New Toilet!

Ok, so maybe this is a weird thing to write about, but I just had to share the exciting news of our new toilet.  Josh's mom bought us new toilets for both of the bathrooms over Christmas and we finally got one of them put in the main bathroom.  I never knew how big of a difference a nice toilet makes, but believe me, it does!  And not just a difference for the intended use, but it also just makes the bathroom in general look fresher and more modern.  So here's the before and after:

Of course the clean tiles and fresh paint on the wall add to the improvements!

Taking a Break

So I have to appolgize for the delay in posting.  I blame part of it on the fact that we have been right in the middle of about 5 projects for about 2 weeks now and I just kept thinking I wanted to wait until we finished to post.  But I also have to blame a little bit on me being lazy.  I think for a few days I was kind of on a bit of a home improvement strike and needed to just take some time off after a few weeks of working on projects with every bit of spare time.  But, we are back and so very close to finishing both the main bathroom and our bedroom.  So in the next few days I will be posting more, I promise.  So stay posted for some exciting updates!

Getting Rid of the Painted Bathroom Floors

One of the biggest questions I have asked since we moved in is, "Who in the world paints tiled floors?"  Apparently some previous owner thought this was a great idea, so they did just that.  To make it worse, both bathroom floors were painted baby blue (to match the baby blue shower and tub maybe?) and then to make it even worse, the previous owner was in a wheelchair, which caused the paint to get all scratched up so that the tile showed through in some spots. 

Here's a good view of the main bathroom floor when we moved in:

After some discussion, we decided we would wait to re-tile the floor for a while, and in the mean time, just remove the paint.  Of course the tile underneath does not match the grey and seafoam green towels and shower curtain I got for the wedding, but I think we can make it work until we are ready to take the time (and money) to replace the tile.  Even though it's not exactly what I would pick for myself, the tile underneath is actually in good condition.

We bought a huge thing of Citristrip:

The instructions say to wait 30 minutes and then brush off the paint.  After one coat and an hour, then another coat and an hour and not much luck removing the paint with either a scraper or a copper scrubber, we decided to really pile it on and let it sit over night.  I woke up in the morning to a bunch of bubbly paint:

I used a paint scraper and most of it came up pretty easily.  To get the rest up I used a copper scrubber, and repeated with one more coat of Citristrip and more scrubbing.  It was not an easy job, but now the baby blue paint is gone for the most part!  All that is left is a little bit in the cracks, we are going to try a grout stripper next and hopefully that will be the end of it.

Here is the before and after:

And a close up of the tile, not the best thing ever, but SO much better than chipping baby blue paint!

Goodbye Dirty Walls

The bedroom is all painted!  One room down, eight rooms and a hallway to go.  Every wall in the house was painted a very light blue/grey color (or maybe they were supposed to be white and just really dirty) and on top of that, they hadn't been washed in forever.  And by forever I mean it is literally possible that they had never been washed...

We decided to stick with the green/brown color scheme to match our comforter and the few accessories we were planning to keep.  Since the furniture and our huge print from Ikea are all dark, we wanted to go with a lighter color for the walls.  We finally settled on Olive 3 from the Laura Ashley Home collection, although this barely got approved by Josh since he didn't like the name.  We decided to do a bright white trim to make eveything look extra clean.

Here is the before:

And here are some afters!

We also got this awesome light from Lowes:

Way better than the generic globe with ceiling fan (see before picture).  Even better, it perfectly matches our bed and the dresser we plan to get.

So here's what's left for the bedroom:

1. Finish floors (to be done this week, hopefully)
2. Install closet
3. Move furniture in
4. Accessorize (rugs, window coverings, etc)

Hopefully by next week we can be moved in!



Hidden Treasures

When we looked at the house for the first time, we knew if we bought it one of the first things we would need would be new floors.  The whole house (except for the kitchen) is covered in awful carpet. 

Our first thought was that we would try to put in bamboo floors as soon as possible, but after lifting up a corner of the carpet we discovered that underneath was what appeared to be brand new oak floors, so for now all we need to do is rip up the carpet and put a coat of finish on.  Since we are trying to take things one room at a time, the first room to be carpet free was the bedroom.  We started in the closet since we weren’t sure how well the process would go.  We pulled from the corner and were happy to find that with the exception of the tack strip around the edge and a few staples around the edge of the wall and edge of each piece of padding, there wasn’t anything else holding the carpet to the floor.  After pulling it up, we used a razor blade to cut out the whole piece covering the closet floor and that was it.  Good bye carpet, hello beautiful hardwood floors! 

Josh set to work getting rid of the tack strip, which after a little practice using the crowbar, a hammer and a piece of cardboard to protect the floor, ended up being a relatively quick task.  After cutting the carpet into about 3 foot wide strips and ripping that and the padding up, I went around with pliers and pulled out all the staples.  Overall it probably took less than an hour and we now have hardwood floors!  We are going to clean them and put a coat of varnish on before we move everything back in.  The room is thisclose to being finished and I can’t wait!!

The Magic of White Paint

The cupboards and closets in the house were not a pretty sight when we moved in.  Even after scrubbing with everything from dust remover to Clorox bleach they were still covered with black scuff marks and other mysterious stains.  Not to mention, they were also all lined with a gorgeous wood grain paper. 

Here's some before pictures of the pantry/bar cupboard.  The rest looked the same or even worse.

 I finally decided the best solution would be to paint them all.  After ripping off enough shelf liner to cover a parking lot, I removed all the shelves and set them up in my work room (aka the front living room-much warmer than the garage and much easier than the basement!).  One thing I discovered is that the broken down cardboard boxes from the move made perfect “drop cloths” for this project since they don’t slip around or bunch up the way sheets do. 

Here are some comparison pictures.  I can't believe how big of a difference one coat of paint makes!

After a fresh coat of white ceiling paint on all the shelves and inside the cupboards/closets I ended up with wonderful, fresh and most importantly CLEAN storage areas!

Tackling the Closet

The first project we decided to do in the bedroom was convert the closet.  On one of our first of many trips to Lowes we ended up in the closet organizing aisle and fell in love with the wood closet systems from Allen Roth.

The first step was removing the faux wall that separated the two doors so we would have a wide open closet.  We started by taking off the doors, and then it was time for some fun--punching through the drywall. I even got a good punch in J .  

Next we had to remove the studs, which we (and by we I mean Josh) did with a hacksaw.  After the wall and all the shelving inside was gone, it was time for the hardest part.  The wall had left a 4”x18” hole in the top part of the frame which Josh had to patch with drywall.  After about 17 times of alternating filling with drywall mud and tape and sanding it was finally ready to be painted.  When the painting is finished and we rip up the carpet we will install our closet kit.  The only question left is whether to add doors, a curtian or nothing…what do you guys think?

I'll leave you with a little before and after: