Before & After: The Master Bathroom (The Details)

This bathroom has been a long time in coming and a long time of planning and dreaming on my part.

The color scheme was the first thing set in my mind.  I knew I wanted blue and white but had not decided on the particular blue until I saw this picture from Joan @ For The Love Of A House blog.

The blue was not quite white, but not quite a true blue.  The color is Horizon by Benjamin Moore.

We decided to go with a walk-in shower at the prompting of our contractor.  He recommended doing some type of a pattern in the shower.  I first picked out a gray/white marble porcelain tile for the large tile and then decided on the mosaic.  The mosaic includes tiles of blue, aqua, gray and gray striped.  All of our tile was purchased at Lowes.  Our contractor, Danny, laid out the design for the shower.  He also included in the right wall of the shower a small alcove just large enough for our shampoo, conditioners, and soap.

Of course, the optimum master bath would have two sinks and two mirrors.  Two sinks was definitely not going to happen in a bathroom just 7' 8" by 5'.  We are rarely both using a sink at the same time, but we often do need a mirror at the same time...so I thought why not have the two mirrors.  These mirrors were purchased at Lowe's for a fraction of the cost of similar bath mirrors shown in Pottery Barn catalogs.  I just love the tilting feature.  We not only added the extra mirror but also an extra light, and an extra plugin outlet to the wall.  The extra outlet allows whoever is working at that mirror the electricity needed for a curling iron, blow dryer, or electric razor without having to cross over the one standing at the sink.  I believe this is my favorite part of the bathroom.

I also fell in love with this shelf from The Fairfield House blog.  We removed a cabinet above the toilet and a medicine cabinet above the sink.  This shelf afforded us some well needed extra space for bathroom supplies and gave us a place to rest makeup, curling iron, etc.  Danny did a great job creating this shelf for us.

As I showed before in my inspiration pictures, I love vessel sinks.  The ideal vessel sink for me would have been a white porcelain sink shaped like a big antique kitchen bowl.  Vessel sinks like that do actually exist they just cost 4 times more than the sink we actually purchased.  The sink below was purchased from Amazon.com as well as the faucet at great prices.  This bowl is white on the outside but the inside is more of an aqua color.  The description was "frosted glass".  I wasn't really sure about the aqua with my color scheme, but the aqua in the mosaic in the shower matched perfectly and really pulled out this bright accent.  Besides loving the design of a vessel sink, a vessel sink also leaves so much more room on the counter area of the sink.  Having that extra space below where the sink stands makes these types of sinks perfect for small bathrooms.

The counter is granite.  I know...it looks marvelously like marble!  Our contractor was able to purchase scraps of granite at a local supplier to use in our bathroom.  We were really fortunate to find a color that exactly matched the shower tile.

I used vintage canning jars for bath supplies and decorative elements on the shelf.  The aqua in the jars help tie in the aqua accents in the bathroom.

Our floor tile is ceramic - also purchased at Lowes.  Our contractor warned us that ceramic tile is much more slick when wet than porcelain tile, but I couldn't find any porcelain tile that I liked.  I decided our bathroom floor was so small (about 5' x 5') that we wouldn't be as likely to slip with two rugs on the floor.  So far we haven't hit any slick spots.  :)

This is our towel wall.  When I saw the beadboard wall on The Lettered Cottage's dining room wall, I knew it would be perfect in a bathroom.  I have ordered hooks from an iron forger on Etsy called Furnacebrook.  Hooks will be installed on this board for towels and wash cloths.  I don't know about your men, but mine don't know how to use a towel rack.  Hopefully, they will use a hook.  :)

thelettered cottage.net

Here are a couple of before/after shots that matched up pretty good so you can see the wonderful changes in this remodel/renovation.

If you missed either of the earlier posts on this bathroom, they are listed below:

Before & After: The Master Bathroom (Before, Progress, and Inspiration)

Before & After: The Master Bathroom

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Thanks for stopping by,

Judy :)

Before & After: The Master Bathroom

Details to come.

