Good Bye Disco Inferno

In a previous post you saw the tiny bathroom we turned into a closet. We decided this house needed a proper master bathroom, and this bedroom was a long rectangle and had room to spare for a bathroom. Here's where we started: Please note the lovely wall color, the creative window and the double mirrored closet = Disco Inferno.

Notice the brown color had to go, that happened a long time ago.

So the space is set, the wall is up, I think I showed these pictures before...

Heated floor installation. Yahoo. Definitely a luxury, but wow, it feels so good every morning. 

Shower tile goes in. (After A LOT of ridiculous back and forth on my part. I just couldn't decide. I found some accent tiles that I LOVED but they were $122 a square foot. $6,000 for shower tile? I think not. I thought I was compromising and giving up on my design plan, but in the end we just needed tile. Under the gun we still picked a good one at a MUCH better price).

I really love faces boys make. 

Meanwhile you can see the cabinet, counters and lights have been installed. Not sure why I don't have pictures, oh wait, yes I do, I got to help install everything (CHEAP [free] labor) so I couldn't snap pics and install. I've realized why Neal lets me go to the gym, so I can try to get as strong as he is so he has a strong, reliable, cheap helper. 

The finished product: Ta-da.

I really love it. It's a bit more modern than I was initially intending for it to be. I wanted it to look a bit more rustic (like a "pretty barn" I told my dad, which he had a good laugh over). However, I think I matured as a designer [a fake one] over this project. I showed some restraint (which doesn't come naturally) and the project came together. I do however think a nice big set of antlers will round out the project.

A few more details:

The shower floor, hexagon Carrera marble

Bench in the shower

A shower with a view. 

Once again, thanks to Neal for working during all of his free time and putting up with my sometimes-crazy design schemes. HE is relentless people. 

The Chair

Like Neal, I usually have a project going at all times too. I bought this chair on Craigslist in July.

I love the shape of it. It's small enough to be a chair but big enough to sit in it with my two kids to read. It's French looking, antique looking, but clearly in need of a makeover.

Ewww. We started ripping it apart. It was pretty gross. There was a tag on it saying it was made in 1967, and had a custom paint job. So it's not really French or antique, but still fun. The lowlight was the cat pee smell in the back of it. That's one of the million reasons Neal comes in so handy. He primed the pee out of it. 

Then I painted it white. With little gold highlights in the detail work.

Then Neal made the first attempt at hand tying the springs.

Then Neal gave up on the project all together when I took two months to decide that I wanted it gold, and that I wanted the springs hand tied with Italian hemp spring twine. I did both. Have you ever tied springs?! My hands were raw for like 4 days. BUT, I persevered, and did it. 

Like a few (or lots) of my projects, I never end up liking them. Neal thought that maybe with this one I should have a professional handle the upholstery part of the project. I was so glad I did. I found some fabric that I loved from Calico (they are no longer Calico Corner, because "corner" must have made them sound so homely, as if "Calico" is super hip because it's not. Calico is the fabric of choice in the Little House on the Prairie books, good, but not quite "hip"). Here's the finished product:

Here's the before again:

I'm very pleased with it, and think it's a great addition to our bedroom!

Christmas in October

Getting organized makes me giddy. Today we got to take an exciting step forward to get our clothes in order. I think the closet installation man thought I was crazy. Especially when I wrote a song and sang it for him with a coordinated dance. Ok I didn't do that part out loud, but I did inside my heart.

                           

Getting to see the carpet again was amazing. No more piles! No more russian roulette!

Another highlight is the beautiful floor Neal did in the closet. It's gorgeous. He worked so hard on it. There were many steps so it took many evenings, lots of cutting, sanding, it was a long process.

I love the final result. The picture doesn't really do it justice. It's a dark, rich brown with a lot of depth.

                        

But that's not all! The bathroom project is really coming along. Neal has done all the boring but necessary jobs, and now all the fun stuff gets to be put in place. He did his final sanding today and then painted. I picked another color from my favorite paint strip (that I've used on the whole house). This color is Sherwin Williams "Eider White" and I did it at 50%. I want the bathroom to be light and bright, but not pure white. So there's a hint of grey, which blends well with the room color since they're from the same strip. 

