Before and After: Downstairs Bathroom

So let's see. We have one full bathroom on the main floor of our house. It is quite small but nonetheless I am very happy to have it! It works really well for guests (the guest bedroom is on the main floor also) and I like that it is located kind of out of the way/in a private spot. When we moved in, it looked like this.

Very plain, VERY white. The floor tile also left a little to be desired and the grout was a dingy tan.

Because this space is pretty small, I thought it would be nice to have a glass shower, one that would open things up a bit because there are no windows. Realistically, something like this:

I also thought, if we are taking out the tub and making the shower space smaller, we could squeeze in some built-in storage on one side:

And add a pocket door, since the current swings into the bathroom and makes it feel even tighter.

I set about getting some quotes for the remodel. Most of the contractors didn't call me back; I think they are used to people assuming they can do this type of project for $5k and when they learn the actual cost, they fall dead of a heart attack and then the contractor has a funeral to go to. Contractors are too busy for funerals plus no one wants an accidental death on their hands. Despite the risk, I had three of them willing to take the chance on me and I received the following estimates: $15,000, not including ANY materials, $22,500, and $29,550. $29,550. I could feel my chest tightening! 

I might add, that did not include my storage or my pocket door - I was told no by all three on both of those things. I said to Jason, "This guy wants almost thirty thousand dollars and at the end, we will have a still-small-and-only-moderately-nicer bathroom??" [Choke] [More tightening, but not life threatening, as it turned out]. Phew. 

So you guessed it...we did it ourselves! 

Side note: you know how they say, if you want a fire lit under you to get a project done at your house, throw a party? Ashton's big 5th birthday was coming up and we wanted to get this bathroom all ship shape and shiny! So we had our "need by" date clearly set and hit "Start!" (What actually ended up happening was a combination of this eventual deadline plus Jason taking the sink off himself to do the beadboard and the minor plumbing emergency that ensued. Want to know what speeds up a DIY project and significantly at that? A leak that continues to drip even though the water is shut off.)

This is not exactly in order but more or less what to do if you want to follow in our footsteps. 

Step 1. Go to Lowe's, pick out a nice new toilet and a nice new sink, and have a plumber switch them out. This was probably our most expensive step, like around...$1,200? Somewhere in there. But these two things made it instantly better. 

Step 2. Paint. I chose Benjamin Moore Rhine River totally off the cuff and it was perfect!

Step 3. Install crown molding, beadboard and chair rail. Caulk it all.

Jason and I have lived first in a condo, then in a house in Watertown, and now in Natick, and we have had a bathroom in all three places that is this style. Beadboard is a nice upgrade for how easy it is to install (easy for Jason I mean. NOT me. Can you imagine?? I have zero interest in learning how to use tools. Or the grill.)

Step 4. This step actually was me though. Gulp. The tile floor. We knew we were not going to pull the tiles up and were told we could not reglaze them. We briefly considered going right over it with new tile but the toilet had already been replaced and it was too complicated. I bought a Miracle Grout Pen thingy at Lowe's and started painting.

There weren't many color options for the pen so I went with a bright white. It worked surprisingly well! The white paint went on pretty smoothly over the old grout but it did take a couple of coats to fully cover. It was a LOT of lines and I made sure to complain how long it was taking. 

Step 5. Have the tub reglazed. This was another biggie - $425. The original cast iron tub was just flat and depressed. There were some stains and in general it wasn't the nicest place to get clean. It worked out great actually, the guy came while we were on vacation so we could avoid the fumes. It is sparkling! So shiny and white, I couldn't wait to get home to see it (yes, I know how that sounds, but these things are what excite me now lol). It's very hard to tell in the pictures but:

Before

After

Trust me. This was in important step to get everything feeling new.

Step 6. Hang up shower curtain and decor, take pictures, do a blog post! Ta-da! Overall, we spent maybe...$2,500? A far cry from $30,000 that's for sure. And it's perfect. Not fancy, but fresh and happy, which is all I wanted :)

The original before:

And the new after!

The floor before:

After:

Sink corner before:

After:

Darn Jason for not turning on the lights for that picture. 

Before: 

After:

 Thanks for the memories little downstairs bathroom! Those new colors sure look good on you! :)

Ashton is FIVE!

This is just a quick little happy birthday shoutout to my first born...Ashton, you are FIVE today! And you love everything in the whole world except peas. Peas are very distressing for you. Other than that, you are the most excitable, curious, energetic, wondrous little boy and we love you so much!!

I'm behind on blogging because we've been on vacation (forthcoming post on that), we have spent a lot of time re-doing our downstairs bathroom (forthcoming post on that too) in time for Ashton's big 5th birthday party, two days from now (forthcoming post on that too (too)).

Another quick one...HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHTON!! Be back soon!

Landscaping and gardening

It all started on June 1. We had 5 cubic yards of loam/soil/whatever delivered for various projects around the exterior of the house. And by delivered I mean dumped in the middle of the driveway. Here it is, in all its little-boy-magnet glory.

Yep, this was great to have. Just great. Trying to keep Ashton and Alex off this heap was so exhausting I not only gave up but handed them their shovels.

The hell with it.

