Monday, November 5, 2012

Finished Master Bath!!

Our bathroom mini reno is done! 


Here are two before pics of the bathroom before we changed it:



Ever since we moved into our house, I hated the cheap, ceramic tile covering the bathtub. Not to mention it seems to match perfectly with the floor. It's too much peachy tile!! Here's a before pic of the tub.


I wanted moulding around the tub, painted white, with travertine tile on the top surface around the tub. Ta-da!! Here's the after:


Here's a closeup of the wonderful new old-timey clawfoot tub faucet we bought:


Don't you just love it?!

Then we removed the builder's grade lights and added our own. These were all purchased online at Overstock.

Chandelier over tub:


Chrome light over wardrobe:


Here's our wonderful fixture with fabric shades for the bargain price of $57. Score!! The shades are a blue-gray color. Although I'm not sure if this color goes in the bathroom, I am keeping the shades this color for now. Maybe in the future I'll recover them in a different fabric.



The lovely valance is also an Overstock purchase. I added two pieces of ribbon to the bottom (I attached them with velcro).




The literary rug is also from Overstock. Love it!!



I love the pewter wardrobe pulls from ebay. They were about $4.50 each. They are the old-fashioned mock key with backplate. 



The wardrobe is from Ikea. It's a PAX Birkeland wardrobe (for two of the doors) and a mirror door on the third. I love the wardrobe space. The whole reason I wanted the second vanity taken out of the bathroom was so I could use it for closet space. Much better!



The toilet area:



Here is the lovely marble-top vanity from Amazon.


We put a frame around the mirror.



We just cut moulding and attached it with command strips. I used 6 of the small pieces on the long ends of the mirror and 4 pieces on the short ends. My husband notched out on the back of the moulding where the mirror clips were so they wouldn't interfere with us being able to lay it flat against the mirror.



The ottoman is from Kmart (Newport ottoman). It's a taupe color.


The wall paint color is Benjamin Moore crisp khaki.

I still want to replace the shower tile, but that's a project for the future. This is a very relaxing place now. It may not be everyone's taste, but it's my taste. I am satisfied with the result.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Ikat Stencilled Wall

So I had just stencilled our foyer wall a few months ago. I made a homemade trellis stencil and used my Folk Art craft paint in the color champagne. It gave the wall a nice shimmer, making it look silver in some lights and gold in others. The background paint is Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter. I loved the way my stencilled wall turned out, but it needed more punch!


Then I saw this stencilled wall on this blog http://www.ourfifthhouse.com/p/house-tour.html:


I needed to have it, too!!!! She had bought her stencil, but I resolved to go the cheap route! Yay for cheap! I wanted to just make a homemade one. This was ALSO so I could get started right away! Yay for instant gratification!!

So I found this blog http://bread-n-chocolate.blogspot.com/2011/07/ikat-and-so-can-you.html, and she showed how she made her homemade ikat stencil. Woo-hoo! Here's her stencil:


So I determined to do the same thing: get a piece of 8 1/2" x 11" paper and fold in half and try to freehand copy her design as best as I could:



I used my trusty Fiskars sharp scissors to cut this. The sharp points were ideal for cutting out the hard-to-reach places. Then I traced my cut-out onto a piece of cardboard:



I then cut out the cardboard. This is sturdier to use for a stencil than a flimsy piece of paper.

Then I proceeded to paint the top of the wall (I was going to do chair rail and moulding on the bottom like the inspiration pic). I used ACE Royal paint in High Hiding White (eggshell finish). I didn't prime before. It took me three coats to cover the old paint. (I left a command hook in the middle and didn't paint under it since I'm just going to hang my painting back over it anyway.)


Then I positioned my stencil at the top middle of the wall (this is important so the wall will look symmetrical) and filled in with my round sponge brush and Liquitex Mars Black paint. This is just what I had on hand. Then I proceeded to finish the first row. Then I did row two (scattering the spacing so they weren't directly under each other), and so on and so forth.



