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....

Making Old Furniture New

This past weekend we moved a lot of furniture into our house that was giving to us by my parents.  My dad was storing furniture for a few years with the idea of giving it to his children when they moved into houses.   My mom recently sold her house and will be moving to Florida, so she is also giving us a lot of furniture that she won't be taking with her.  I am very happy to be getting some beautiful pieces that have been in our family for decades.  Some of the pieces are in great shape, and we wouldn't think of touching them with paint or taking them apart.  But others... let's just say they could use a little TLC.

Which got me thinking about how best to make some of our old furniture new.  There are many great tutorials out there on the WWW about painting wood furniture, some clever IKEA hacks, and much more.  Here are three of my favorite furniture makeovers that I've seen recently.

1. Censational Girl's Thrift Store Cabinet Makeover

Wow!  Kate used a sander, paint, custom cut glass, and pieces of flat lattice to make this old piece look like new.  Can you believe it cost her a whopping $10?

Censational Girl

2. Dressed Up Dresser

Claire Zinnecker posted this into a great, modern piece on Camille Styles.

Camille Styles

3. Reupholster a Chair

We have some great chairs that could seriously use a new, fancy outfit.  Jessica wrote out a step-by-step tutorial here that I am itching to try.

Four Generations One Roof

So... which of our old pieces of furniture is up first?  I'll have to think about that.

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.

Fix It Items

My handyman hubby and I have made some mental lists of what we'd like to change in our first house, and it's time to right some of these Fix It items down.  That way, I can delight in crossing items off the list!  It's true, I love lists, and organizing things calms me.  In the jumble of boxes everywhere and so many things to do, making a list and crossing things off sounds like a great idea!  I decided to start with short-term projects.  Projects we'll tackle later will have to wait for another list.  This one is long enough.  Here goes....

Entryway

__Rip up the ugly floor tile and put down new floor (possibly ourselves)
__Paint the trim (currently an unappealing, buttercream color)

DIY or Hire a Professional?

How do you choose whether to Do It Yourself or hire a professional?  There are so many projects in a new home, that you're bound to DIY some and hire out for others.  For us, it comes down to:

1. Can we do the project safely ourselves?
2. How long will the project take?
3. How much will a professional charge and how much money will we save doing it ourselves?
4. How long would it take to get a professional to the house to do the job?
5. Are we excited to try to do the project ourselves?

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.