Half Bathroom Day 10: Painting

After a long week at work, we got back on to the bathroom. I'm exhausted! There was so much intricate painting involved that my legs are incredibly sore now.


I started at night by "edging" with the paint. We used the leftover green paint from the dining room. I just like the color because it's soothing and warm.


After 1.5 coats of paint on the wall, I primed the chair rail and began painting the bead board.


We had a lot of leftover white paint (Behr's Swan Wing) in semi-gloss, so I used that on the bead board. To my surprise, the bead board took a lot of paint. Then I bought 1 quart of Swan Wing in high-gloss for the chair rail, crown molding and baseboard. We also want to use for the railing along the stair case since it gets so dirty. Gloss cleans easily and you really want to highlight your crown molding with glossy paint.


As I painted the wall, I found a lot of flaws in the spackle. There were holes made from air bubbles, some unevenness, bubbling of the tape, and cracks. After the paint dried, Keith went over all those spots. The wall looks like it's going through puberty with zits and Noxzema.
Once it dries and Keith sands again, I'll paint over it and touch up the edges.


Doesn't it look so much nicer? After 3 coats of paint, the bead board and chair rail really came together. Why 3 coats? The first coat was just to get the paint onto the bead board. I wanted to see if I could get away with one coat. I had to go over every single groove with a paint brush in order to get the paint into the groove. It looked really crappy otherwise. Then I had to go over it one more time to blend the brush strokes back in with the bead board and get an even look.

In other news, I bought hand towels, towel rack, toilet paper holder, and bamboo blinds for the window. We still haven't used the toilet yet but our neighbors' kids had no problem christening our toilet for us (yes, sans door)!

"Like to have"

I saw this "like to have" on Amazon's wish lists. It's a great way of saying, it's not a priority, but I would really appreciate it if I had this. That's how I feel about most of our home projects. There's always something getting in the way of the things I would like to have. There's always seems to be something we NEED to do that takes precedence. So I divided our to-do list in two:

To-Do List:

• New fridge $$$
  
• Half bathroom door $$$
  
• French drain in back and front of house $$
  
• Gutter guards (been on the list for 2 years now) $$
• New front door $$$ - I hate our front door. There's a large window in it. Who thought that was a good idea?
• New BBQ grill
  
• Pave a driveway $$$$
• Replace some windows
• New dryer
  

Like to Have List:

• New kitchen counter top $$$$
• Decorate the living room - new sofa sectional, 2 club chairs, console table, coffee table, and new rug. $$$$
• Tile the upstairs bathroom floor and around bath tub. $$$
  
• Replace bath tub. $$$
  
• Repaint/Replace bathroom vanity, mirror and shelf. $$-$$$
  
• Replace bathroom lighting. $$
  
• Build master closet for bedroom. $$$
• Finish the basement $$$$
• Replace the dining room & living room floor together $$$$

What are some things you wish you would "like to have"?

The Tale of Two Doors

So we have a little dilemma.

Tale #1 - We might not be able to use the door that I took out of the attic for the half bathroom. Pat the plumber says we're better off with a new door that is pre-hung. Currently, the opening has no door trim in it and it would be a pain to install it all. Plus the old door has no hardware on it. It has some but not all of it. We inquired about a new door. It would be a custom order because for one it's a narrow opening and two; it's a 5 panel door. If we got a regular hollow door with 4 panels or no panels, it would be around $100 or less. Since it's a custom door, it's $325! Not including hardware and installation. That was way more than we budgeted for.

Tale #2 - Our fridge door broke off. Yes, the door is completely detached from the refrigerator. It's so ghetto right now. We have to hold the door with our left knee while we try to squeeze items out of the fridge and then quickly push the door back on. We called SEARS and they quoted us $75 for the visit, $200 for labor and $400 for the door itself! That was way more than we paid for the new fridge!!! So now we need a new refrigerator. We were looking around and a new fridge with the lower freezer drawer is $1200+. The regular fridges like ours is around $400. We really like the lower freezer drawer, but that is just way too much $ for a fridge. This isn't our forever home anyway.

Now, we're just a little confused as to what to do first. We can't do both right now and we have a lot of other priorities on our plate. We can't do without a bathroom door and we can't do without a fridge either...should we try to use the old door or should we suck it up and buy a new pre-hung door?

Day 8 & 9: Crown molding & Caulk

Keith was on a roll on Day 8. He continued working on the last piece of bead board and trim. Then we went to Lowe's to pick up a few more things and decided to pick up crown molding while we were there. Since all the tools were out, we (meaning him) might as well do ALL the trim work now.


These were inside corners for crown molding. You don't need these, but it makes it easy if you aren't skilled in cutting the backward corners to make crown molding line up at the corners. They come with pre-drilled nail holes, so just drill the nail into those holes and into a stud.