Before & After: The Master Bathroom (Before, Progress, and Inspiration)

Before & After: The Master Bathroom (Details) 

 

Judy :)

Before & After: The Master Bathroom (Before, Progress, and Inspiration)

After eight years of living in our house, we have finally completed remodeled our master bathroom.  Master bathroom is probably not the term used by most modern homes to describe this bathroom.  It is the Master bathroom only because it is across the hall from the master bedroom and we are the only ones who use it.  The designer of this house planned a huge master bedroom.  Our master bedroom is larger than our living room and includes two nice sized walk in closets.  For some unknown reason though, a bathroom is not connected to this large space.  We had toyed with the idea of turning the office beside our bedroom into a bathroom but quickly discarded this idea because of the cost and we really did need an office.

Our master bathroom measures 7 feet 8 inches by 5 feet...a very small bathroom.

Here are the before pictures:

The tub and shower was our real eyesore (and sore spot) in our opinion.  This tub was a jacuzzi tub.  When it was originally installed, the installer was not careful to level the tub so whenever the shower was run, the water all ran onto the floor...even with the shower curtain tightly closed.  We tried hooks to keep the shower curtain tightly closed.  We even installed a guttter a long the edge of the tub to run the water back in.  All a short term solution to a huge problem.  In the end we decided to just use the tub and resigned to taking showers in the guest bathroom.

The Progress:

Demolition Day!

A small peak at the new work:

The Inspiration:

I love the beadboard and wider board on top.

theletteredcottage.net

 The color scheme is so bright and clean.

fortheloveofahouse.blogspot.com

The shelf above the sinks...what a great idea!

fairfieldhousenj.com

A vessel sink! 

You can see more of this sink and the Tucker House Bed and Breakfast in Louisville, KY here.

In the next couple of days, I will post the after pictures.  Please check back soon.

Note:  See the after pictures here.

And the details here. 

Judy :)

It is so good to be back after a busy tax season.  Thanks for coming back and sticking with me!

Before & After: From Window to Coat Rack

Tutorial to follow soon.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Judy :)

Before & After: Upper Kitchen Cabinet

Someday I need to do a post on the purchase of our house, but as a short story our house was a total wreck when we purchased it.  We literally had to rip out all of the flooring down to the subfloor, remove the air conditioning/heating vents, apply Kilz to all surfaces and replace all of the flooring, ac/heat unit and vents, and paint everything.  The house was an undeniable wreck, BUT we got a wonderful price on it and around 14 acres of land...our small dream farm.  We made the house livable and was able to move in within two months of the closing.

We have now been here for seven year and with the announcement of my husband retiring, we have decided to stay.  Wow!  The word "stay" has really made my creative juices flow!  Since we married, we have always moved after about 5 years in a location as my husband was promoted through the levels of USDA.  It is an amazing feeling for me (a preacher's daughter who moved all throughout her childhood) to be able to say we are home "for good".   Since we are "staying", I now feel free to make this house more of "our" house with "our" style and tastes...not just a house that will resale.

Once Charlie announced his retirement, the first project I decided on was our upper kitchen cabinet.  Below is a picture from our house inspection of what the kitchen area once looked like:

The upper kitchen cabinet stretched out over the bar and really blocked a lot of light from the dining room area (where I am standing while taking the picture).  I have looked at the wood backing over the years trying to decide on a way to fix the problem.  I thought of adding glass cabinet doors.  If glass cabinet doors were added to the front and the back the light would flow through from the dining room to the kitchen.  The only problem was the cabinet doors would have to be constructed and a new framework for the glass doors would have to be installed on the back of the cabinet...expensive!  I decided to just remove the doors and the back of the cabinet to have an open shelf.  One that could be used from either the dining room side or the kitchen side.

About a month before I started on this project, I removed the cabinet doors from the kitchen side to live with that for a while and see how I liked it.  I really did like it.  This is how it looked then:

The backing of the cabinet was nailed to the frame and one vertical board in the center of the back.  After talking to my dad and my brother, we determined that the support of the cabinet was from the ceiling, so taking the backing off of the cabinet wouldn't create a support issue.  I talked my friend, Sharon, into tackling this project with me.  Sharon owns rental houses and does all of her own carpentry, plumbing and electrical work herself.  She is quite the jack of all trades!

