Bathroom Door

While working on the upstairs hall, I wanted to address the interior of the bathroom door. It was in bad shape - cracked and starting to peel. I think the humidity from the shower affected the many layers of old paint and helped hasten the aging process.

Some part of the paint had bubbled so badly the paint came off in thick chunks when I touched it. Layers of white, pink, teal… and under the teal there was a beautiful dark brown stain, probably the original door finish. Someday it would be amazing to strip and refinish the doors to a dark walnut… but I’ve heard it’s a huge pain and it’s not something we’re ready to do any time soon. So in the meantime, we just need to preserve the white paint and current finish. I decided to fill in the cracks and repaint the door with a fresh coat of white paint.

It looks much better now, though at some point we will have to address this door again. The humidity from the shower hasn’t done it any favors and we will have to do more than a quick patch job. You can still see the cracks and bubbles close up.

For now though - this looks a lot better and works just fine.

Refinished Step Stool

I was on a roll last week with all of the furniture refinishing between the rocking chair and the side tables. The final item in the “little things” refinishing queue was this step stool I had purchased in May. It was unfinished, a blank canvas, nice and tall for reaching the bathroom sink.

I love the look of staircases with dark stained treads and white risers. I would love to do that to our stairs someday with a nice runner going down the center (for the safety of all dogs, kids and clumsy adults). Since anything like that is a long way away, I thought it would be fun do that to the step stool for the bathroom. I started by staining the steps with the bombay mahogany polystain, two coats with drying time in between.

Once the stain had set, the next day I painted the base of the step stool with bright white enamel in a semi-gloss, two coats. I should have primed it, but I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to lug the giant tub of primer outside. I decided to just do 3 coats of enamel if necessary, but it wasn’t - two coats covered it just fine without primer.

I’m really happy with how this came out, it looks nothing like the original yellow pine it was before!

Re-tiling the Shower

Once the cement board was fully cured, it was time for tile. Luckily this went fairly quickly since we’ve done this before and it was a fairly small area. We actually had to do it in 2 parts - part 1 was putting up all the tiles that fit late at night after the baby went to bed. Part 2 was the next night, cutting the tiles that needed to be trimmed down with a wet tile saw.

When the thinset had fully cured, we finally grouted the tiles around the shower hardware. It went fairly quickly, but we completely forgot how messy grout is. And of course we totally underestimated the time commitment and told ourselves, “Oh this will take 10 minutes! Tops!” So of course we didn’t start until rather late in the evening and had to finish it very close to the middle of the night… but the most important thing was that it was DONE. And looked really good. I love grout because it really camouflages all tiling sins. We also caulked once between the tub and the tile, but we need to do it a second time since caulk shrinks as it dries. While we're at it we'll also caulk all the way around the tub again too - fresh caulk is always a good thing!

Here you can see our new shower hardware. It's not very pretty and I loved the old set so much better, but in this case function is so much more important than form! I'd much rather have a working shower. Next steps are to clean up all the construction gunk and mess covering the bathroom (yellow dust, bits of old grout and cement, gray dust, gray grime, yellow grime, chunks of old cement board, bits of tile... YUCK!) and then when everything is pristine we'll seal the grout. Grout needs to cure for at least 48 hours before sealing - we'll do 2 coats now and then again in 6 months for the best results.

Shower Cement Board

Once the broken shower was fixed, Mike immediately jumped into putting everything back together. We were desperate to have everything back in full working order as quickly as possible. He picked up a sheet of that cement board/backer board stuff for showers and cut it down to size. He actually had to chip away a few more tiles and a little bit more of the old wall to get everything to fit perfectly, but it was worth the extra effort because it came out great. I’m really proud and impressed at it DIY skills - in the 3 years that we’ve lived here, he’s gone from novice to awesome.

We had to let everything dry completely before doing any tiling. The wait was frustrating but necessary!

A Broken Shower, Fixed

So this is a very long story about our broken shower in a house with only one. It finally has a happy ending, but I’m embarrassed to say that it took several weeks. I’m sure already you are asking yourself - WHY would we ever wait so long? HOW? And maybe even Ew. Gross. Good thing I don’t know you in person! But let me explain.