The crown molding only needs straight cuts and they run right up to the side of the inside corner. Nail the crown molding along the bottom edge into a stud and the molding will automatically push up against the ceiling. Our ceilings and walls are uneven, so we had to put nails along the top too. Just be careful because putting nails along the top piece may split the molding (because the pattern is already so delicate there) Noticed how everything is very "raw" still. There are gaps and seams showing.


Tadaa! No more gaps or seams. Hubs spent the whole day caulking and filling nail holes. While he did that I went shopping for a mirror for the vanity and sowed some seeds for my garden.


Check out that mirror! $27 at Ross! 32" wide. Keith hung the mirror and then put the bead board trim up to the edge of the mirror. I think it's looking fabbuuuulous!

So now it's my turn! I have to paint the bead board, bead board trim, baseboards, and crown molding. Then I can decorate. We haven't gotten used to the bathroom yet. We still go upstairs to use the bathroom.

Half Bathroom Day 7: Bead Board some more

Keith continued working on the bead board today and even put the base board trim on. I think it looks great! The pine trim is the trim that fits over the bead board. We're going to paint that white and fill in all the seams with caulk. Currently, it still looks rough around the edges.


He still one more wall to do (not shown) and then he can caulk. After that I'm going to paint.

Half Bathroom Day 6: Bead Board & Electric

Last night Keith started working on the bead board for the bathroom. I feel so bad because he had to go pick up all the materials himself and tie to the top of our little Jetta.

Here's what we got so far:


The white planks are the 6" baseboards for the bathroom. The pine wood trim is what we're going to use to finish off the top of the bead board. It has grooves on the back side of it which will allow it to sit right over the edge of the bead board.


Bead board in the living room. Basil is such a little construction manager. He has to be involved and know what's going on at all times.


Keith cutting the bead board. He is using jig saw but he was using the wrong blade. You have to get a blade with teeth that go "down" not up. We have to find one of those.


We fit the first piece through the piping. It was getting late and we needed to do at least this piece before the plumber came back to do the sink and toilet.


Check out the toilet and sink!! It works too! The following day, Tom the Electrician came to move an outlet and bring the electric up to code. He taught us a few handy "fix it" type lessons which was really generous of him. We might have him back to do a few other things for us. There's a switch in this room that controls a light that is all the way outside the house and we want to move it.

Keith is continuing the bead board installation tonight.

Half Bathroom Day 5: FInish piping and flue

The bathroom is taking longer than we anticipated, but it's moving along. Today the plumber and his assistant finished the piping for the water lines, the flue to the roof and the drywall.


Finishing the piping.


He finished drywall and spackling


The roof.


Basil checkin' things out. He's so nosy.

Keith has to move an electrical outlet and he's going to install the bead board. Then the plumber and his assistant are going to finish up by installing the toilet and sink cabinet tomorrow. I can't wait to see it all complete!

Half Bathroom Layout

Half Bathroom: Day 4 - Grout

Bill the tiler came over first thing this morning in all that snow we had to grout the tile. He came around 7:40AM and was done, cleaned up and gone by 8:15AM!


Tadaa! It looks awesome and I can't wait to see what it will look like with the sink vanity and toilet in there. Not that I'm really excited about the toilet, but you get what I mean.

Before photo:


The plumber won't be back until next Wednesday... :( It's going to seem like an eternity from now.

Half Bathroom Day 3: Tiling

Bill the Tiler was awesome!

He was all business and went straight to work. He was so fast too, which is a real rare quality!

9:11 AM

While he waited for Pat to bring the cement board, Bill had already started laying down the tile to check out the pattern and make the awkward cuts around the toilet and water line.


He was hardcore working in a hail and snow storm outside!


Basil was helping me too and was laying down drop cloths so they wouldn't dirty *his* floor.


Leveling. Before he laid down the cement board, he applied a layer of thin set (which we forgot to do when we tiled the kitchen). The thin set gives the cement board that support it needs so that it doesn't flex and cause your tile or grout to crack. Opps! He told us he'll need to level the bathroom floor up to the kitchen floor by applying extra thin set on top of the cb but before the tile. That would take longer to dry.

11:37 AM


12:18 PM

He finished the corners, threshold and was already all cleaned up!

I'm glad I pushed for the diagonal pattern. It looks awesome! He's going to come back tomorrow to grout.

Because of the snow storm and all, the plumber won't be back until next Wednesday to finish the bathroom.

The tiler is here and boy is he good!

It's only 9:18 in the morning and the tiler got here and went straight to work! That's what I like to see! He has some amazing tools too which I'll try to post about. It's a little sad that I'm more excited about his cutting tools than say jewelry or something else like that.

