Master Bath Remodel Weekend 2

The next big projects for the master bath remodel are electrical and plumbing. This past weekend we focused on finalizing our decisions about the lighting in the bathroom and faucets. As a result we did not do a ton of work this weekend but we did make some headway on materials and decisions (which can be super time consuming with two strong-willed people)!

The husband was able to complete the pocket door between the bathroom and the closet and used the old door to make sure it worked! Success!!

He also started to fill in the tub space so we can raise the height.

Our tile arrived this week but we still need to pick it up. Our faucets should arrive very soon and we're going to hopefully finalize our lighting fixtures and mirrors this coming weekend. In addition, we're hoping to get the electrical started (and maybe finished) this weekend. But we'll see! Slow and steady wins the race right?!?

No going back now!

We successfully demoed the bathroom this past weekend! Yay! It wasn't nearly as bad as I anticipated and thankfully we didn't run into any issues!!

We spent Thursday evening and Friday evening moving all of our stuff into the back part of the house. I had grand illusions that we could easily fit the contents of our master bedroom, bathroom, and closet into the back three bedrooms, three closets, and guest bath. Ha! To be fair all of our stuff is back there, it just took a lot more finagling than I anticipated. And I haven't quite finished finding a place for everything. I'll have to take pictures of that mess and post soon!

Pre-demo Saturday morning

Empty-ish master bedroom

On to demo! The husband, bless his heart, kept telling me that he envisioned the show Renovation Realities when thinking about our renovation. Please check out an episode if you're not familiar but the gist is that people who are ill-equipped and ill-prepared decide to do a renovation of whatever room in their house. It pretty much always ends with an injury and a few arguments and whatever else nonsense you can think of. Definitely not what you want to hear from your husband before demo! Thankfully, no renovation realities occurred this past weekend!

Day 1 of demo began slowly but picked up quickly after our friend Brett came to help. I decided that if I wanted to maintain my sanity my time was best spent tackling the organization of all of our stuff in the other bedrooms. So the husband and Brett got to it!

A lot done by lunch on Saturday

During the tile removal. It was so loud and they were so worried.

End of the first day!

Day 2 involved only a few hours of demo and clean up thankfully.

We also found some really awesome (sarcasm) wallpaper behind the vanity. I'm glad that wasn't in the bathroom when we moved in! Can you even imagine that purple striped wallpaper all over the bathroom?!? Eek!

You can see in some of the pictures that we opted to keep a few things in place for the time being. The door to the closet stayed so we could minimize how much dust went in there. We also left the light box thing because it opens directly into the attic. We plan to tackle that this coming weekend.

Up next:
Close off attic ceiling above light box so we can remove that.
Possibly begin work on the pocket door.
Whatever else suits our fancy.

Our master bathroom

It's that time folks! We are t-minus 2 days from starting the remodel of our master bathroom! I am both excited and SUPER anxious! (I thought I would mention the anxiety in case you couldn't tell from my overuse of exclamation points!) This is a big project and we are going to do most of the work. Eek. But for reals, the husband is super handy and occasionally I am too so I think we can handle it. The main question is whether our marriage can handle it! :)  I'll keep you posted!

As a reminder of the current state of our bathroom, here are a few pictures!

Here's a bit of info on our planning process and I'll keep the blog updated as we move through the various projects.

Planning:
We mulled over the plan for a LONG time (and when I say we, I almost 100% of the time mean ME). We considered what seems like a ton of options but really it came down to three options:

Option 1: Keep the same foot print and replace everything but the tub

Option 2: Remove the linen closet and extend the shower into the linen closet space making the overall shower ginormous. Keep the remaining footprint the same and replace everything but the tub

Option 3:  Remove the linen closet, essentially move the shower over and extend it's size a bit but only so much as to have enough room for a new free standing tub. Keep the remaining footprint the same and replace everything

And we chose option #1! The main reason was cost. Removing the linen closet would mean a large increase in the cost of materials and we would have to move the shower plumbing. The current footprint isn't bad so leaving it is one huge way to save money.

Materials:
After browsing too many bathroom photos to count and visiting several tile stores we (I) finally decided on the materials. Here are some of the photos I used for inspiration:

My favorite bathroom - inspiration for the general feel and colors
picture from Houzz

Inspiration for shower tile and half wall of tile
picture from Creative Homebody

The shower will have white subway tile with a chair rail that runs through the middle much like the above photo. Our bathroom does not have the same layout as the one above so the chair rail will only be around our tub.

We are going to use a gray 6x20 tile in a herringbone pattern on the floor - the tile in the background of the picture below. We are going to use a small carrara marble hex for the shower floor and carrara marble for the counters. 

We went with a set of Ikea cabinets for the vanity, which we purchased last weekend. We are updating the bathroom with new doors and replacing the door into the closet with a pocket door.

I'll share more about the finishing touches later. Here's hoping we only hit minor speed bumps along this trip! :)

Back to it

I think I am finally in a place where I can get back to blogging more. But really, who knows? Things have been quite busy over the last couple of months so here is a crazy update on what we've been up to.

• We gardened as usual this year and had a great year - we were more on top of the bugs and our unusual spring gave all of our veggies a huge boost. We grew tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos. We also planted our herb garden and it has really taken off.

• We drove to NC for a quick visit and to exchange cars. We bought my mom's 09 Accord and "sold" my wonderfully quirky 96 Corolla to my brother. That's right, I no longer own the car I've driven since my sophomore year in college. It was a sad day but there are some perks to having a working radio and automatic locks and windows! :) And since that old car got me through three colleges, I'm sure it will help my brother make it successfully through his MBA program.

•  We painted the last room in our house! Woo-hoo! I love the color and I'm still amazed at the huge difference the new paint color makes in how the room feels. 

Before and After

 

• We remodeled a closet. Yep, not super exciting but the husband did a great job building the shelves and the closet is super functional for us now. We gutted the closet and added a full wall of shelves and a new clothes hanging area. You can see the closet empty and then filled to the brim below. One of the issues with living in a super hot place is that many items cannot be stored in the attic, thus this remodeled closet holds all of the items we would normally put in an attic.

 

• And most recently we went to an amazing and fun wedding in Houston! Yay for not traveling for a wedding and having friends come down to visit!

The wedding after party decorations - awesome.

Next up this week: A review of our huge upcoming project!

One year

Today represents one year from the day my grandfather died. At times I still find myself experiencing a sadness that fills my whole chest when I think of him. I know that as time continues to pass that those moments will occur with less frequency and linger a little less as well. Grief is a strange thing in deed. On this day, though, I want to spend some time remembering a man I was so fortunate to have as a grandfather. Below are just a few memories I have of him.

He loved candy and Honey never really bought it (I think he wasn't really supposed to eat it) but my mom would always buy a big bag for him for Christmas and his birthday. He would smile his mischievous smile when he opened the bag and then proceed to eat a few pieces.

Honey likes to say that if Pa knew how much she spent on his ties he would have been so upset. He really had no interest in expensive things and often thought they were quite silly.

One of my favorite things about Pa was that he could be mischievous. It wasn't frequent but every once in awhile he would play a little prank on Honey and we would all get a little laugh out of it. The way his eyes lit up and his mischievous grin are often what I choose to focus on when I think of him.

He gave great big bear hugs that felt like they might swallow you whole but stopped just short of it - they are what I miss the most.