Guest Bath

I love our home. It is becoming just that, a home. The house part of it is open and clean and easy to do life in. All of the rooms needed some love but were totally livable when we moved in. I have a problem though. I love projects. So much so that I just tore our very functional guest bathroom apart for no reason. Yall its a desease Im sure.
It began by painting the corner vanity. It was a simple pine corner vanity that I painted with some oops paint from Home Depot. The counter top was a weird blue color and since I have given myself a project budget of under $300 for this space replacing it wasn't an option. I decided to try my hand at painting the counter top with Rust-Oleum paint. I had seen it all over Pinterest and watched tutorials on YouTube. After cleaning and taping it all off here are the results.

I did the same thing I did with the kitchen hardware by painting it with spray paint. Turned out pretty good I think. When we had picked out everything for the flooring we set out to pull baseboards and the toilet. Y'all, what we thought was going to be an easy day of tiling quickly turned into a nightmare! When we took the toilet out we realized that the previous owners had glued the wax seal to the drain pipe as well as screwed it in place. Screwing in place is the correct action to take but it is supposed to be replaceable, because lets be honest, what bath room have you ever heard of to not need work from time to time. So we are having to replace the drain pipe down into the garage. Then while taking the last piece of baseboard off below where the water line connects to the toilet out of the wall, the pressurized water line snapped and there was a hard stream of water shooting into the bathroom and flowing down into the garage. By turning the water off and pulling insulation downstairs we got it all under control and cleaned up. We made an urgent call to the local Home Depot which was set to close in 10 min. Thankfully they stayed open for Dawson to make a quick run and get the parts needed to be able to turn the water back on. Talk about an ordeal. All for the smallest space in the house!! I guess Im sharing this to encourage you that you arent the only one that mishaps happen too!!

Once we got all of the pipes and water lines reconnected and functioning properly we were able to get the backer board in place to start tiling!! Now let me let you in on a secret. Tiling petrifies me. The last time I did it was at our old house for our master bathroom.
I am in love with this tile. Simple, classic, and Im praying that it will stay this way for a long time to come. The shower insert, toilet, and sink basin are all an off white which made the color scheme a little harder. I think the over all look of this space is going to be a great spot for our guests to use and feel at home!
We painted to walls Alabaster from Sherwin Williams, and added a new light fixture as well as a mirror and a few other touches. Still need to replace the hardware on the sink but over all it is so much better then before!! We've stayed pretty close to budget and couldn't be happier with the outcome!

I am waiting on the Mr. to hang a few things for me and then this space will be done!! Yay! On to the next area! The mud room, stay tuned for the progress!!


Brekken


ps. I need to be better about before pictures. Im so anxious to get a project complete I jump in before taking them! Ill be better.

Kitchen Phase 3

We have a lot of projects going on at the moment. Both inside and out there is an endless about of stuff keeping us busy. Rainy days force us to work inside. We woke up the other day and my husband had the great idea to pull all of our top cabinets. We hadn't gotten brackets or wood for the shelves yet but hey why not? So after breakfast and getting the kids settled with an activity we got to work!
Cleared everything out of the cabinets into the new pantry and started seeing what we were working with. I love that pantry!!!!

What a difference huh?! The transformation is amazing! The massive hole in the wall is the power for the stove vent. We had been trying to figure out how to attach the vent without creating a weird upper cabinet thing. We are tall people. At our last house the stove vent was connected to the bottom of the microwave which was mounted very low, making the space between the vent and stove annoyingly tight. That being the case I was sure I wanted space to not hit our heads and have room to cook. I was so motivated to keep lightening the space up I went ahead and primed and painted the walls as you can see. Then I took on painting the lower cabinets! Pulling all of the doors off was easy, taping was fine and so was cleaning. I watched several tutorials on the best way to paint them and in the end I had to just go for it. The paint color is a mix of two Sherwin Williams colors so unfortunately I cant link to it. It did turn out a little darker then I had wanted but I think it still works! Got my sister to come help me paint which made it more fun!

