And the walls came down

Just doing a little potty training and kitchen demo over here!  Since we don't have enough going on in our life, we decided to tackle the kitchen.  ;) we actually do have sound logic behind this decision. It will be a multi stage process and will be a serious budget project.  Stay tuned to see how we do it! (Hopefully!)

Bathroom Reveal!

This is the moment you've all been waiting for!  ;)

The bathroom is finished!  But first let's remind you what it used to look like...

It is a small space... VERY.  And there was no vanity light! 

Notice the super gross moldy floor. We had to take it all the way through 5 layers of flooring to remediate!

Throughout this house there are some home made, half door frames... This room had one of them, so half of the stud and the edge of the drywall were exposed. 

You get the idea. I had actually forgotten how bad this bathroom really was until I started going through these pictures!  Wow...

From day one, when we first looked at this house, I had a vision of what this bathroom could be someday.  

A curb less, walk in shower. OPEN! And mostly tiled so I could just hose the whole thing down!  You see, in our home we have a boys bathroom and a girls bathroom. This... Is the boys bathroom.  The idea of being able to hose it down had me positively giddy!

It's by far our biggest undertaking in this house to date. The results are soooo worth it though!!!

Here you go! The new, first look!

Given that it's the boys bathroom, they requested it have some manly decorations. Given that it's in my bedroom, I demanded it still be pretty... The compromise is silver animal heads.  Lol!  We're all happy!

Also, I love the sign I created!

New light fixtures all around. And some more animals. The old crown got to stay but got a coat of paint and caulking. 

New toilet and my first crack at a floating shelf. (There are some tile details that still need to be finished here)

Because we are working with a very small space and I was taking out the vanity,  I knew we needed more storage... LOVE this cabinet!

Sigh... So pretty!  I found this frame at a yard sale for $7 and painted and stained it. Then I hit up the re-store for a mirror for $10.  If you take it to your local glass shop, they will cut it down and usually they install it in the frame for a couple dollars. Ours charged me $5 to cut and install. $22 for a custom gorgeous mirror. Not bad!  We also had to rewire and move the electrical up. 

In order to make this room look and feel bigger, we decided to go with a mounted sink. This came with a whole slew of problems I hadn't thought of, but in the end it worked and I love it!  We also encountered a vent we had to cover up, so we built a box and tiled it! I love the grey floor tile. And we went with grey grout because I HATE when white grout gets mildewy and stained. This should hold up better. 

Also, can I just say how much I love this kind of toilet paper holder!

And now... THE SHOWER!  We love it!  So functional and with the added light fixtures it's so bright!  I added an extra long hose so I could hose the bathroom down!  (And, notice the pretty ceiling I built!)

We chose this head because it allowed for lots of variations and options for hosing the place down. 

And... No exposed drywall or studs!  We are so happy with this remodel!  The girls even sneak in and use it sometimes!

Spring 2015 mantle

I'm gearing up to change out the mantle for more summery things. But I realized I haven't shown you all my spring mantle!  Happy spring... For a few more days. 

Shower Shampoo Nook

When I was planning out this bathroom remodel I had an incredible idea.  Let's build a nook between the studs! I've seen it done before. Instead of a shelf or one of those hanging things, a nook!  This would be an awesome solution to our small space issues. It looked so simple. I watched MANY videos and read just as many DIY blogs. Easy peasy... I got this. 

Next time I say this, someone should hit me upside the head. I'm glad we are doing it.  It really is the perfect solution to our problems.  But it was not simple, easy or quick!  It took as long as tiling the big wall!  Or longer... It also had some weird issues to troubleshoot. Here's my recap and how to. 

First I cut 2x4's the right length to go between the studs and then screwed them in through the opposite side. So far... Not bad

Next came cement board... Uhhhh... This stuff was not as easy to cut as I thought it would be. Which lead to the first tricky part. I ended up scoring the board where the shelves opened up and then scoring an x through the middle. Then... A good ol hammer to break it out. This worked but wasn't pretty. So I bought a jigsaw blade with very large teeth and that did the job much better. Just go slow. 

Once I had enough cement board cut and put in place to over the whole thing, (again, easier said than done) I used mesh tape and thinset to seal all the cracks and corners. 

I ended up doing two thin layers of thinset to make sure I sealed the tape in well.  

But... There is NO WAY I'm taking chances on anything leaking in this shower. 

So...

