Small steps in renovations

Our home renovations were paused for a while while hubby was out of town for work.  I made a few updates around the house, including:

(1) creating a gallery wall along the upstairs hallway, and
(2) in the guest bathroom, painting the window and door trim, and the door itself, a bright white.

Both of these small updates made a big impact in the feel of the second floor of our house.  The pictures fill up most of the large wall upstairs, and they are great reminders of trips we've taken together and places we love.  The bathroom trim used to be cream, and the white gives the room a much more modern and crisp look.

The guest bathroom is so close to being finished!  A friend of ours came over to help with the renovations, hanging an inexpensive white, vinyl blind from Home Depot (something like this) on the one window in the room and putting up two glass shelves in the open shelving area.  We bought the two glass shelves from a local shop that had them ordered to our exact measurements, and we placed the shelves atop L brackets that we bought at Home Depot as well. The coloring is off in this photo (the wall looks white instead of blue), but it shows off the shelves nicely.

We still need to:

• Choose and install a new light fixture above the mirror.
• Fix my paint job on the door, since you can see some inconsistencies in the application. This is likely due to the fact that I didn't sand the door at all before using a no-VOC primer/paint combination. (I don't want to inhale any dust from sanding while pregnant.)
• Install a vent - which we will have our contractor handle.

Currently, we are working on fixing the dining room walls and clearing out a bedroom for the nursery! Lots of work to be done....

We are almost done with Phase 1 of our guest bathroom renovation!  Here are a few items that are pulling the space together very nicely:

Including:

1. Urban Outfitters shower curtain

2. New white windows and white trim

3. Rome toilet paper holder (and matching towel rods), from Signature Hardware

4. Silver mirror, from Target

5. Toto toilet

6. Blue mosaic for an open shelving area, from Stone Source in downtown DC

We took down all the 1970s style wallpaper and painted the room a pretty blue that we had mixed at our local hardware store.

Everything looks great so far!  We still have to take care of a few more things:

• Finish painting the door trim and door white
• Install shelves in the open shelving unit
• Choose a new light and install it

Pictures of the room will be posted when it's done!

Guest Bathroom Makeover - Part 2

Part 2:  Tales of Taping, Sanding, and Joint Compound

Over Labor Day Weekend we made a lot of progress on the guest bathroom makeover.  To start, we used painter's tape to tape off areas of the bathroom that meet the wall.

We don't want to paint the window trim, vanity counter, shower tile, light fixture, etc.  The painter's tape is very easy to use.  You just need to (1) make sure it's lined up well so that it lies straight against the edges of the wall, and (2) flatten out all air bubbles so paint can't get underneath.

Then, my handyman hubby took down the mirror, wall-mounted soap dish, towel rods and took off the toilet tank so we could sand the wall behind the toilet.

Next, he used a hand sander to sand the wall down so it is nice and smooth.  He used safety goggles and a face mask, since the dust from the walls goes everywhere.

After that, he mixed joint compound in a big, orange all-purpose bucket.  It was very easy to mix the joint compound.  (You can buy it pre-mixed, but it's less expensive to make your own.) We got a Super Grout Mixer and attached it to our drill, poured the dry joint compound powder into the bucket, and then added water from the hose.  We mixed it until the joint compound was about the consistency of peanut butter or cake icing -- not too watery, but thick enough to cover the wall and not drip down.

Guest Bathroom Makeover - Part 1

Part 1:  Taking down the Wallpaper

We ripped off the flowery, 1970s wallpaper from the guest bathroom by hand, and it wasn't difficult at all.  I anticipated that we'd need to use a clothing steamer to loosen the wallpaper, but there were a few places where the corners were coming off the wall, and once we had a few pieces loose, it was easy to take off the rest.  Where we needed to loosen a few more pieces, we used our nails or a flat-head screwdriver.

Next steps: sanding, sanding, more sanding. Then we'll put some plaster on the wall to cover some small problem areas, let it dry, and then paint!  We'll post more pictures as we go.

Guest Bathroom Makeover - Planning

We're in the planning stages for our hallway guest bathroom makeover.  This is the bathroom we currently use the most, because the master bathroom has a tiny shower and doesn't smell that great.  The hallway bathroom, however, has a good-sized shower and tub and it smells just fine!  Thus far, we have changed out:

a. the curtain rod -- for a new, curved, Moen shower rod in the brushed nickel color
b. the old shower curtain -- for a Bed, Bath, and Beyond clear curtain
c. the shower head -- we don't love the new shower head, so we're still shopping around.

Now, we are in full bathroom makeover planning stages.  This makeover shouldn't be incredibly time consuming, but it will involve a lot of small changes, so planning is key.

The Tile Shop

This past weekend we took a break from unpacking and went for our first visit to The Tile Shop in Rockville.  I learned about them through Young House Love, a great blog about home renovation.  Since The Tile Shop is pretty close to our new home, and they are having a Labor Day Sale, we decided to check it out.  We decided to focus on one project only, otherwise we might get carried away.  First tile project for our new house:  basement bathroom tile.

Why are we starting our flooring adventure in the basement bathroom?  Because we had to rip up the entire basement floor to remove the asbestos tile that covered it.  We removed the toilet and vanity in the basement bathroom, and we want to cover the toilet hole with a new toilet we got at Home Depot.  But we do NOT want to put the toilet in just to have to take it out again when we choose a floor for the room.  So it's time for a new bathroom floor!

We Moved! And... Surprise Non-Working Items

WE MOVED!  This past weekend was chock full of packing boxes, hauling boxes downstairs, loading the UHaul, driving to our new house, and unloading boxes, and doing it all again.

THREE DAYS of moving, and we didn't have any time to unpack things or do any of the little home improvement projects we're aching to tackle.  But after two days in the house, it's time to get started.


You might already know that when you move in to a new house or apartment, you will find that some items don't work and need to be fixed sooner rather than later.  These are items you didn't notice when you first saw the house, when you went through the house in the home inspection, or when you went back for the walk-through.  Little things that you wouldn't notice until you start living in your new home.

Our first surprise non-working item was the master bathroom sink faucet.  It was spraying water everywhere and needed to be changed.