I'm staying out of his way, but I told him that occasionally I'm going to run in and snap photos like MI-8 for my blog.

He immediately cleaned up, took measurements, marked the floor, started laying the tile pattern down and made all the trickier cuts before getting started.

I'm so excited about this tile!

By the way, we did run into a snafu. We never went back to buy more floor tiles to match the kitchen and those tiles are now discontinued. So we found a similar match in texture and color, but the bathroom tile is a little more brown and 13x13 instead of 12x12. So I asked the tiler to do a diagonal pattern, so that we're not trying to match what isn't matching anyway.

I'll be back with pictures tonight, so check back!

Half Bathroom Day 2: Roughin it

Day two: The plumber calls this part "roughin it" which is cutting the pipes and tying in a a new one. It's called "roughin it" because he says it's a thing you learn through experience. It may not fit the way you want it to so you can't exactly prepare for it the unexpected.


On the left is the space to run the new water and drain pipes up to the sink. On the right is the poop shoot for the toilet.


Here is the existing sanitary from the upstairs bathroom.


From the previous picture, that sanitary comes down to here in the basement. Notice the new tie in around the middle section. Then it goes out through the wall and out to the main sewer out under the sidewalk. The blue and white flex are the hot and cold water lines.

Notice the white pvc pipe coming through the other wall. That comes from the toilet and will tie into the main.


In order to get access to it, he had to go around and under the steps of the deck here and from in the crawl space under the deck.

Next: Tomorrow he's going to finish up the piping and the tiler is coming to lay down the floor tiles.

Half Bathroom: Day 1 - Planning

The plumber came in, took some measurements, got a handle of what needs to be done and where everything is going to go. He cut a hole in the wall where the sink is going to go and a hole in the floor where the poopster is going to go.



Originally, I ordered a vessel sink, console, and extended faucet from Overstock. Because the sink console I ordered was on back order until the end of February, we went to Lowe's and picked something else out. We saw what they had in stock and I really liked a vanity cabinet, granite top, sink combo they had (not a vessel sink). I am not posting pictures until the end, so I can keep you all in suspense!

We paid for it ahead of time and Lowe's gives us an invoice number in which the plumber is going to use to go pick up the goods since we don't have a truck.

A tiler that the plumber knows is coming tomorrow to do the floor tiles in the bathroom while the plumber finishes up. The floor needs to be leveled, so Keith and I decided we just don't want to deal with it.

Today, the plumber is working on cutting and joining the piping to the new bathroom.

My ghettofabulous counter

Our stove is stand alone with no counters on either side because there isn't much room to begin with. I really felt like I needed something though; a place to put my spoons and a bowl or some spices while I cook. I have bugging the hubbs to build me something and look what he whipped up.


He's not finished yet but this is the basic concept. I googled photos and this is what they do around stoves anyway. You just need to add some more wood that matches the cabinetry. Keith used the extra baseboard/toekick leftover from the cabinets to build a frame that matched the cabinetry. Then he cut a piece of counter top that used to be in the backroom (some day half bathroom) for the top.


Voila! It's sturdy and now there is a place for my stuff!

Good News & Bad News

Good News - Our sink arrived today! I'm getting excited and nervous about the bathroom installation.



Bad News - The sink console is on back order until the end of this month. I'm so annoyed. That means the bathroom will literally be half complete until we get the console. It's just as well! We still need to tile the floor and fix the door opening anyway.

Welcome to our new Dining Room!

(click to enlarge. Blogger isn't showing the full photo)











I will follow up with some BEFORE and after side-by-side photos and resource list. I was just excited that I had to show you all these photos for now.

Baby Afghan

I can finally reveal what I have been working on for 3 months!



My best friend of 17 years is having her first baby! There wasn't a gift on her registry that could show her how much she meant to me. I had to make her and her baby something. Something that required weaving as we are woven to one another. So I asked my MIL to teach me how to crochet. She taught me some basics and within 30 minutes I had it down. Using a baby afghan pattern, just follow the row by row steps. Anything that I questioned, I just googled and there were tutorials with pictures.


It took me a long time to finish a row at first. As I progressed, I got exponentially faster. I finished around Christmas time and had to keep it a secret until recently.


Basil even liked it. He was jealous that I was working on this and not spending time with him. The yarn and afghan were taking up precious real estate on my lap.


Me and the momma to be.

Happy Things

Cookbooks and art
(Ribba frame from Ikea)

The Honey Do List

Blog pal Nanette and I were talking about how we can get our husbands to be more productive around the house. I thought I would share since you ladies probably struggle with the same things all the time.