We started early on a Saturday morning and removed the back of the cabinet.  This is what it looked like at that point:

I didn't particularly like the extra vertical supports where the cabinet doors connected on the front of the cabinet.  I knew I wanted to keep the single vertical piece on the back, so we decided to remove the cabinet door supports from the front and center one of them equal with the vertical piece on the back.  Removing those pieces of wood was tough!  They were not only nailed in, but also had wooden pegs connected into the framing.  Sharon's father had a saw that resembled an electric bread knife to cut through the nails and pegs so we could remove those boards.  Sharon went to get the saw and brought the saw and her father back with her.  Her father is 85 years old and had been a carpenter his whole life.  He sat on that stool in the kitchen and talked us through the rest of the project.  A wealth of information!

After we had the center board on the front secured, we drove back to Sharon's father's house and took the original backing of the cabinet to cut trim pieces so the back would match the front.  Once we had those trim pieces attached to the cabinet, the cabinet was finished to the point of painting.  We finished around noon on the same day and had only spent a couple of dollars for some finishing nails.  A fast and thrifty project!

Painting this cabinet opened up another whole project...painting all of the kitchen cabinets.  This is something that I have wanted to do, but knew it would be time consuming.  I chose to use Benjamin Moore Paint for a couple of reasons.  First, I knew it was a high quality paint and I wanted this paint to last for a long time.  Second, Benjamin Moore carries a low VOC line of paint.  My husband is very sensitive to odors and I knew the low VOC paint would be easier on him.  I chose Simply White as my paint color.  I have liked this white so well, I will probably use it all over my house for my trim work when I do repaint the house...another project!

I painted the upper cabinet the next weekend.  I sanded (by hand), used a primer and two coats of Simply White semi-gloss.  Oops, sorry for the mess!  This was taken this weekend (Labor Day weekend) when I decided to tackle painting the lower portion of the cabinets.

I purchased an electric sander to save some sanding time.  I love, love, love the electric sander!  I sped through sanding the drawers and cabinet doors in about 3 minutes and sanded the lower backing and framework in about 7 minutes.  What a time saver!  I used a 180 grit sandpaper.  I didn't want to sand the cabinet down too much--just prepare the surface so the primer would adhere.  It worked perfectly.  I am changing my drawer pulls and cabinet handles to a brushed nickel color instead of brass.  I used a pricier drawer pull and am looking at a more simple cabinet handle for the cabinet doors ( all 24 of them!).  I only have seven drawers so I splurged a little more on them.  Below is the finished product:

 

And yes, except for the top shelf of dishes, I use those dishes everyday.  The dishes are not just for looks.  I wanted this to be a practical addition.  I will slowly work my way around the kitchen painting the rest of the cabinets as I have free weekends.  What projects have you been working on?

Enjoy your week!

Judy :)

Before & After: The Front Door

When we purchased our house, it had been “well” used.  Bluntly, it was filthy and needed a total make over.  We did a quick makeover of walls and flooring then moved into it as soon as we could.  Over the past six years (after moving in), we have slowly been fixing other little things as we can.  One of my recent “do-overs” was the front door.  We have a really nice front door with the side window lights.  I think the previous owners intended to paint the door after their dogs had ruined the finish as they scratched to get inside.  The front door looked like it had been lightly sanded at several places.  These are the before pictures of the front door:

Everywhere we drove this past summer, I looked at front doors.  I noticed the colors of the doors and if the side lights were painted the same or in contrast.  My favorite front doors were painted black with white side lights.  The contrast really made the front doors pop.  I liked black, but I remembered traveling in Charleston, South Carolina when I was in college and loving the color of their front doors.  At first glance, they looked black, but after looking closer, you noticed the color was really a green that was so dark it was almost black.  I started looking for that color and found what I thought might be a good substitute at Lowe’s.  The color is called Nocturnal Green and is made by Valspar.

When I began painting the front door, the paint looked to have a more bluish tinge to it.  My son thinks it looks black, but I can definitely see a blue tinge and not a green tinge.  When I hold the paint sample up to the door (which looks green when held away from the door), the paint exactly matches the sample.  Go figure?!  Maybe the bluish tinge is the reflection of the gray concrete on the porch floor.  I do like the way the door looks, so I am going to keep the color….just not totally what I was after.

Here is the way the door looks now (and decorated for fall):

The gold “Welcome” is a vinyl transfer from “Leen the Graphics Queen”.  Check out her website.  She has all kinds of sayings and scriptures to add to your walls, doors, or crafts.  They are reasonably priced and are easy to apply.

What new projects have you finished this fall?

Enjoy your weekend!

Judy :)