I covered the whole thing in two layers of Redguard. This stuff is basically liquid rubber. It seals up any cracks or crevices where water could potentially get in. I feel confident that this nook will not be the cause of any leaks.  

Next came the fun part. (And by fun I mean terrible.). It actually is fun because it's one of the last steps and it's so satisfying to see the tile up.  But there were so many weird parts to this. We are using subway tile. So the corners needed quarter round tile. (This was not fun to cut angled pieces for the corners...) But I wanted to do something different for the shelf. Ideally, I wanted it to be one seamless price of tile. That was not to be. I couldn't find a 14" piece that matched. So, my solution was to use matching edge tile for the shelves. Worked out perfect for the spacing. 

It's not perfect but I love it! 

 I haven't cleaned it up yet and it's obviously not grouted. I can't wait to get all the rest of the tile up!!!

You gotta be brave to DIY

It's true. There's a lot of failure. A lot of projects don't work out and you have to; live with it, abandon it, fix it, or try again. (There's some life metaphors in there if you're feeling deep.)

Tonight was a failure night. I found an AMAZING frame at a yard sale that is perfect for the mirror in the bathroom we are remodeling. Here she is...

It was gold before but I painted and distressed it. Then I went to habitat for humanity ReStore to buy a mirror to cut down and fit inside. In the past, I take the mirror to a glass shop and they cut it. But I thought I'd be brave and try to DIY it. 

This tool is $2 at Home Depot. 

It's exactly what they use in the glass shops. I followed the directions and snapped the mirror after scoring it. It was perfect!  Except for one corner didn't snap straight. DANG!  I thought maybe I could tap it with a hammer and it would snap off...  Then this happened...

So on Monday I will be going back to the ReStore to get another mirror. This time I might go to the glass shop to have it cut.  ;)

The roof... The roof... The roof is on... That is all!

It is finished!  When we bought The Little House, the roof was excluded from our insurance policy. It was that bad... Here's a look. 

The rough patch on the porch was repeated all over. 

We were told that it could maybe make it another two years when we purchased it... And we milked EVERY day out of that promise. But every time it rained I prayed! We never had a leak... Thank goodness!  But we didn't want to take any more chances so Spyman took some time off of work and we went to work. A dumpster was delivered and we started scraping off the old shingles. 

Whew!  It has been such hard work!  I don't feel qualified to give any kind of tutorial on this except that, if you have a couple thousand extra dollars, you should absolutely pay someone to do this. ;)

Here we are... A week later and the last nail is hammered. We are tucked safely inside the little house with no fear of the coming storms!

Here are some before and afters. I can just picture it when we get new siding up!!!

Bathroom electrical nightmares

This bathroom was wired for one outlet, a fan and an overhead light. All switches and outlets were beige and very old. We are slowly replacing all of them in the house. Some aren't even wired correctly! But that's beside the point. The point is, I've been getting an education in wiring! 

The bathroom had no vanity light. What?!  Every bathroom needs one of those! I figured that since we had the wall partially open it shouldn't be too hard. Drill a hole and drop a wire where we want the light. Bring it over and tap it into the existing electrical. And... That's exactly how it works!  But it's not as simple as it seemed... Cry...

Here is the wall before.  Also, before I patched drywall. 

And here we are with my dropped wire. (Also, an electrical box usually gets put in too. However, there are a few missing those in this house too!)

This part was fairly simple. I thought I was on easy street...

Then this happened...

And I just realized I didn't get a shot of all the craziness in this box. But trust me!  It was crazy!  I'm not even sure how everything was working and not starting our house on fire!  (Also, you might notice that is not a GFCI outlet. In a bathroom where water is everywhere, this is a must).

At this point I let Spyman take over. He made a valiant effort, but after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the new electrical box was in and it looked pretty... But nothing worked.  Sad!

So we took a day off and played. Then, after Spyman went to work, I watched a million YouTube videos about electrical work. Then I deconstructed the whole thing and reassembled it. 

Now the switches worked but not my outlet. Cry again! Also, the closet light didn't work either. I knew where I went wrong but I needed a break again... A week later I finally fixed it and everything works.  Slick as snot. ;)

And I have a vanity light!

We still need to move the box up a little, which is why it's not in the wall yet. But we get a little closer every day!

I'm not going to pretend to tell you how to do this since I'm not a professional, but it is pretty easy and makes sense once you figure it out. And a million YouTube videos will help you.