So this dirt went everywhere, including (of course) in the house - my favorite place for it. But also in the yard. Jason and Ashton seeded the entire backyard and front lawn in about 6 hours. The owners before us had two big dogs whose pee really did a number on the grass. There were big bald spots. So Jason got that growing and it is thicker and greener than ever! I don't have a before and after on that yet. I better get one soon, we are a week into a mandatory water ban in Natick due to some sort of equipment failure - everything is fading fast despite Jason's illicit midnight watering.

Besides that, we I mean Jason has been swapping out the pre-existing red mulch with brown and edging certain areas with stone. A la:

Vs.

There's lot of little areas where we I mean Jason did that and it looks really nice.

We definitely wanted to start a garden too. The "before before before" of the area we picked, which is right next to our side door and underneath our dining area windows:

The "before before" after we yanked all that out.

Then just the regular before (or, first "after")?

And this is today. As you can see, we I mean Jason clearly overplanted.

It's like the Hunger Games in there and they haven't even hit their prime yet! Our first harvest was a banana pepper a couple of weeks ago.

Growing these things is a waste of space if you want my opinion. You can't eat them raw and they cost about $0.12 at the store if you actually need one to cook with. But there are about zero recipes in my repertoire that call for banana peppers so it's like, what's the point.  Anyway, Ashton proudly carried it around for a couple hours, it sat in the basket and then went soft and I threw it away.

And then this week, we got another useless pepper but also a zucchini! Look at Alex's technique:

Big ol' slice right through the middle ;) 

But the zucchini, ohhh the zucchini. Jason sauteed it up and the boys ate it all for dinner! They were so excited to have helped grow something that it was gobbled up with abandon and they asked for more!

At least, that's how the legend goes. I was at a haircut appointment and didn't actually see this "miracle" transpire. Jason claims it is 100% true: they had a completely different approach to this food that they cut out of the garden themselves and couldn't wait to try it. We'll see, then, what happens with the tomatoes. Tomatoes are currently on the black list, at least, store-bought ones. What will I do if the boys really do eat anything they can grow?? We are going to need a lot bigger garden!

Before and After: Completed Kitchen Renovation!

Well here we are everyone! A little over 3 months since kitchen demo day and our kitchen is finally complete! This has been my first major renovation and even on the scale of things, this wasn't that major. We were fully functional in the new space after just 2 weeks because we did not change any walls or plumbing; keeping the footprint of the original kitchen definitely helped in terms of budget and timeline.

So as not to repeat myself, here is the post where I outline why we did this project to begin with. The kitchen wasn't our taste and we were going to be dealing with an appliance issue right quick. Also, one of the major aesthetic things I was looking for was to have the cabinets go all the way to the ceiling. Turns out, our floors and our ceiling are nearly 2" off from corner to corner (read: VERY uneven) so our contractor had an insane time trying to get everything level (it's not 100% perfect, but totally fine). The fact that he finished it in 2 weeks is, frankly, unheard of.

Why, then, did this post take so long? Well, the backsplash tile had an 8-10 week lead time (of course it did! I have a knack for picking the most inconvenient things). When it finally came, the installer told us we actually needed an additional 5 square feet before he would start. We rushed the order, but that was another 3-4 weeks! It finally went in last weekend. Also, there was a lot of additional custom trim work that needed to be done (if anyone lands here because they search the internet for Home Depot/Martha Stewart purestyle cabinets, contact me before using them! I have many-o-pieces of advice on this product).

Overall, it's done and I LOVE IT! It's clean, fresh and (I hope) classic. The gray/white scheme is very in right now.  Let's get to the before and afters, shall we? :)

Before 

After

Before

After 

Before- side desk area

After- toy storage!

Before- island

After

Before

After

Before

After

The whole room

 (Notice the ridiculous contraption on the bottom of the stool - it's called a KaBoost and it's because a certain 2 year old, I won't name names, refuses to sit in a clip-on high chair or any sort of booster- chair only!)

And lastly just a few of my beloved backsplash tile that was so worth the wait!

The pictures don't even do it justice. The flowers are raised so the relief on the tile reflects the light ever so slightly, and the glossy blue is just soooo bee-yoooooo-tee-ful!

This tile is easily my favorite part of this whole thing. Second is the countertops and third is my pendant lights.

We went with Jenn-Air for appliances, the combo oven/convection-microwave oven is awesome. Two weeks ago, I had made a chicken/broccoli/pasta thing for the boys. Everything in it was cooked, so I took it out of the fridge around 4:30 pm and slid it in the oven. I said, "Hey Oven, in about an hour at 5:45 pm, start up. First preheat to 375, then cook for 30 minutes, and then just keep it warm at 200 until we get back." We left the house, went swimming at WTB, came home at 6:30 pm and dinner was READY! Boy did I feel like I had life under control in that moment. (My biggest challenge is finding time to make dinner - I have limited time after work and it's a struggle to balance it between playing/scootering/going to the beach/etc with Ashton and Alex but then having time left over to cook a real dinner for them that takes at least 30 minutes). It's been a little funny getting used to our induction cooktop as well but I love how easily it wipes clean and how fast it boils water! We don't have a gas line on our street so it was basically electric or induction.

I think I mentioned at some point our cabinets were Martha Stewart- Ox Hill style in Picket Fence. Oh and I chose this line of cabinet hardware, blue counter stools from Target...overall there was a lot to pick! Anyone that has been through a renovation will tell you it is very stressful, for a whole lot of reasons. Looking at the after pictures, it was so worth all of it!

Now, what's next...?