basement bathroom: done!

Last weekend Keith went to Erie and I went to Home Depot. Twice.

He had invited me along but I decided I would stay home and hang out with Daisy and get a bit done around the house. My plan, initially, was to finish up the trim in the hallway/entryway since after that I can start on the dining room! But at the last minute, I decided I would be a good wife and paint Keith’s bathroom instead. Plus I’d get that instant gratification of starting and finishing one room instead of just repainting stupid white trim.

Keith’s bathroom is in the basement and was previously a pale yellow-beige color. It was pretty ugly. Couple with no natural light, it just looked grimey. It was on my list to paint eventually, but since literally no one uses it but Keith…it wasn’t very high on the list. I thought about asking Keith what color he wanted it, but I didn’t want to ruin the surpise of painting it, so I just went with white.

Since it’s a bathroom, and a tiny one at that, I went to Home Depot on Saturday and grabbed a quart of Behr Ultra in Snow Fall (that’s the white I’ve used throughout the house and I didn’t feel like picking another one).

I was JUST barely able to finish one coat with the entire quart. I felt like such an idiot since 1 quart is $15 and 1 gallon is ~$30, but in my defense, the wall is covered in some sort of burlap that has been painted over and all those little divots really sucked up the paint and I did not expect that. Also the room is very oddly shaped, there is a little nook for the toilet and another for the tub and the i-beam in the ceiling…had the bathroom been a regular box, I think I would have been okay. But I wasn’t. So I went back to Home Depot and bought a gallon.

I wasn’t able to get to the second coat until Sunday morning. I started painting at 10am and Keith was due back at noon, so it was a race against the clock but I did manage to finish!

full bath

Before: This was before we bought thehouse, that seat cover/painting/flowers were not ours. You also can’t see the dark green carpet that was in there before I ruined it (when our pipes broke).

Untitled

After: So! much! better!

I was really lazy and used the same satin paint for the walls/ceiling/trim. Who cares. I haven’t had a chance to paint the door yet. Maybe I’ll go out on a limb and paint it a fun color. But Keith’s shower curtain is brown and green and I hate both of those colors, so who knows.

I really wish I had painted the room when everything was all torn out during our plumbing fiasco, it would have made paining around all those stupid corners so much easier. The bathtub is old and stained and should be replaced eventually (hence no picture) so this bathroom’s probably got another makeover in it’s future…that’s why I didn’t think too long about the color.

And! I wish the stupid contractors who finished the bathroom after our plumbing disaster had NOT used silicone caulk between the sink and wall. I get why they did but it is not paintable so there is a stupid halo of yellow-beige paint around it so I’ll need to remove it, paint and then recaulk, but I was not ready to do that.

I also removed a towel rack that was on the other side of the sink and so placed that if you hung a towel there it would have gone IN the sink and so it was of no use to Keith, but it pulled up the stupid burlap making it sort of ripped/bubbled, not even sure how to remedy that. I could cut it out and then patch it, but it will be a smooth patch on a textured wall.

WHO DECIDED BURLAP-ED WALLS LOOKED GOOD?

while the cat’s away, the mouse will play (with plumbing).

I hope you enjoyed your extended weekend (if you got one)! It wasn’t until a few years ago that I started getting these glorious holidays off and I try not to take them for granted. I was pretty busy the rest of the weekend so I had fully intended on doing nothing on Monday. Saturday we took Daisy to the vet for her annual checkup. Babygirl is looking good, down .1 lb from last year! We were a bit early for her appointment so I went into Target to kill time and walked out having only spent $10. Pretty sure my last 3 Target trips were all record breakingly low, as in under $20. I’m not sure what is happening to me.

Saturday afternoon I headed to my little cousin Adam’s birthday party while Keith went to a baseball game. Always nice to see the family! It also may have been the only family function in the past few years that I did not bake cupcakes for and they were sorely missed. Sorry fam!

Sunday we headed to the ballpark where we met up with my stepdad, my brother and my nephew. It was Bradley’s first baseball game! He did great, they stuck around until the 7th inning or so, too bad the game was so terrible. Bradley is 18 months old now and seriously the smartest. I asked him where Uncle Keith was and without any hesitation, he pointed right at him! Love that little fella.

1173728_10101532751196253_541910921_n

Sunday night we went to Keith’s parent’s house for dinner and that was nice. While there, his mom was asking my opinion on painting her basement and I decided I needed to squeeze some painting in ASAP. My livingroom trim has been half done since January and it’s a lot of annoying door/window painting that I just don’t feel like doing. I had decided I wasn’t allowed to do anything else without doing that first, so then I just wasn’t doing anything.

Well when I woke up Monday, I decided it was the day. I first stopped at Lowe’s for some other project supplies.

plumb

A few weeks ago, I used the bathroom in the middle of the night and when I flushed the toilet, water started pouring out of the tank. I pulled the lid off and water was spraying everywhere. I reattached the hose from where it had popped off and went to bed. The next morning, same thing happened. I called my sister since her boyfriend is a plumber and she told me to lower the water pressure. So I did and everything was fine for a few days until it did it again. I lowered the water pressure even more and it’s been that way for a few weeks. The water pressure was so low it was taking upwards of 30 minutes to fill the tank. Not an emergency, but really freaking annoying.

