Mixing some old with some new

December is over and January is a new month and a new year. December was a whirlwind for me this year, and although I got a lot done in my house, I didn't get a lot done on my blog.  We have been working on our master bedroom the past couple of months. My older post showed my room painted, and the ceiling painted as well. I painted the room Silver sage from Restoration hardware. I love the color, so calming and relaxing. One of the fun new additions I put in the room was a new fireplace. It is a real flame fireplace. It burns a real fire using cans of gel. It is clean, odorless, and you don't have to vent it. We love it.  Although it was beautiful and new, we wanted to add some character to the room. We had inherited a beautiful hand made piece of furniture from my husbands great grandfather. I knew that if we painted that and placed it on top of the fireplace it would be just the thing.

I went to work, It came already half painted, so I didn't feel bad about painting it white at all. I took a lot of time, and a lot of coats of paint, but it turned out beautiful.

Although the fireplace came white, it was a different shade of white so I painted that too.  I used my favorite liquid sand product, then just painted it with my white trim paint so all the white matches the room. I love how the top makes the fireplace feel like it has been in the room forever. We got it put together, and I went to work decorating it.

We decided that instead of a mirror in the middle of it we would put this fun Paris subway art since Paris is one of our favorite places to visit. I think it gave it a fun and unexpected look.

I love the character and history of old houses, and I love that re purposing a piece of furniture added so much meaning and character in my "new" house. Pin It

Half bath

So while we were doing our big master bath project, we decided to finish the half bath downstairs at the same time.

This is the room before the demo.  All I can say about it is EWWW! I have hated this room since the day we moved in.  The paint was brown...I hate the color brown, the floors were wood which the toilet leaked on and made it smell  great, and it was where all our guests went to use the restroom.  Embarrassing right! So let's just say, I was more than a little excited to demo this room!

 We ripped out everything including the floors. The room is small, which was great since it didn't take hardly any time at all.

We installed the same small black and white hex tile as we used in our bathroom. It was a pretty quick and easy install.  I found this vanity at Lowes and decided to paint it gray using the same liquid sand, primer and paint that I have used on my other cabinets.  We painted the walls a fun light aqua color and installed V board paneling on half of the walls. 

I bought this mirror at the Hobby Lobby for around ten bucks. It was on clearance because it had a little scratch on it.  I decided to paint it a light gray and distress it.  It added such fun personality to that room and was super easy to paint and finish.  I just used regular satin wall paint and brushed on a couple of coats.  After it was dry, I sanded it to show some of the black paint underneath.

Here is the vanity after I painted it. The gray paint made it totally look like an actual piece of furniture.

Here is the mirror above the sink.  The aqua color is actually a little less mint green, but there is no natural light in that room and it is hard to photograph.

Here is the sink part of the room.  I need to add some art on the long side wall, but over all I love how it turned out and I am no longer embarrassed to have my guests use our bathroom.  

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A little this and that

We are finished with the master bath project finally and have moved onto the master bedroom.  Last Saturday Jeff and I looked at each other and said we should paint the room...just go for it, just like that. It only took a couple of hours and we had ourselves a beautifully painted bedroom. I couldn't believe how quickly we got it done. I guess I was use to the bathroom project, long, messy, and labor intensive.  Not at all, this was quick, and fun, and exciting.
Here is the bedroom before paint.

Just a plain white room with this funky ceiling treatment.

We were originally thinking about putting up ceiling tiles on the ceiling, but decided that a little paint might do the trick.

We painted the walls the same blue gray color that is in the master bath.  I painted the wall color up the ceiling and chose a lighter gray color for inside of the trim.  This gives the ceiling an illusion of a trey ceiling. We took down the awful ceiling fan and replaced it with this fun orb chandelier I found in Boise over the summer.  Now I need to paint the trim, get a new bed, install the fireplace and bookshelves, add some finishing touches, and we are done! Pin It

Finish Master Bath Pictures

Finally...after almost three months my bathroom is done. I am so happy to have that room finished. This has been one of our hardest re models.  I don't know if it was because it was the start of school, or it was being up rooted and having my things in all different places in the house.  I also know that I don't deal well with messes, and this was a mess for quite a while. Anyway....here is the before...