Basically our 3-year-old shower faucet handle broke, specifically the center diverter handle that brings the water up from the tub faucet to the shower. The tub spout still worked so Oliver was completely unaffected. We were just faced with some really lousy choices. Option 1 was to replace the hardware altogether - except that meant opening up the wall, replacing pipes, re-tiling, re-grouting... and pay outrageous plumber fees. Option 2 was to order the replacement part from the manufacturer and try to fix it ourselves, but the shipping was terrible - $15 for two weeks or $76 for 2 days (on a $5 “specialty” part!). And we still had to call someone because the diverter handle was stuck and even with the right tools, we still couldn’t get it off. (We tried and broke two tools and didn’t want to go for a third round out of fearing plumbing damage.)

We didn’t want to deal with a minor bathroom gut job, even if that was the better long term solution. We ordered the replacement part, hoping to spare ourselves the pain of opening the wall, and decided to wait the two weeks ($15 was ridiculous for a small part stuffed into an envelope by the manufacturer). How bad could it be we thought? It will be like camping! Hah!

Then we waited...waited...and waited some more for it to arrive. When it finally did, Mike made the aforementioned attempts to replace the part himself with tools purchased at Home Depot. It didn’t work, so we called a handyman who was willing to replace the part and wouldn’t insist we open the wall in the shower. Except then we had scheduling conflicts. Georgia had to be rushed to the vet (she’s fine). Then the handyman had a family funeral and another job tying him up. Then we were on vacation. It was ridiculous really looking back, how long we had to live like this, but we survived.

Finally we were back from vacation and we had the guy come and pull off the handle. Even he had a hard time of it, which made us feel better about our struggle. He said there was a lot of hard water buildup inside everything. He replaced the part and water was coming out the shower head again. We celebrated and gave each other high-fives. We thought it was fixed… until after he left we realized that there was almost no water pressure and only hot water was coming out. Uggggghhhhhhh.

So then it was time to call in the big guns and we called our real plumber. The one who said we’d have to open the wall. He was right. So the night before he came Mike chipped away the tiles and cut a hole in our wall to expose the plumbing where he told us to. Oh and this was almost 2 weeks after our phone call - he was booked until then, so it was 2 weeks of a 85% broken shower.

When our plumber opened up the pipes, it turns out we had ridiculous hard water buildup. Seriously I had no idea it could be this bad after only 3 years. I knew our water was hard, but I didn’t realize it was THAT hard. So the next big (aka expensive) to-do on our list after the shower is to install a water softener. We can’t keep opening up the walls every 3 years. The hard water buildup not only clogged the pipes, but it damaged the shower fixtures beyond repair - which is why replacing the valve part only helped a little bit.

The plumber picked up a new shower hardware set at our local plumbing supply store so that if something ever breaks again, we don’t have to wait 2 weeks for some shady manufacturer to send us a part. And he replaced the pipes in the wall and put in wider ones. Everything was then “fixed”... aka ready to be put back together...

Forgive the bad lighting, it was night and I forgot to adjust the white balance because I was so tired. And forgive how dirty everything is, the demo and construction left everything covered in many layers of dirt and grime, bits of grout and yellow and gray dust. Yuck. The good news is that our shower was working again. With FULL water pressure AND cold water.

A Linen Closet Update: Part 2

I left off on my linen closet update when I was waiting for paint to dry and batteries to charge. Finally both things happened in their own time and I was able to put new linen closet pieces in. Everything came together very quickly with this fancy nail gun. I didn’t have to worry about levels because I was resting the new shelf brackets directly on top of the old ones (why not?). All I had to do was hold it up and nail it in.

I put up the top brackets, then the ones for the bottom. Once the shelves were laid on top (including the new shelf for the lower back), I could finally reorganize everything. (And ignore how bad the floor looks - again it's a project for another day since the cart beats it up.)

Look how nicely the cart fits under the shelves now!

I put the less-used items (like travel kits) in the back and things we need (like the next tube of toothpaste) up front for easy access. I made a home for Ollie’s towels and washcloths and I love how the cart fits so neatly underneath.

It may have taken 3 years, but honestly now I don’t know how we ever lived without this!