 I took the current hinges and used Rust-Oleum spray paint to update them. We ordered the pulls from Amazon and honestly I cant decide on the knobs so they are still not on. But soon, end of this month is my deadline to have them in.
Next step is figuring out how many shelves we want and at what height. I love the idea of having it all open but I am nervous about the space getting cluttered again.
We decided that two instead of three shelves would be the best choice. We purchased simple brackets off of Amazon and got the wood and stain from Home Depot. We have a lot of wood tones going on in this little space so I wanted to find a stain that would help bring it all together. We went back and forth on whether to paint the shelving but you can always paint over stain, you cant stain over paint so we started there. Before could hang the shelves we had to figure out the vent issue. So we don't have a vented air duct for over the stove, instead we have one that just sucks the air in filters it and spits it back out. So instead of having it mounted to the bottom of a shelf or just floating there by itself we made this little guy. A faux vent hood. We took measurements from the fan we purchases, figured out what height we wanted it mounted and then made a cute little box. I may be showing how silly I am with this but when this project was done I fell in love with it! Yes, a wooden box. But, in my defense it was like the first sign of the finish line on a long run!!! Y'all seriously this little box helped me get the motivation needed to keep pushing through the tools and saw dust while preparing meals everyday! Ok I'm weird I know so lets move on. We made a this box and since there is no pipe going through it we made it into a hiding spot for all my cookbooks and extra kitchen stuff, smart huh? Ok I know youre not as impressed as I am. Onto the good stuff.

When we got the wood from Home Depot it had a rounded edge so we ripped a tiny bit off and made them all have flat straight edges on the front. We measured length and did a dry fit. Once they were how we wanted them I took the shelves outside and started staining.
We still have the doors to the pantry to build and hang and I have to figure out the arrangements on the shelves and then I will do a kitchen reveal for all everyone! But its come so far and we are so close to being done!
We are also working on the big hill out side and turning it into a perennial garden with rock walls and a boulder stair case! Also we are in the process of clearing some land below the pond to make a meadow play area for the boys and leveling an area for a fenced in garden! Lot of projects in the works and cant wait to share them with all of you!
What area are you dreaming of redoing in your home? Id love to hear your plans and ideas for that space!
Brekken 

Kitchen Phase 2

The kitchen is an unending process. First step of changing out the sink and part of the counters was done and we were figuring out the next step. Next we wanted to see what it would look like without cabinets to the left of the sink. We had been toying with the idea of doing open shelving to eliminate the cheaper cabinets. We had talked about refacing them instead but once we took the left side down we knew we wanted to take them all out! Crazy, I know!

Next of course I painted the dark wood walls up to the window! Then we added the last piece of counter top and changed out the light above the sink. I found the light for $30 on a random website off of Pinterest of all places.

You can see how much that opened the space up! Next we tackled the main light. Isnt that nice massive florescent light mounted on plywood just beautiful??? Clearly Im kidding and we were ready for a change! We pulled the light, pulled the plywood and added can lights!!! So much better!!

Once those were up we hired a local drywall company to hang and mud the ceiling. I am all about DIY however when it comes to drywall I will gladly pay someone else to do it!

After the drywall was hung, we painted and put the can light trims on and boom, ceiling done!!!

Since we have decided to go with open shelving I still needed a place to put oh ya know all our dried goods and not so cute kitchen stuff. So we decided to close in underneath the stairs that leads to the boys loft and create a deep pantry between that wall and the cabinets. Att the time was just dead space, well space that allowed the under stair door to open but still not usable as a pantry. We have plans to cut into that space from the back hall way and make it storage and an awesome hide out for the kids when they play hide and seek!
So we enclosed under the stairs, built a wall to support the pantry and built a pantry!

SO MUCH SPACE!!! We love it!! We have yet to make doors for it but I honestly dont know how I have lived without it in this kitchen!

Next step will be to pull the top cabinets and figure out open shelving!!!! Shopping brackets and vent fans at the moment, very glamorous I know.
Until next time, and as always post or comment below with your project we'd love to see it!



Brekken

Kitchen Remodel Phase 1

I feel like when people say they want to do a flip on a house or get a house that needs some TLC so that they can put their own touch on it, they aren't exactly sure what they are saying. Our first house had all the right things wrong with it, if that is even possible. The outside was a hot mess but the inside had good bones and a few rooms needed to be updated. Boom done, easy!
Our new house...same thing... kind of. The outside is screaming for attention and the land has never been worked or cleared so we definitely have our hands full with that. But the inside, while the bones are good and the structure is solid, it is begging to be updated. The kitchen is our fist major renovation. Here a few images that we took just before we started tearing things apart.

Now let me preface by saying we have never done a kitchen renovation before. We did the master at our last house, finished the basement out for a playroom and office but nothing that was going to be this big of a focal point in the home.

