it. They painted over the wallpaper glue. Insert expletives here. This has caused some major problems with painting the room. You don't notice it at first (because that is what flat paint is supposed to hide), but stand at the wall and really look at it, and you will see the paint chipping and little pieces of paper peeling away. This isn't just in little areas - oh, no - it is everywhere in the living room. EVERYWHERE. Insert expletives again. To deal with this issue, we scrapped and mudded over the areas that we could initially see, and I sanded the walls thoroughly before priming them with oil primer. By using oil primer, the hope is that whatever sections we missed (which were a lot) will be sealed to the wall and stay in place without flaking off again. Let's hope this works. While painting, the areas that I did miss came off in chunks. The paper simply pealed away and got caught up in my roller, being displaced on another part of the wall. This drove me absolutely insane and made painting so difficult. This was especially bad in the vaulted areas of the dining room that I could not reach to sand. Even through it all, the end result is so unexciting that it is exciting. Woof. ... and with the ceiling painted (1 coat so far).
Happy Veteran's Day to all of our military service members! Thank you for your sacrifice and all of the work you do to keep our country safe! Here's a nod to my brother Brian, a Navy veteran, on his graduation from boot camp back in 2006: Well, as a school teacher, I also received Veteran's Day off, so I put my time to good use building things for my kitchen. First on the list was the small box for above the too-short-pantry. Next, I decided to build some bookshelves for underneath the countertop, to be placed at either end of my 11.5-foot long peninsula. This will create an enclosed overhang area for a breakfast bar which will be able to hold anywhere from 3-4 stools. The bookshelves are 12.25" deep and 24" wide. When building, I first measured for one shelf in the middle of the bookshelf... ...but after seeing how large the opening was, it looked more like an Ikea piece of furniture than a custom under-counter built in. I took the middle piece out, re-positioned it, and added an extra shelf near the top. I'm still not completely satisfied, but I think it will look fine when complete.
As many of you should remember, I got my brand new shaker-style kitchen cabinets on Craig's List this summer for a whopping $1200. For those of you who have never bought kitchen cabinets, you may be thinking, WHOA THAT'S A LOT. On the contrary my friends - cabinets are usually the reason why kitchen renovations can sometimes reach over $30-40K. Mine are all wood and soft close! WIN! The cabinets are also a really nice looking wood, so I've been going back and forth about whether or not I should paint them. When I unboxed them again today (they've been sitting in my garage since July), I got really excited and again couldn't decide. Ultimately, though, I know I want a nice bright and open kitchen, so white is the way to go. I can't wait to start painting them! The first thing Brian and I did was bring them in from the garage and lay them in the downstairs bedroom. We needed to label each box and then each drawer and door. This ensures that when we go to put the doors and drawers back on, we know exactly which box they belong to. Don't mind the bandage, Brian and I had donated blood earlier today! Now, removing the drawers and doors was a very, very simple process. The drawers just clicked out of place, and then the doors just needed two screws each to be taken out. We took all of the drawers and doors upstairs to the other guest bedroom and the boxes stayed in the downstairs bedroom. The next step will be to stand them all down, prime, and then paint! I can't wait!
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about meHi! I'm Lauren! I'm a twenty-something teacher and homeowner in North Carolina. I love math, decorating, and getting down and dirty learning new things about home renovation and repair. Categories
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