A Linen Closet Update: Part 1

Three years ago we redid the bathroom in our house. The linen closet was a disaster - sticky contact paper that had melted to the boards, crumbling plaster, peeling paint. My sister, the most amazing sister ever, sanded down all those disgusting boards and painted them. With enough plaster and paint the linen closet became a clean, safe space to store towels and linens. However, we still had storage issues in the bottom half - we weren’t using the space efficiently at all.

So each shelf is actually two shelves, a front and back. And see that front bottom shelf in the above picture (from 3 years ago when we first redid the bathroom)? Well wasn't actually there in real life, because we like to keep a plastic rolling cart in the linen closet to hold all our little things. And the bottom shelf was actually 3" too low for the cart, so the front bottom shelf had to go. The lack of storage definitely made for a lot of piles on the closet floor, which led to a lot of mess. It only snowballed from there and we've lived with this task on our to-do list for 3 years.

Except the mess got worse and worse. Here's what it looked like when the cart was pulled out - a total disaster.

Finally, 3 years later, I felt like I had to fix it. Until now, we’ve kept all of Oliver’s towels in his room in his dresser, but now his clothes are getting bigger and he needs more dresser space. So I wanted to move his towels to the linen closet, but there was no room. Plus he’s now tall enough to reach things he couldn’t before, so for his safety we needed to move a few things into the linen closet that we didn’t have room for in its current state.

It was finally time to raise the shelf brackets up 3” so we could have a full shelf over the cart. And then I wanted to put up new brackets halfway between the floor and the shelf to add a new back shelf behind the cart - effectively giving us a lot more usable storage space.

First I emptied the closet. The floor could use a new coat of floor paint, but the cart caused the existing damage and I didn't have the motivation to tackle that during this current project. Next time!

To raise the support brackets, I needed new pieces of wood. I grabbed 4 pieces of scrap 2x4s from the garage that looked like it would fit and tested it out. They worked great. I even found a piece of scrap plywood that I was able to cut down to make the new back shelf behind the cart. After confirming everything fit, I took it all back outside to prime and paint it. Of course, priming and painting always take longer than I think thanks to all those sides and drying time between coats. And then I also realized the batteries for the new nail gun needed to be recharged. So I had to put the rest of my construction plans for the closet on hold and wait. (To be continued in Part 2...)

Then & Now: Upstairs Hall & Main Bath

(This week and last week we're celebrating our 3 year blog anniversary with a long overdue, fully updated house tour)

Upstairs Hall
The upstairs hallway was unnecessarily long, dark, and pink. The only thing we liked was the texture of the pink wallpaper. We especially hated the pink carpet and the attic door was awkward and practically inaccessible. Here’s the before:

As part of the master bedroom renovation, we shortened the hallway to make a closet and moved the door to the master bedroom. We fixed the wallpaper that was torn down during the renovation process and painted everything edgecomb gray. The pink carpet was replaced with beige berber, we built a cover for the radiator, and the small attic door was moved and replaced with a pull-down door with stairs. The result is much lighter and brighter. We still have some repair work to do, but it's much better than it was. Here’s the current hallway:

Main Bath
The bathroom was the first room on our to-do list and needed a ton of work. The outdated sink and vanity were falling apart, and the glass on the original medicine cabinet was clouded. There were no outlets, cheap plastic towel racks, the light above the sink no longer worked. The bathtub enamel was stained and damaged, there was a strange dirty cubby filled with cobwebs next to the tub, the shower hardware needed updating, and the linen closet contained crumbling plaster and sticky melted shelf liners. The entire room was covered in peeling outdated wallpaper - including the shower stall - there was no tile at all in the bathroom. Here’s the before:

We replaced the vanity, sink and faucet; as well as the medicine cabinet. Outlets were added, the vanity light replaced and wired to a new switch. The towel hardware was replaced, the radiator covered. We tiled the entire shower stall with white subway tile all the way to the ceiling and tiled over the strange cubby next to the tub. The bath tub was re-enameled and we had a plumber replace the shower hardware. The plaster walls were repaired and painted guilford green, and we added crown molding around the room. We added privacy film to the window and a crisp white roman shade. The linen closet was repaired and repainted. Here’s the after:

Bathroom Artwork Swap

It’s fall now in my book - the pools have closed, the kids are back in school, the days are a getting noticeably shorter and the light has changed.  Labor day has passed, it’s cool and rainy out, and I decided it’s time to swap out the bathroom artwork.  Back in February I couldn’t decide between two sets of prints - colorful sea creatures or simple seaweed silhouettes.  My solution was to do an artwork timeshare.  Each set would get two seasons out of the year until I found a new home for one or got tired of changing them out.