I thought about cleaning the kitchen before taking these pictures but then decided it would make the after pictures that much more amazing if I didn't! Also, I'm lazy, so there you go.
As you can see there were cheap pine cabinets, all builder grade appliances, and a small sink that you could only use one side of! The previous owners or plumber or someone only attached one side and cut the other to look like it was attached but it was in fact too short. The result, water all under the sink anytime that side was used. And did you notice?!?!?! NO DISHWASHER!!! I am sure I would be fine if I never had the pleasure of a dishwasher again and that my boys would grow up being expert cleaners however I hate having piles of dishes on the counter to dry. So that was one of the first things to happen in the renovation!

We talked and talked about how to make this space functional and usable for our family, while at the same time not killing the budget. Because hello, everyone knows when buy a new house you are already throwing up money, and who has extra for a major lavish kitchen?

We talked sinks, counters, cabinets, color you name it. We moved in the first week of February and began the kitchen in mid March. 

Notice the walls? All of the walls in the entire sitting room/ kitchen area are 11in wood planked walls!!!! Gorgeous!! We have painted the rest of the room which I will put into another post and carried that wall color into the kitchen to try and make the room feel cohesive and comfortable. We went with Sherwin Williams Alabaster and can you say in love?? It is the perfect white. Literally. I love it! It is clean without being to white and stiff. It is cozy without the yellow hue lingering in the shadows. Needless to say I'm happy with it and it has totally transformed the space!

Ok back to the kitchen. Our first phase consisted of the counter top and sink area. I was over not having a dishwasher so we added that at the same time. The counter tops came off really easily and the sink was out in no time. Leaving us with half of the counters gone and an empty hole.
We had done some research and while our first choice was a gorgeous marble the budget wasn't in favor of that purchase. So we decided to go with Butcher Block Counters. One of our first purchases as a married couple was our dining table. It is a butcher block top with adjustable saw horse legs from IKEA and we have loved it! Knowing IKEA had butcher block we did some pricing but in the end we ended up getting American Cherry from Floor and Decor. When we went in to look at what the location near us had we actually found that the pieces they had in stock had been exposed to a water leak a few weeks before when a pipe had busted during a cold snap. There was minimal damage and by looking at it we knew that a quick sanding would make the discoloration disappear. They gave us a great discount for the counters and we brought them home that day. I think in total we got one 12ft piece and an 8ft piece for under $450!! Definitely more budget friendly then the marble.

We ordered new appliances from Lowes during a big sale they were having so once we took the counters and sink out my sweet, handy, hunk of a husband made a few adjustments to add the dishwasher.
We knew we wanted a big sink. However the apron front sink, while they are beautiful I wasn't loving the price tag. Since we did butcher block counters I was hesitant to do an under mount sink. I didn't want water to get under the counters and effect the wood. So we shopped around and found a beautiful drop in deep single basin sink on Ebay. We put in a low bid and to our surprise they accepted. The sink originally was about $500 but we found it for $300 delivered!! Every time I use this thing I fall more and more in love with it! It is deep and wide and an amazing place to rinse the baby off!
Once we placed the dishwasher, ran a water line to the fridge we measured and cut the length for the first piece of counter. Once we dry fitted that we measured and used the template for the sink.
With everything cut and adjusted we began to assemble. Starting with the counters we attached under mounts around the perimeter. After that we dropped in and attached the sink, added the hardware and drain and waited for everything to dry. (Side note: It sounds so simple typing all of this out, oh yea we just did this and this, however it took a lot of talking and measuring and time!! So dont be fooled! :) We LOVE IT but it was not over night!)

Here is a picture of the sink, dishwasher, and one section of counter!!!

I couldnt help but start painting the walls behind the sink once the counters were in. I wanted to see a glimpse of the end result. After I primed and painted part of the wall, I put the first layer of oil on the counters to start sealing them. I read review after review on butcher block counter treatments. At the end of the day we went with Howard Butcher Block Conditioner. We wanted something that would be easy to maintain, good for the wood, and food safe. This has been an awesome product for us and would highly recommend it!

Getting closer to the finish line on this project, but for now Im happy with how far we've come!
Stay tuned for the next stage of our kitchen reno!!

If you have any questions about steps in the process leave a comment below! We're learning as we go and would be happy to help you in your home renovation journey if we can!!

Brekken