At Laaaaasssssst!

This was our upstairs bathroom when we moved in, two years ago. Then, last summer, we had a sudden burst in a pipe that that affected both bathrooms in our home. (Because one sits directly above the other.) We had to stay in a hotel while a disaster cleanup crew dealt with demo and airing out of both bathrooms. After deciding that we would DIY both bathrooms, we got to work on the downstairs bathroom first because it seemed like a smaller project. (You can see how that turned out here; http://nobodysgrassisgreenerthanours.blogspot.com/2015/11/bathroom-redo.html) 

Once we had a working water closet, we hastily returned from our 10 day hotel stay. The upstairs bathroom just kept getting put off. Lacking funds, time, and plain old motivation, I suppose. But at last it is up and running again!

A few shots documenting the tile install. The wood looking tile was just what we never knew we wanted. Warm and durable and at a pretty great price at Lowe's. I did a happy dance when it lined up almost perfectly with our flooring throughout the upstairs level.

Coming together!

Hooks over towel rods. Every time. We also found these at Lowe's. I painted the walls my trusty Ancient Stone so it flows with the rest of the house. The vanity was still in good shape so that went back in along with our tiny toilet. I do not remember it being so small!

I have a bit of touch up and caulking to do still. I could not wait to share though, so I grabbed some grocery store flowers and snapped the pictures.

Shout out to my Dear Husband for partnering with me to get it done. Living with 5 guys, two bathrooms are a necessity. And since we tackled the bathroom, the dishwasher quit on us. Our family must be too much awesome for one house ;)

Refresh

During the last school year while all the children were off at school, I painted most of our home. The house was previously painted white inside with what I think was actually primer. Yikes. After two years living here, it was looking pretty gross.

I chose Ancient Stone by Valspar for the paint color, It is my go to neutral because it looks good with everything and is warm feeling without being brown. I need a neutral in almost every room because I have all of my dad's fantastic art to showcase. It has plenty of color and I want it to be the focus in a room. I also painted the top of our dining table a cream color because it was in such bad shape and because we have so much dark brown in this room. It may get a turquoise makeover, though?

In our dining room, I added some sparkly throw pillows to my favorite Craigslist couch and put some flowers in a mason jar so I could snap some pictures. We live in a split level home from the 1980's. It is a new era of home and new floor plan to figure out for me. So, yay! Progress!

Here is a "before" shot, of sorts. Nothing heinous but what do you think? Are you still loving the all white trend? Painted anything lately? Am I stuck with dirt colored walls while my sons still live at home? 

Bathroom Redo

   If you have ever spent time with my husband, you will eventually learn of his distaste for social media. I love Instagram and the connections I have fostered through Facebook. I experiment with Twitter, mostly as a follower of people that interest me. And this blog has been an 8 year digital scrapbook of sorts. Social media has become a daily interaction for me.

   Despite his reservations about our family's presence in cyberspace, this post has my husband's full support. Whenever we do a house project, he asks if I am going to put it on the blog, if I have taken pictures for the blog, etc. Which is ironic because I am usually so caught up in the DIY that the documenting is the last thing on my mind. Having said that, here is what I captured of the basement bathroom redo from this summer.

   This is best I could find for a before picture.

   The floor was not damaged downstairs but the linoleum that was in there left a lot to be desired. I had been swooning over penny tile for awhile so I thought this was our chance. Matt and his mom were so great, in a matter of days they patched drywall, added texture,  and painted.

   That piece of ceiling above the toilet is where I noticed the ceiling sagging and upon investigating, my entire hand went through the ceiling. I joked in my distress that the sh*t had literally hit the (bathroom) fan!

      If we were not in a rush to get out of the hotel we were staying in and we did not have a strict budget, we would have had the entire bathroom drywall replaced and textured by a professional. It would have been more than the insurance was going to cover and somehow I imagine another crack at this when our 4 children are older. This shower gets a lot of use!

   As I mentioned, I really wanted the penny tile. We found these hexagon shaped small tiles at Lowe's and decided to pair the white tiles with a charcoal grout. Less cleaning! Matt and I had no experience tiling, and it shows. We also felt sore for a week after this. The cleaning up of the grout really got shorted because we both were achy from laying the tile.
 