The shower, pre tile. Notice the spot for the skylight, can't wait to see they sky in the shower!

Mini plumbers getting ready to install a toilet.

Those mini plumbers are pretty good!

The Benefits of Sleeping in a Construction Site

There have to be at least a few benefits of sleeping IN a construction site, right? Well, there are!

1) The design process is happening as you're getting ready for bed, while in bed, while sleeping and when waking up. When lying in bed one night I realized one of the vanity lights and the plug were in the wrong spot.

2) Playing Russian Roulette is a really fun game. It's in the middle of the night and one of my kids is crying, I get up and inch my way through the room trying to avoid dresser drawers, tools, shoes, piles of clothes and laundry baskets getting to the crying child. So far, I've had no stubbed toes, I haven't tripped nor have I gotten any nails, silvers or staples stuck in my feet! 

3) Wearing the same pair of jeans every days is really cool. When do you get to actually wear out your clothes?! I'm getting that chance since I can't find my other pairs of jeans. I swear I had another pair last week, but they're currently lost somewhere in the abyss, so sorry everyone, I hope you like the ones I have on (and will have on) because they're here to stay. And stay. And stay. And stay. And sorry gym friends, that WAS actually the same shirt I wore the day before. I couldn't find any others, so sorry about that smell...

4) My Jenga skills are improving. I get the opportunity to stack some dresser drawers from my bed to the floor every evening, and then again from the floor to my bed every morning. They stack precariously and I balance and stack them with sharp precision. I don't really even like the game Jenga, but now I'll just kill it when I play.

But, since my husband doesn't have a stop/slowdown/rest/take a break mode, I know that this current chaos won't last forever. In fact, it probably won't last even two more weeks. He's most likely motivated by the mess to complete as fast as he can. Three cheers for Neal! 

LIGHTS!

DRY WALL!!

Underway Again

We're back at it! This time we've taken on the project of the master bathroom/closet project. Why you ask? Because this is downright fugly:

We've been looking forward to getting rid of this bathroom for a while. A year. In fact, since the first day we moved in. It's really small, and that was concerning to us because not only for resale value but even for us to not have to be on top of each other while getting ready, showering, etc. Our bedroom is a large rectangle with vaulted ceilings which makes it feel even bigger. Early on we decided that we'd use part of the bedroom plus the full-length mirrored closet and transform it into a master bathroom. 

So, really it's two projects in one. We ordered a custom closet system to be installed on October 14th, so that got us moving on demo. The bathroom had to be gone, floors and lights installed, drywall work complete, painted, etc before then. We brought in the big guns for demo:

They were eager to help for the first 20 minutes. 

Heave-ho on the nasty-stinky-didn't-flush-well-piece-of-crap.

I don't think he ever stops or gets tired.

Sad that it looks better ripped apart than as a bathroom.

As you can see, I'm so helpful. I take pictures while he works. 

So then the best part begins: putting it all back together. Neal had some left-over materials from a recent job, and lucky me I get herringbone wood floors in my closet. Never mind that they are testing every ounce of Neal's patience to install. What a guy.

We decided on an "inset" in the middle to ensure we wouldn't run out of materials.

Almost done! Now for some sanding and staining.

Meanwhile.....

The plumber is set to come this weekend to "rough in" the bathroom (professional speak meaning that he's going to set up all the pipes for the shower/sink/toilet in the new bathroom) so we had to frame in the bathroom space so he could do that, which means chaos ensued in our room:

Neal set up brackets with poles along one wall for our interim "closet".

Where the new wall and bathroom will be.

2x4's coming in through the window.

Carpet torn back.

Beginning of a new wall.

Neal was very sweet and concerned that all of the chaos would stress me out. I'm pumped. It means I can throw my clothes all over the place for a few weeks without anyone noticing and blaming it on the remodel. Yes!!!! Plus, then at the end of all this I'll have an organized place to keep my clothes and a beautiful bathroom.