1. Befriend your husband to your girlfriend's husband on xBox Live. Then she can help you keep tabs on your husband while you're running the domestic errands.
2. Make a REALLY LONG TO DO LIST when you go away for a Girl's weekend or out of the house. If even just a couple or half the stuff gets done, it's still something and less you have to do.
3. Make him clean the bathroom after he has friends over. He'll think twice next time about having a bunch of men over drinking beer and eating hot wings with blue cheese. Bleh!
4. Tell him if you trip over one more piece of his laundry or video game or computer gadget, you're going to throw it out. Even if it's brand new!
5. If he doesn't help you with the kids, tell him you're going to start telling the kids that he's not their father and their real daddy is going to show up one day who is richer, take you to Disney and would have let Mom be a SAHM.
   
6. If all the above fail, withdraw sex, clean clothes, clean towels, warm meals, a stocked fridge, disconnect WiFi and sleep in the clean guest bedroom and let the master bedroom go to hell.
   

What works for you? Or are you one of those women we hate who have the incredibly helpful husbands around the house?

Project Half Bathroom: To-Do List

We just received confirmation from the plumber that he will be here to start on the bathroom 2 weeks from now! I am totally stoked! I wish he could come sooner because it's cutting it close to our get together that we're hosting with the Bees. Pat the plumber seems to feel confident that he can get it done in 3 days.

3 days? Excuse me I don't think I heard you right.

Imagine my elation when we've been living with a ceiling less kitchen for a year and months of unfinished home projects. He's pretty much a contractor in addition to being a plumber, so he said he could tile the rest of our floor and put the door in as well (at an additional cost of course). That's fine with me if it means getting it all done!


My bathroom inspiration from Better Home & Garden. I ripped this out of their magazine and have it taped to my kitchen/bathroom wall for months now. My MIL used bead board in her bathroom and I really like it. I think it's great for us because of the crappy spackle job we did with that room. I love the sink console as well and the wide vessel sink. I've used them before and I like it way better than the round vessel sinks. What really drew me to this bathroom was the mosaic tile. I get a lot of free tile samples at work and I thought this could be something I can do in this bathroom.

This is what I do before a project. I make a to-do list that includes more than what is involved with the room itself. Things that aren't always obvious (to men especially). Then I put them in chronological order.

1. Measure room. Take notes of dimensions in a notebook. Take the dimensions with you when you shop.
   
2. Buy sink console, cabinetry and toilet. You need these 2-3 things to lay out your room. That's why you take notes of the room dimensions.
3. Clean out the room. It's our pantry currently so we need to remove everything and thoroughly clean any particles and dust.
4. Either mark or temporarily set the cabinet in the room where you plan on locating it.

Here's the part that I get very worked up about - the prep.

1. Protect your floors and surfaces. Because our soon to be bath is in the back of the house, dirty shoes are going to be walking through the entire length of the house for days.
2. I start by throwing an old runner rug down from the front entrance through the living room to "protect" our carpet.
3. Hang and tape plastic up in doorways to the dining room. I just cleaned it and I don't want more dust getting into that room.
4. Because the room is attached to the kitchen, you can count on it getting pretty dusty. I drape the stove with an old table cloth (to avoid cleaning the burners and knobs).
5. Stow everything away - wall art, decorative accents, utensil holders, etc. It's less you have to wipe dust off of later.
6. Since our kitchen counters will act as a work area, line the counter tops with brown paper for protection from scratches.
   

Back to the bathroom:

1. The plumber is going to come in and do his thing - run sanitary and water lines from the basement to the bathroom. Put in a flue for exhaust. Just leave me him alone to do his work. He will set the cabinet for a looksy to make sure the lines are going to the right place and that I like where the cabinet is at.
   
2. Tile the floor.
3. Spackle any holes or open seams (usually the access panel that you see behind your shower or bathtub).
4. Do any painting or trim work NOW before the furniture goes in.

Hang the door:


(Nasty right? Yes, that's a sock you see.)

1. We realized we had a little pickle on our hands. The previous owners took all the door trim off the opening so all that has to go back on before we can hang the door. We've never done that before and the walls are uneven. We're going to have to read up about it.
2. Buy door trim, buy all the wood that goes inside the opening. Buy a threshold.
3. Buy door hardware.
4. Buy door. I found an old door in our attic that measure 27" wide. Our door way is 28.5" wide so I think this is the original door!
5. Clean up old door, sand, paint.
6. Install hardware.
7. See if the door fits.
   

Back to Bathroom:

1. Set all cabinetry and toilet into room.
2. See if the toilet and faucet works.
   
3. Install towel rack and toilet paper holder.
4. Now hang the door.
5. Clean up.
6. Pay plumber.
7. Add decorative accents.
8. Have a new half bathroom poo poo party! Umm, okay. Maybe not.

Sherry and John over at Young House Love recently renovated their bathroom and this breakdown is great for reference.