Bath Beginnings

She Says:

Our next major project: the bath!

Here's what we're starting with:

He Says:

What you can't see in this photo is a toilet that rocked back and forth 4-5 inches.

She Says:

That toilet is a rollicking good time!

Linoleum flooring, teal tile accents, and the world's smallest tub.

Oh, and a bare bulb light fixture- awesome!

And a very sad little vanity.

He Says:

What you can't see in this photo is the incredible low quality of this particle board vanity, and the fact that it is bulging from having absorbed so much water over the years.  It has to go!  Also, you can't see the nonfunctional plumbing lurking beneath that will have to be replaced.

She Says:

As you can see, it's very small- only about 50 square feet.

So, we're stripping this baby down to the studs and starting over.  Plans include:

• Tile floor
• Walk in shower
• Vanity with lots of storage
• A window

He Says:

Even if this bathroom didn't look and smell terrible, everything needs to be replaced because of water damage anyway.  The vent is also nonfunctional and has to be replaced and routed outside, instead of into the attic...

She Says:

Looks like we've got our work cut out for us... let's get to work!

Laundry: Done

She Says:

The last project for the Laundry Room is the laundry line- fairly straightforward and easy to do:

1.  Wooden dowel and wood shelf bracket from the hardware store

2.  A Forstner bit to drill the holes

3.  Mount the brackets under the cabinets

4.  Caulk with Alex Caulk - not a necessary step, but we like the finished, built in look

5.  Paint - Again, because it's wood and because hangers are going to be sliding around on it for all of its life, I used our trusty oil based paint, in Spice Delight color.

And with that, the Laundry Room is done!

The whole project is here.

Post Turkey...

We had a great Thanksgiving in the Texas Hill Country.

But now it's back to work!  Next up:  The final touches on the Laundry, and then, The Bath...

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you all have a wonderful day with family and friends.  Happy Thanksgiving, from our house to yours!

DIY - Scarf and Belt Rack

She Says:

I love scarfs.  It's an addiction.  I could never have too many (I have way too many).  They're so colorful and soft and silky.  It's one of my favorite things about the weather getting cooler... I call it scarf weather.

He Says:

I love belts.  They keep up my pants.

She Says:  

So I figured we needed something to hold our favorite things in our new closet.  I had a couple of leftover pieces from the closet organizer kit (isn't there always?) that I repurposed for a scarf rack!

This was a part of the wall mounting system we didn't need to use.  Basically, it's just a piece of wood which matches the rest of the closet pieces.

I drilled holes spaced evenly across the board.  The piece already had holes drilled on each end, but they were too big, so I added a couple of washers so the screw wouldn't slip through.

Then I stole a few of the knobs we've already bought for the kitchen cabinets and screwed them into place:

We drilled small holes at an angle along the bottom of the wood, then drove finish nails through them and into the wall.

No mounting hardware needed!

Here it is, hard at work, holding some of my beloved scarves:

And here it is, submitting to a Cat Scan:

He Says:

And my belt rack?

She Says:

Yup.  That's done, too.

Sharing with:

Repurposed Ideas Weekly

Organize! Master Closet

She Says:

Now that I have a proper laundry, I need a place to put all those clean clothes!  We turned to the master closet space, which was woefully inadequate:

View to the left:

View to the right:

Aaaand that's the tour!  It's only 5 feet by 9 feet, so organization will be the name of the game for this room.  We also have plans to expand this room into the master bath footprint, but that will have to come later.  I need a closet NOW!

We wanted something a little prettier than wire racks for this closet.  We settled on the Allen & Roth system from Lowe's:

We chose several pieces from this system, all in cappuccino.  I like the semi customizable pieces, including shoe storage, drawers and baskets.

There wasn't just a whole lot of prep work for this room.  We tore out the old carpet, took down the wire shelving, and were pretty much ready for paint.  I chose Mercer Blue from the Valspar Eddie Bauer collection:

I picked this color from all the paint chips at the Valspar counter and fell in love with it.  Only later did I find out that apparently the rest of the world is in love with it too... for example, searching "Mercer Blue" on Houzz.com gives you over 36,000 results!  Ah well, if I can't be original, at least I can have good taste...

Because this closet is long and narrow, we chose some track lighting to fill the space.  

The positive is that it lights the closet well.  The negative is that they make for difficult photography in such a small space!

Next, the installation of the closet system.  It's pretty fool proof, we just followed the overly complicated directions and got it done.  It's also easy to customize this system with add on pieces to fit your particular space.

Again with the awkward camera angles: normally I would be all geeked out about the lens flare, but it's just annoying in these shots, so I apologize...

One thing about HoneyDo: he continues to surprise me!  As you can probably tell from here and here that I love baskets, but I assumed he would think that was too girly a thing to have an opinion about.  But when we were picking out the pieces for the closet, he said the baskets were cool and he wanted a bunch of them in the closet!  Woohoo!  No problemo, babe!  I think maybe he just wants to hide all my junk, but that's okay by me.  I'll take baskets any way I can get them...

Because we're running the hardwood throughout the house, we'll wait on this floor until the master is done, then do it all at once.

Make A Wish

The last bits of summer fading into fall.

Front Porch Series, Part Five

He says:

We're in the home stretch, now.  All of the structure is in place.  The porch needs to be roofed and checked for leaks, then it can be put on hold until Spring so that we can finish the interior of the house.  

First step is to sheath the roof with the 15/32" plywood.  This is a very thick, heavy-duty type of ply to use for sheathing, but it provides insurance in case of rain during the construction process - it came in handy when we suddenly had 6 inches of rain before the roof was finished!  I could have saved a few hundred dollars using a cheap sheathing, but I probably would have spent the money twice.  Also, lifting those sheets up onto the roof by myself was a workout, I'd like to only do it once.

If you are going to spend a lot of time on a steep roof, wear a safety harness.  The valleys I constructed out of 12" wide metal flashing directly over the sheathing, with edges sealed with roofing cement, then a layer of roofing cement, then the tarpaper, then a layer of cement, then a strip of asphalt roofing roll, then shingles.  This is super overkill, but I'm not a pro roofer.  I want every advantage I can get.

Shingles are time consuming.  There are just so MANY of them.  

And we have a roof.  There are a lot of details I've glossed over (and several weeks of time) but the result makes me so happy.  The little house has a face now.  Much prettier than before.

The plan always was to stop at this point, go back inside and finish the interior...but I couldn't resist seeing what the gable was going to look like...so I mostly finished it:

Yep.  That's our new porch.  

She Says:

Love, love, love it!  It changes the face of the house completely, and actually gives it some character.  And by finishing out the gable, HoneyDo also gave us a sneak peek at our exterior colors for the house to make sure we were happy with them (and by we I mean me); they're perfect!

If you want to see the step by step progress on the porch, go here.

Front Porch Series, Part Four

He says:

So, after the stone columns were finished, it was time to build a floor.  It is built like a standard deck.  

With the basic floor completed, it would have been on to the rest of the rafters except for the matter of the homeowner's insurance.  As we mentioned here, all they were interested in was a railing.  So although it was a little out of order, we got those all important railings up post haste.

Ok, so, we got that done, and we were approved for insurance renewal.  Onward!  More rafters:

The door is still in the wrong place.  But it's starting to look like something now.  

Got the porch steps done.  Can't wait to move that stupid door!  Next, the roof.