    I like the floor but we were in way over our head. I think if we had it to do again I would stain/paint the concrete floor that was under the linoleum. It was in great shape and would have been quite functional for the heavy traffic in here.

    We had a plumber get the toilet and sink hooked back up. We do not mess with plumbing around here, especially when it was a leak that started this whole disaster.

Matt hung an additional piece of molding when he replaced the baseboards so that I could have many hooks along the wall. I thought it added interest and functionality. We have never had any luck with towel bars at our house, too many boys that want to be Tarzan. Originally everything was a standard white. I liked how clean and bright it was because there is no natural light in there.

   But as we lived with it, it was apparent that we are not in the bright and white stage of life. I found a nice gray, Silver Screen by Glidden, that still kept it light. The real kicker was the shower curtain I found at World Market. It brought the whole vision I had together.

   It is hard to photograph this small space but here are my best attempts. 

home sweet home

   When we purchased our home 16 months ago, there was no back yard. And there is still no back yard. I know, anti-climactic. The idea was to get going on a brick patio this summer, fix the wonky fence, and throw down some grass seed. Instead, our upstairs bathroom leaked into our downstairs bathroom in June. We spent the summer repairing the downstairs bathroom. We decided to DIY it as much as possible and that is why we haven't finished the upstairs bathroom. DIY is exhausting and takes so much time. Not going to lie, it was a huge bummer. The house was remodeled before we bought it so we were not planning on any major overhauls, other than the back yard.

   I am trying to put on my gratitude glasses and shift perspective. I did hang twinkle lights. Everything looks better with twinkle lights. I did plant some pots and manged to grow flowers, herbs, and  eggplants.

   I did manage to sip tea outside on summer mornings when the hot air balloons were drifting overhead. I did manage to paint the front door a few times.

   (She told me she wanted to be red.)

   I did plant some lavender to trying to keep the neighborhood cats away. I did enjoy watching the boys mow and weed whack.

   I did savor many meals Matt grilled up. Or one of his many perfectly golden marshmallows in a s'more. I did enjoy hilariously told ghost stories around the fire and the sounds of Kaleb playing the guitar.

   I did go on stunningly beautiful walks through the nature reserve that is just blocks from our home.

   I did give our bedroom wall a moody makeover.

   I did hang up the #summerselfieseries I enjoyed with Koen this year. The laundry room has never made me happier.

   And lastly, I did relish every bouquet gathered from other people's gorgeous yards. Ours will come someday, along with a new upstairs bathroom. As the only female in this tribe, the days of two toilets can't come soon enough!

master chef

Here is a fun thing we did this last year with homeschool. Our very own Master Chef mystery box challenge. I gave the 3 oldest boys a plate full of the same ingredients and Matt, Collin, and I judged their creations on presentation, taste, and creativity. I gave them angel hair pasta, sausage, parsley, shallots, heavy cream, pizza dough, romano cheese, artichoke hearts, lemon, and a very limited pantry. Most of the items did not have labels so they had to smell or taste or just ignore it if they did know what it was. They did not have to use everything and they had a small bit of help with the stove and blenders and such.

I was blown away! They did so great and got really into it, not to mention the food was really good. Aden made his own marinara and added carrots for presentation. (I thought this would be gross but the carrots were really good with it.)

Collin was very articulate and tried everything, giving feedback to each dish and writing down his score.

Kaleb opted for the pizza rather than pasta and it was delicious.

Parker did a pasta dish with lemon and even used the lemon peel in the boiling water for the noodles, very smart!

As for the scoring, each judge could give up to 10 points for the three separate categories and in the end a dish could earn a maximum 90 points. (up to 30 from each judge.)

Aden had the best looking dish in our opinion, not as creative but the taste was surprising and real good. He earned 79 points total.

Kaleb's pizza won us over in the taste category, we all finished every bite. He came in with 79 points as well.

Parker was the most creative, we thought. He used more sophisticated flavors and Collin hated it. In the final tally he earned 76 points.

Everyone was happy though. For about $30 in groceries, it was enough for 3 meals. It was cheap and fun and I love that these guys are developing this skill. Collin has already said we need to find another judge because he wants in on it next time.