And here is the finished bathroom.

I took a lot of different pictures. It is hard to photograph the room because of the orientation.  I love how it turned out...very calming and spa like. Now that it is done, it was totally worth it! Pin It

How we made our wood counter top

It has been forever since I have started this bathroom re model. About two months to be exact. I think this has been one of our toughest renovations we have ever done. I don't know why, maybe it was the time of year we started, or living out of the girl's bathroom was not the funnest. Either way, it is so close to be finished. We are using it...all of it! Yay.

Before I started this project, I wanted to find an old dresser or something I could use for the vanity. As we looked, we just found there was nothing out there that would fit or work. I decided to paint the vanity instead.  I used the same painting method that I used on the girl's bathroom vanity. Painting first with the zinnser primer then the wall paint. I used the same color I painted my theater room. It went well, and I had a lot left. I loved it the moment it was done. I knew that this inexpensive solution defiantly worked the best for us.

Next, I had to decide on the counter. We looked at everything. Granite, quarts, soapstone, and nothing was quite right. I decided that I wanted to have a wood counter top, but I was afraid how it would wear.  We started researching and came across a product called waterlox.  It epoxies and seals the wood. I thought this was the perfect solution.





First step was deciding which kind of wood to choose. We went back and forth between cedar and pine, and finally decided on using pine boards and staining them a rich mahogany color to accent the grain and knots in it.


We found a pine counter top at home depot that was the right size for our vanity.  We decided to use the full board rather than separate pieces glued together. The full board would give us a much more even top. We went to work sanding the board well and staining the counter top. I wanted a rich color, something that would add some contrast  with my bathroom, since it was pretty light and mostly had shiny tile finishes. I actually used a combination of two colors and mixed and played with the color I wanted.  I used a combination of a cherry stain with a very dark brown on top.  It added a lot of depth and contrast to the wood.  One tip, when applying stain on stain always work quickly. If the first coat gets tacky, the second coat starts pulling off the bottom stain.  It worked well to either go over the wood with the stain almost immediately after each coat, or letting the first coat dry for a day completely then adding the second color of stain on top.

Once the stain was dry for a couple of days we applied the waterlox finish.  Some tips for this process.,,, After a couple of coats we saw that small bubbles were starting to form. We found that using a paint brush caused these bubbles.  The trick is to use a rag and liberally wipe on the finish. We sanded out the bubbles and tried the wiping method. It worked great.  We did three coats of the originally finish the applied a top coat of the satin finish.  We rubbed the satin finish on the same way and loved how the wood went from really shiny and epoxied looking, to looking like a piece of finished real wood.

I couldn't be more happy with this counter. It was relatively easy to do, and my vessel sinks look great on top of it.  It was so so much more inexpensive than granite or quarts, but it still gave the bathroom a very custom rich look.

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Tile

We've been working on the back splash and shower tile this past weekend and I couldn't be more excited about how it is turning out. I am going pretty classic by using white subway tile on the shower, and accenting it with three stripes of  fabulous gray concrete accent tile we found. I also found a smaller subway tile for the backslash over the sink.  I also spent the first day of school (for my kids) painting my vanity. I chose a charcoal gray color to help ground the room. Painting cabinets and furniture is my favorite thing to do since it is such a fun fast update to any  room.
Just some grout and we are ready for the fun part...accessorizing!  I am getting excited...we are getting so close! Pin It

Progress

We are slowly but steadily making progress.  This week was the start of school for all of us, and things just got a little crazy. The floor is finally tiled and I love it! I wanted my bathroom to have a vintage feel to it so I decided to go with small black and white hex tiles.

Lights are in! I found these school house fixtures on a trip we took to Boise this summer, and I knew I had to have them for my bathroom.

I also added some to my closet.

This will hang off of a beam we made for the center of the room. I have always wanted a hanging fixture in my bathroom.

Can't wait to blog about this project. We decided to make our own wood counter top for the vanity. I think that with everything white, light, and shiny in the bathroom it adds a nice balance. We are working on tiling the shower and grouting everything this weekend. More progress to come! Pin It