Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Home Improvement!

Despite having one of THOSE days (the kind where I officially don't feel well and spend most of the day on the couch, sipping at liquids), I am ridiculously excited to share a couple changes we recently made around the house.

About two months ago, I got the brilliant idea to freshen up our bathrooms. As a real estate agent, I know that outdated baths and kitchens are often the first reason for undervalued home sales. And while I don't know for sure that the work we're doing will still be good-looking or in mode by the time we do decide to sell our home, at least it's prettier to look at and live in in the meantime.

Not to mention, hey, I like it.

My idea started out simple enough: paint the upper half of the walls and add wainscoting and chair rail molding to the lower half.

This was easily something WH and I could accomplish ourselves, and I have to admit to being super-psyched to start. I went and picked out paint colors. I bought the wainscoting and painted it. I picked out the molding.

And then logic started to set in. For instance: adding wainscoting meant taking out the toilet and vanity. That was messing with plumbing, which was not something either of us were comfortable doing on our own just yet. But some research online showed that it really wouldn't be that scary, so it was worth it to try.

Once we conquered the plumbing, I got another brilliant idea. Since we already had the toilet and vanity out, why not re-do the floors? When I suggested this, I didn't actually think WH would agree to it. But he did. And so somehow I wound up tiling my first-ever floor. Luckily it was a small one to start with!

The whole experience took way, way longer than we thought-- and we have only finished the smaller of the two baths. But at least it's done (except for one or two minor details) and ready to go!

So, without further ado, I present to you:

The Before:



The After:



(Click to embiggen)

If one of our wedding photos wasn't at the top of that picture I'm not sure I'd believe this bathroom is actually in our house!



A better picture of the floor that I tiled. (Can you tell I'm excited that I did this? I love working with my hands and discovering new skills, even things as mundane as tiling a floor. And I only screwed up a little!)


The awesome part is that the toilet and the vanity are both the old ones. We just got a new faucet, seat, and handle, and they cleaned up pretty spiffy! Our hall bath still has the glorious 80's/90's vanity from several owners ago, so we'll be replacing that one... but we won't start that bath for a couple weeks at least.

WH did such an amazing job with everything. There were several weekends where he practically did nothing but work on the bathroom, cutting the wainscoting and molding and measuring and re-cutting and filling holes in the drywall and fixing the toilet and etc. So thank you, to my amazing and awesome and wonderful husband for indulging my crazy project, which started out with him ideally just "helping" and wound up with him doing most of the work!

One more thing while I've got you here-- can't resist showing off our new dining room set!


As if you needed more evidence of his craftiness, WH built the banquette benches in the back by modifying cupboards from Ikea. Here's a slightly better view with bonus cat picture:


So yay home improvement! You have no idea how long I've been dying to show you guys these pictures. Can't wait to share the hall bath once we get that one done!

7 comments:

  1. YAY!! I had no idea you were remodeling the bathroom. I just thought you were painting it, LOL. I wondered why it was taking a while. Woohoo to you two awesomes!! - And BOO to having the sickies today :(

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  2. That is some fantastic transformation. You could be Debbie Travis.

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  3. Wow, I was hoping as you were going through all the headaches and work that we would get to see pictures. Beautiful job! You guys should be proud!

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  4. Fantastic before and after!

    Feel better.

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  5. My wife is all over me to do this to our bathroom. I am thoroughly convinced I am going to muck it all up.

    It looks like you did exactly what we want to do to our little bathroom. Maybe I can do it...

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  6. Hi Medeia and Matt! Thanks for following.

    (and everyone else, too, I'm just stupid late in responding to these comments. Gar.)

    Matt- I totally think you can. I mean come on, if I can tile a floor... anyone can. DO IT.

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