Bathroom is Almost Done!

Happy Halloween :)



We are planning on moving in this weekend! It doesn't seem real!

We have decided to put off redoing the kitchen and will instead use the rest of our reno loan on the rest of the house.

Here a pictures of the beautiful tile and fixtures (I really like the faucet). You may notice that there are several elements in the bathroom that are done, and then become undone. I have decided that finishing is really hard! We agonized over decisions, and change our mind too much. At least we are moving in in a few days and will be able to enjoy our hard work.








I will post a play by play of the toilet installation later this week, so you have that to look forward to :)

No Colors Anymore...

I want them to turn black.

Not really, but I'm really happy with how our black & white bathroom is turning out.

We put in a lot of work this weekend, and have been making miraculous progress - we might actually start moving in next week!!

I had a bit of a battle with a patch of drywall that looked awful once we started priming, but I managed to prevail and things are looking great.

I am posting several photos of the new black beadboard wainscoting and window trim. This picture was taken after one coat. It looks even better after the second coat, and we may even do a third. Michael is hoping to start working on the tile tomorrow, which is very exciting. Anyway, here are the new bathroom photos - we had to take out the ceiling light fixture to paint the ceiling, so the light is a little odd:

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

A Bathroom!!

Very exciting. Michael has taken an unexpected hiatus from work, and it's been good for our progress. I was very sick with possibly-the-flu last week and was not able to work on the house at all. So no progress last week. And then we had a early birthday celebration for Michael on the weekend, which was fun. We went to a totally terrifying haunted woods/house called Skeleton's Lair, if you're anywhere in the area I definitely recommend it!

Michael somehow magically got the new drywall up on the ceiling by himself, which is awesome! (It does worry me that the text on the drywall might show through the primer and paint though). And then he got the crown moulding done, and primed everything! Here are some lovely photos of our bathroom today (except the first pic which is a little older):


the cabinet with the stain on, just needs the polyurethane over everything now.


the primed bathroom, it looks like the inside of a real house!


this is where the sink will go, we have it wired for two sconces, and the mirror will go between it.

I LOVE this pottery barn mirror... I don't know why, I've really never felt like this about a mirror before. Here it is:

(http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p4985/toolbox.cfm?tool=vAlt&page=3) but $249 just sounds like so much - but it's the perfect size!!


Here is the wall behind the built-in. We decided not to do beadboard, just white paint. But it will have a light fixture, and a mirror too, so it should be fine.


look it's crown moulding! sweet :)

So now all that we need to do for the bathroom is: (1) paint; (2) do the last bit of staining & poly on the built-in and get the glass for the cabinet door; (3) install the lighting fixtures - we've already wired for them; (4) tile (hopefully this won't take forever); (5) choose a sink faucet & mirror; (6) finish sanding and painting the window and door trim; (7) paint the tub; (8) and install everything. Does that sound like a lot? I actually feel like we're really close now!

And once the bathroom is done, just a few finishing touches on our room & closet, and then we can move in!!

We Could Get a Lot More Done...

If everything didn't take so long.

We managed to make decent progress this weekend. Not quite as much as I'd hoped, but not terrible.

The waincscoting panels are now all up. The drywall is completely finished (YAY!). And the built-in cabinet is essentially finished. I'm a little sad that the pictures don't appear to show much progress, but that will change soon.



Michael contemplating the space for the last wainscoting panel:


And it's up!:



(the window still needs its top & bottom trim, and no I that is not what they will actually look like when they are finished.)

Today when I get home I will either start staining the built-in or priming the drywall, whichever sounds more exciting to me.

We also have the supplies I need to work on the bathtub. I'm excited to see how that turns out.

I guess it's still possible we could start moving in the weekend of the 12th, but it's probably more realistic to think the weekend after. But I will still tell myself the 12th to try keep my motivation up. The same way I like to keep the clock in the car a few minutes fast to try to get places on time. But based on that philosophy I shouldn't have to use too many tricks because we thought we might move in 3 months ago, and that clearly didn't help all that much.

Well never mind about the built-in then!

After the overwhelming response, we have decided to leave the built-in as is, as far as the top part goes. I just really want to finish the bathroom and decided I was crazy for suggesting any extra work.

We are trying to pump ourselves up for a big weekend of work. I think we could make some awesome progress if we could put in 2 eight hour days. I would still like to move in in the next few weeks.

Most of the wainscoting is up, we haven't started the mouldings yet. But I really think this weekend we can finish the built-in, finish the wainscoting, and I can start priming and painting... that of course still leaves cleaning up the tub and laying the tile. I might be psychotically optimistic, but I'm hoping we can do that NEXT weekend. Then we could actually move in the weekend of the 12th (which is the same day the bar exam results come out, so now no one needs to ask about that).

Here are a few photos of our progress...

The bathroom window trim that is taking FOREVER to strip:



The sorry state of our back porch: (Neighbors I am truly sorry and I have been trying to clean it up.)



