Picking Out Tile!

The most creative part of the bathroom remodel so far is definitely picking out the tile. We fell in love with .75″ x .75″ unglazed porcelain (or ceramic) tiles but they can be a bit pricey. Local stores and online retails both sell them from around $6 / sq. ft. all the way up to $12 or more. That adds up quickly when you’re buying 120 sq ft.

The look we’re going for is something like the picture above. We wanted to do all 1 color but we found a fantastic 40% off sale online with limited quantities. They only had around 50% of what we needed in our top color choice, Mint Julep, so a combination in a random pattern needed to be created. Jason picked out some color ideas (based on price and availability) and I made mock ups so we could decide:

1: 50% mint julep, 25% fog, 25% cascade

2: 50% mint julep, 50% cascade

3: 50% mint julep, 25% fog, 25% camo

4: 50% mint julep, 25% fog, 25% topaz

The tile has been ordered EEEK! Biggest expense of the project is out of the way.

What is your favorite? Anyone want to take any guesses which combination we decided?

Companion Lamp {mcm thrift store find}

In September we found a mid-century modern Paulding lamp at a Nashville thrift store. While we were in Erie, PA a few weeks ago, we found a companion lamp for the other side of the living room. The styles are different but they’re both blue-green, retro and fit nicely in our atomic ranch.

Here’s a side by side comparison of the lamp buddies. They have matching shades from Target.

Phone Photo Friday

Installing a Shower Fan

A few months ago I replaced the hard drive in my macbook pro. Apple considers this part not user replaceable. I think I would consider installing a shower fan not homeowner installable, unless of course, your husband is awesome.

Installing a shower fan in the bathroom seemed easy enough to me. You just pop the sucker up in the ceiling, right? (Doesn’t it look so cute and simple?) It turned out to be a most-of-the-day project cutting a hole in the ceiling (making a huge mess)…
Jason squeezing into a tiny space in the attic between the ceiling joists and roof joists to mount the fan motor enclosure to a joist, attach the ducting from the motor to a vent in the roof and running electrical wire from the motor and down through the wall…
Cutting a hole in the wall to make room for the new outlet/switch box (another big mess), making sense of the old wiring (which is not grounded, by the way) and figuring out how to wire the light switch for the fan off of the GFCI outlet next to it.
Then there was a lot of cleaning, a little drywall repair and some paint touch-up.

I must say, I learned a whole lot about running electricity and ducting. And best of all – it works! We now have a fan in our bathroom to suck up all the shower steam. No more open window in the winter! And, now it should be much smoother process when we install the same fan in the new master bathroom. (This one is in our “hall bathroom” which will someday be the kids bathroom.)

Catch up on the adventures of our master bathroom renovation here:
Bathroom Renovation Stage 1
Bathroom Renovation Stage 2
Bathroom Renovation Stage 3
Bathroom Renovation Stage 4

Bathroom Renovation Stage 4

Ok, so I’m reluctant to even call this a stage because it’s kind of in-between two stages. We did demo 2 weekends ago and last weekend we started reconstruction. It’s so fun to start framing the walls! I already feel like I have a laundry “room” and we can finally get a sense of the size of the shower.

We got this far—framing the walls that divide off the laundry room and walk-in shower—using only the repurposed wood from the toilet closet Jason tore down. Talk about reduce, reuse and recycle!

We need at least 4 more 2×4’s, maybe more depending on what kind of built in shelves we decide on in the shower. That’s not bad, though! I’m sorry these pictures don’t give you a scope of the whole space; they were all taken from the doorway.

I’m excited to get back to work on the bathroom this weekend. First priority: clear out all the debris we can’t reuse (door from toilet closet, wood door jam, broken slabs of drywall…) We still need to move the HVAC air vent on the floor before we can finish framing the shower. Then on to more fun stuff: pouring the concrete shower pan. Not sure if we’ll get that far this weekend.

In case you missed it:
Bathroom Renovation Stage 1
Bathroom Renovation Stage 2
Bathroom Renovation Stage 3

Face It

I recently came across the website of photographer Francois Robert and fell in love with his clever Fine Art series. Here are a few of my favorites from Faces:

If you like these, check out Comparisons, Contents and From the Ground from this Fine Art series. He also has several other categories of photography in his portfolio.

Weekend Update

Hot date with my Jason on Friday night! Hardware store, dinner at an Indian restaurant and a movie (Away We Go) cuddled up on the couch at home. This is what happens when you’ve been married a while I guess. I love it though.

Home projects Saturday! We installed a shower fan in the hall bathroom (mounted in the ceiling, installed ducting to vent through the room, ran the electrical wiring … big deal!), fixed the vent duct above the stove which had been blowing food steam into the attic, AND framed the new walls in our master bathroom! (More on the last project later this week when I get some better pictures.) Here are 2 sneak peaks:

Sunday after church and a lunch at Blue Coast Burrito, I hit the road with my work buddy Lindsay toward Evansville, IN for a Leeland, Brandon Heath and Francesca Battistelli concert (“Follow You” Tour). It was really good but a looooong drive and we didn’t get home until the wee hours of the morning. This rose has nothing to do with that but isn’t it lovely? It been hanging on for almost 2 weeks now!

Phone Photo Friday

Lucy loves it when I’m working from home so she can sit on my lap and keep my legs warm.

Have a happy weekend!

Bathroom Renovation Stage 3

Demo has begun! This week Jason started tearing down the wall and door frame around the toilet closet and the wall behind the former sink. It’s a dusty mess—which makes doing laundry interesting—but it’s so nice to see major progress!

What’s next: clean up the debris, move the air vent in the floor (over about a foot) and then build the new walls!

In case you missed it:
Bathroom Renovation Stage 1
Bathroom Renovation Stage 2

Wise Words

“POOR is a state of mind. BROKE is…’I'm just passing through’.” — Dave Ramsey

I’ve also heard Dave say, “BROKE can be fixed.”