So, I watched a few videos online and figured I could handle it. While grabbing the toilet guts, I decided to be fancy and get one of those dual flush systems. Got home and sneakily went to work while Keith was downstairs watching tv. I was about 80% through the installation when I realized the fancy system would not fit. I had to pack it all up and take it back. And admit to Keith that my attempt failed. He just rolled his eyes. Got back to Lowe’s, grabbed a regular fill valve and had a working toilet in about 30 minutes! I was very proud of myself. I think I need to fuss with it a little more because it has a leak guard and that is doing some weird things, but it works!

After that, Keith was getting ready to go to the football game and I decided I was going to paint the entryway. I figured it would motivate me to get the trim paint out and then I could finish the living room.

IMG_5823

Here’s a shot of the entry from when we looked at the house. Off-white walls with beige trim. The tone on tone off-white just made everything look so grimy.

Here’s a more color accurate view. Pardon the mess.

yellow

It just looked yellowy. And gross.

I did half of the entry, I didn’t want to start up the stairs yet, so it stops pretty abruptly on one wall, and the little back hallway. It’s a very anticlimactic after, because it was getting dark by then. I also didn’t paint the trim, so most people probably can’t even tell I painted. The color is Behr – Sterling. A nice, light grey.

after

It’s even less noticeable in the back hallway since the four doors in the hallway are gross off-white as well. Once I get my bright bright white trim, it will look awesome.

backhall

I rolled up the entryway rug to paint and I think I like it a lot better without it there. It is a dark oriental rug and so big it covers most of the floor. Thinking of leaving it off entirely or maybe getting a smaller rug, it really opens the space up without it. We don’t use the front door anymore, so it’s not like people need to wipe their feet. Also dreaming of refinishing the floors. I saw a picture of someone’s floors after they were sanded down but before they were stained and loooooved the look of the blonde wood. Thinking of something like that way down the line.

daisyfloor

After I got one coat up I had one more project to complete before I called it a night.

I wouldn’t say this was a nightmare, but it was not fun.

sinkew

I don’t know if you’ve spent any time under a sink, but it’s pretty close quarters under there. Add in a gigantic garbage disposal and it’s even less fun. Luckily (?) the reason I was replacing the sink was that the plastic nuts had all completely broken off, so removing the old faucet was super easy. I would have had an easier time installing if either the garbage disposal was not there or my arms were 3 inches longer, but I am stubborn and wanted to do it by myself.

I was super proud when I stepped back and it was all finished and there were no leaks and I tested it and the hot was cold and the cold was hot. Ugggggggggggh. So I had to unhook those and redo them. That was honestly the hardest part. I have blisters on my fingers today from tightening those stupid nuts.

sinkyay

But she’s a beaut! Delta – Lewiston with a pullout sprayer and fancy soap pump. I wanted one of those Touch20 faucets but they are like $400. No thanks.

I’m dreaming of non-laminate counters and an undermount sink but that will be wayyy down the line. The plus side is my faucet can come along for the ride.

upstairs bathroom: before/progress

So in the week and a half between closing and actually moving, I knew I couldn’t get everything done, so I decided that the kitchen would be my number one priority, but if there was time, I really wanted to get the upstairs bathroom and the master bedroom painted. Everything else could be done slowly when I got around to it, but those rooms were going to be in use as soon as we got in there so it made the most sense to do those first. Well since the kitchen took so long, I am having doubts about finishing the bathroom/bedroom before we move but I had a little time yesterday while kitchen paint was drying to run up and start the bathroom.

Luckily the bathroom is small and I was able to get the first coat of paint on. Here was the bathroom before:
 
bathroom

upstairs bath before
 Not too bad! The fixtures are all updated, there is no hideous tile, the window is HUGE and brings in tons of light…I just absolutely hate the color green.

When trying to decide colors for the house, the bathroom kept stumping me. I wanted something bright but kept going back and forth on different colors. Finally I decided I would just make it easy on myself and re-use a color up here. And the lucky color was:

 Upstairs bath in progress

Upstairs bath in progress

Upstairs bath in progress

The kitchen cabinet color! (Behr – Embellished Blue) At the very last minute, I decided to paint inside the shower the kitchen wall color. (Behr – Aqua Breeze) My mother-in-law kept remarking how much the light blue felt like a sky, so I thought it would be fun and would reflect light better than the teal. Everything needs another coat and the trim needs hit with some semi-gloss. I think I am going to paint the door light blue as well just for fun. I ordered a graphic shower curtain on amazon, which I am hoping goes with the paint…but if it doesn’t I might just grab a plain white one.

Not sure what to do about a window covering. They left the frilly one from the before pictures, but it is a little too old lady for my tastes. The window doesn’t exactly need one since it is frosted, but it looks a little naked. The weird orange-ish trim stuff around the shower bothers me but I’m not really sure what I could do about it.

I am very thankful that the previous owners updated all of the bathrooms. Since the house was built in 1950 I’m sure it included lots of lovely tile and removing all of that would have been far beyond my skill level.

And even though I had to stand on a step ladder inside the tub, the only casualty of the whole event was one lightbulb that I broke while removing one of the light fixtures. Not too bad, Katrina!