Our new wainscoting, it's beadboard paneling, and it's actually not bad. We went for the slightly better stuff that actually has some depth instead of those yucky flat panels with tiny ridges for the beads:


And the built-in yet again. It's a great thing to have, but I will be very glad when it's done:



Wish us luck this weekend, I will try to document our progress and hopefully be able to do a triumphant post on Monday :)

The Great Cabinet Debate

Work is continuing - just not very quickly.

My parents were out of town last week, so we had to rush home every day to check on the dogs.

I also managed to half-way dislocate my shoulder, so that really slowed me down. I'm okay though.

Anyway, we're still hoping to finish the bathroom in the next few weeks. But right now we're trying to decide on whether the two upper halves of the built-in cabinet in the bathroom should be the same height. Here are a few photos:





It was really hard to get a good shot of it - I need to get a wide-angle lens. But anyway, we can't agree whether it's fine as is, or whether it looks extremely off balance and the right side should be brought up to the same height as the left. Any opinions would be appreciated :)

Housecleaning

This weekend I was mostly on my own since Michael went camping with a friend on Saturday night. It's hard to resist taking some time for ourselves, but we are also anxious to get in the house... we struggle with that. But I had a nice time working at the house and did some reading in the evening.

The photos show the result of a simple sweeping and mopping of the floors. It really made me happy to see that they look pretty great under all that filth. We aren't planning on refinishing them, just giving them a good cleaning and then waxing them. (The floor was still wet in the photos, thus the shininess). Oh, and that's the guest bedroom, the bathtub is just living in there until we're ready to refinish the outside and install it.

We went for a drive to the nearby "big town" of Bowling Green in our search for beadboard wainscoting on Friday night. We were in luck because they were in stock, and while they were slightly water damaged, they gave us an irresistible price on them.

I was hoping to start mudding the drywall yesterday, since all the drywall is up in the bathroom, but I had some issues getting the bucket of mud open (i.e. I could not open it!) Today after I walk home I'm going to try really hard again and see if I can't get that started, and then Michael wants to go get all the mouldings for the wainscoting so we can start to put that up. It's nice that we only really have to finish the upper half of the drywall, so I guess I can practice on the lower half.

We had decided to go to the Bourbon Festival this weekend in Bardstown after hearing how much fun it was, but I think we've managed to convince ourselves that we really need to work on the house. It's already almost halfway through September, I don't know how this keeps happening.

Our New Bathroom Inspiration

Isn't it beautiful? We were already talking about painting the outside of the tub black, and now we've pretty much decided to do a full on black and white bathroom. I'm excited about the black, I think it looks really elegant and is not a very commonly used color (or non-color or whatever it is). I just hope we can pull it off, choosing the right paint will be very important!

Michael started working this week, which is exciting, but not good news for house progress. I've been trying to make an extra effort to go to the house after work and I've been sanding the trim for the built-in. I was actually having fun with it yesterday, it really helped listening to my mp3 player. I'm really enjoying an album I put on it by Mika.

Here are some updated photos of our built-in. It looks great. We're having a debate about the beadboard on the wall. I think we're going to keep it up, but we're not sure if we should paint if black or if that will be overwhelming. We're thinking that we'll stain the cabinet with a semi-transparent white stain which will be beautiful and break up all the black. Anyway, here are the photos of the cabinet and a sample pic of the stain:




So the stain doesn't seem to show up very well online, but it will be more like the white stain, but you will be able to see the grain more like in the gray stain:






We were bad renovators again last weekend and went camping, but I think we will get lots done this weekend, and we had a great time so it was worth it :) I had to share a couple of photos of Michael, from when we were out on our friends' boat:

Anyone feel like helping us make a decision?

I have started looking at lighting fixtures for the bathroom. If anyone recalls,
this is our light fixture (and exhaust fan) on the ceiling:

We are currently looking for a set of sconces to go on either side of the mirror over the sink (we haven't chosen the mirror yet) but the sink looks like this:




And our fixtures so far have all been in a polished nickel finish.

We are also looking for a light fixture to go on the wall above the built-in.

Here are a couple of my options so far:

SCONCES




Over built-in options:




The more I look at the first sconce the more I like it, but I'm worried that the matching two-light fixture will be too small to go over the built-in. I'm also open to any suggestions from anyone who has a feel for what we're looking for :)

Michael explores the world of carpentry

Well, the last of our guests have left (it was fun Peter!).

I managed to be some help to Michael last week, I made an effort to go after work and help put up some drywall. And today Michael started making the built-in cabinet he designed. I can't believe how far along he came in just one day - it looks so great already! And it gives me hope that we may finish the bathroom sometime in the next month... which of course is very exciting :)

Here are some shots of the general progress on the bathroom, the built-in is where the second door used to be.








Our plan is to work on the house Friday evening & most of Saturday, and then take the rest of the long weekend off and camp at the local lake with our friends. We should be able to get the rest of the drywall up pretty easily, and then my job will be sanding/taping/spackling etc. while Michael continues on the built-in.

Which reminds me - we really need to choose a color, or two I guess since the first four feet of the wall will be beadboard. I actually kind of like the look of the green drywall, but I'm pretty stuck on green for the kitchen now. We've talked about doing the bathroom in a turquoise or something like that, I think it could look really good with the black and white tile.

Then on to the tile. But we won't worry about that yet.