Hubby's reaction? "It looks like a transformer autobot." He's kind of right:


Progress is made on the wall:







The bottom half of the wall painted with primer (Kilz):


Then we installed a chair rail and painted one coat of semi-gloss paint on the bottom part of the wall:


Then I did another coat of semi-gloss paint (ACE Royal High Hiding White):


Then we installed picture frame moulding. I spaced 3" from each edge. I still have to caulk and paint one more coat of semi-gloss on the bottom.



Here it is all done:




Then I added back in the deco foyer table:



Hubby doesn't like that the moulding is covered up now. Maybe this table will see a little move in its future?

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Palm Tree Painted on Half Bath Wall

So when we moved in our home, our half bath had this big, blank wall when you walked in. It drove me nuts. So I bought one of those sticky vinyl decals that you stick on the wall. It was 7 feet high. This would fill the wall up nicely. Unfortunately, it was a white, shiny  material, and my hubby hated it. So away it had to go!

The only problem was in removing it (in my haste), I hurried to rip it off, and damaged the wall in the process. (I have since learned that to remove these wall decals, aiming a hair dryer at it will make it come off without ripping off the wall.)  I had to use a lot of joint compound to make it look smooth again. Then, after i used the joint compound in certain areas, the outline of the palm tree decal was still on the wall. So I decided to just use regular paint and paint in the outline so it would look like I had done a huge mural! (Except, of course, I cheated, it was really the decal that helped me do this.) The bathroom wall color is Benjamin Moore Ashley Gray, and the palm tree is painted with Benjamin Moore Smokey Taupe paint.

If you are able to just draw a palm tree freehand (I am not), by all means, that would save you the aggravation of tracing something. But if you can't draw a palm tree freehand and you want this look and don't want to stick something on your wall that could possible ruin it when you remove it someday, buy one of those vinyl wall decals and just trace it. I think it was around $30 for the decal (bought on etsy.com).

I really like the effect it gives the room. It makes it more interesting.





Monday, July 30, 2012

Finished Staircase!!

Yay, we are so relieved that the stairs are finally done!! We did it ourselves!! No more cancer-causing fumes from oil-based products!! What a time-consuming project, though. All in all, we started on it two Sundays ago, which is when we ripped out the carpet, and we finished it today, which is the 15th day after we started. We worked on this every evening after work and all day on the weekends. So it was time-intensive. It wasn't that hard, I guess, it just was a process of trial and error. Here are other blog posts I've done about the stairs in progress: herehere, and here.

The stairwell paint color is Benjamin Moore Pismo Dunes, upstairs hallway is Benjamin Moore Manchester Tan

Here is the final result:



It should be noted that you need to number each tread and each riser (the bottom riser being #1, and so on and so forth) on the back, and also mark which is the bottom and top (only on the riser). Since our tread had an end cap, we knew which was the top and which was the bottom. But if you just used a bullnose tread, you wouldn't know which was the top, so you should label that. Of course, this numbering business only applies if you do the staining and painting prior to installing the treads and risers. We did it this way because it was easier.

Here's an example of how we labeled a riser:



Here is the brad nailer and air compressor we used so we could nail it all in.


I wanted the top stair to have a bullnose on it (even though we have carpet upstairs) so that it looked "finished." We figured out how to do that.

We just used another retrotread for the top stair nose piece. We cut the front end cap off of it to make this:



Here's hubby scoring the top flap of carpet. We wanted to cut the end cap off so it would line up with the back of the side moulding on the top step. You cut the carpet and carpet padding behind flush with the stair nose piece. You do not put the stair nose ON TOP OF the carpet.



Here's what it looked like after he cut it:


Then we cleaned the stair, and I nailed in the top riser:


Then I nailed in the top stair nose piece:


Then, as to how to deal with the carpet, you STAPLE the edge of each side of the carpet right outside the stair:


Then you staple a few inches BEHIND the edge of the carpet every few inches (you don't want the carpet to get flat or matted down at the top of the stair, you want it to look fluffy).


After I stapled it in, this is how it looked:










We were pretty satisfied with ourselves after that. Then I touched up the nail holes, repainted the skirt of the stairs since it had a lot of scuffs from installing the retrotreads, and caulked.

VOILA! This is the fruit of our hard work. (Beware picture overload!!!! If this is too many pics for you, you can just click off.)


















Hope you enjoyed this project! Very exhausting, but worth it!!