The seaweed prints also looks nice with the whale.

I still absolutely love these prints and I’m glad to finally see them up.  It helps keep things feeling fresh and it only takes a few minutes of effort.  All pictures are from Vintage Printable.

Seal Your Shower

We went away for the weekend to visit my lovely cousin and her husband down in Maryland (it was so much fun!).  Before leaving, Mike re-sealed the grout in our shower.  Why?  Because 6 months after you tile, grout and seal the grout, you're supposed to re-seal it for long-lasting waterproofing durability.  But then you can't use the shower for 72 hours.  When you only have 1 full bathroom, who can live without showering for 3 days?  So while we we're a couple months late taking this step, we took advantage of the weekend away to get it done.

It's going to be a light week around here.  Since we were away all weekend we got nothing (zilch, zero, nada) done on the house.  Taxes are due and we're not quite finished.  I've been lucky enough to have even more freelance design work than usual (outside my regular full-time design job) - it's great because we desperately need a cash infusion to fund future home renovations, but at the same time it leaves me with little time for the work.  Plus our next steps with the office are all electrical work - very important, but also very time-consuming and leave me with little to write about.

Decorating on a Budget

The bathroom wall desperately needed some sort of framed art next to the medicine cabinet.  The room felt unbalanced without it, especially since we hung the other pictures along the long wall.   We picked up a matted white frame from Target the other night that matched the other frames in the room.  For the print, I went back to vintage printable  and picked out this whale image I really like.  It fits with the undersea theme, it's a black line drawing that could be printed at home (black ink fades much slower than colored ink), and it would work with both the gray seaweed prints and the current sea creatures on the walls.

On a semi-related note, while browsing One Kings Lane the other day, they were having a sale on decorative prints.  I was struck by how similar these prints were to the ones on Vintage Printable and I was even more surprised by the price.

$159?!  $329?!  On sale?!  Yes I'm sure the frames are top quality with UV glass.  And custom framing is super expensive.  But for those of us who want the look on a measly budget, I think this works just as well: A coral print from vintage printable (free) + printing (80 cents) + frame with mat from Target's restyle collection ($12.60 on sale) = $13.40.  Compared to the One Kings Lane sale prices, that's a heck of a lot better.

(These prints can be found on www.vintageprintable.com)

Choosing Artwork for the Main Bath

So many choices, so little time.  Deciding what type of artwork to put up in the bathroom was a difficult decision.  We had the two freshly painted frames that hold three pictures each that would work perfectly lengthwise along the long wall. I wanted something that would look good with the wall color and shower curtain, and something that had a fun beachy feel.

I went to vintage printable, collected several options and narrowed the choices down to two sets of six:  underwater sea creatures and seaweed silhouettes (that were originally dark blue and I changed them to gray).

But which was better?  I couldn't decide so I create mockups in photoshop of the images in the frames.

Seeing both sets of prints against the Guilford Green wall color didn't help.  I loved them both for different reasons.  The undersea creatures had lots of great colors in them - reds, greens, yellows, blues that tied the bathroom into other rooms in the house.  And they matched the shower curtain.  Plus I love the whimsical images.  But then the seaweed prints were so fun and graphic, and the shapes totally coordinated with the shapes on the Marimekko shower curtain.

Still undecided, I ordered all 12 prints.  (Seriously I have a problem, it's amazing I even got it narrowed down to two sets.)  Once I had the prints in hand, I still couldn't make a decision.  We put up half of each set framed in the room and still I waffled for like an hour.  Mike's solution? A time share where I can use both in different seasons!  So for the spring/summer we will use the underwater sea creatures and then come fall/winter we'll switch to the seaweed prints.  Unless of course I find a new home for them or fall in love with something new...

(And yes I know that it's still winter and I put the spring images up...  I'm being optimistic that the warm weather will return any day now...)