House Updates

Over the last seven or eight years that we've lived in our house, we've made many updates and changes and added personal touches transforming it into our home from the bland, builder-grade decor that was here when we moved in. However, there is one, last room that in all our activities remains overlooked. Aside from changing out the showerhead once and hanging a couple shelves on the wall, we've really never done anything with the bathroom off the master bedroom. 

It's a simple, sort of narrow, rectangular room. As it sits, the space is used pretty well.. it's just very unremarkable. Then, about a year ago, the shower started leaking through the floor into the kitchen below. We called in various handymen and plumbers to come investigate. A couple times we thought we had found it, only to have the leak return. In the end, we were left with a large hole in the bedroom wall (from investigating the pipes which were definitely not leaking), and an unusable shower. The last suggestion, from a process of elimination, was to scrape out the old grout and put in new grout all around in the shower. This probably would fix it.. maybe. 

By this point, Hubby and I were tired of this long, drawn-out game of hide-and-seek. And we'd always talked about "someday" making the bathroom pretty... it seemed like that someday had finally come!

So we began the planning (which may, or may not, have included my binging bunches of HDTV shows on Netflix as research). Hubby and I talked about the things we liked and things we disliked in the bathroom and came up with a plan. We had a little trouble finding a contractor who'd take on a job this small (apparently COVID has everybody remodeling their houses and folks are busy!). But, we finally found one and we ordered up some materials and waited for our turn on the schedule line-up to arrive. 

Finally our day came! And, as always, first up was demo day! 

Then came new dry wall followed by lots of patching and smoothing - they even fixed the enormous hole in the bedroom wall. Yay! 

And, they managed to get the tub installed pretty early on too (this tub was what I was most excited about in this whole process.) 

There was a few days where they were working on less obvious things (plumbing, drywall installation, etc.) but then things really started taking off. 

We got some tile: 

Then the electrician took a turn. After a day or two of more behind-the-scenes work, rearranging of things to fit the new configuration, we got some new lights and a vanity:

And we were right on the cusp of having it all complete and even on-schedule..... when we discovered we'd bought the wrong sized toilet (though, now I know that there are two standard sizes of toilet).. so we had to put things on pause for a few days while we sorted all that out.

But, in the meantime, we put up the shower rod and curtain. And added a few personal touches: 

And then, finally, we had the toilet present and functioning, and it was officially done!! (and there was much rejoicing)

Also, finally, my cabinet has found it's place. (though, I think it got hung a little low, I'll be correcting that soon).. but, otherwise, I'm very happy with our new bathroom! Yay!!

Redecorating

Amid all this covid-craziness, there have been all sorts of changes in pretty much every level of everyday life: Home church, home school, online meetups with classmates, family and friends.. At home this has translated into a few decorating changes around the house.

One of the things I learned during the first week of remote learning with my 1st grader, was that he works well with visual examples for math. We tried a couple different ideas, but then he was telling me about the way the teacher does math learning in the classroom, and she utilizes the white board a lot. I can see how that would be helpful, so I decided to make a little chalkboard area here at home.

This week was our Spring Break, so there's a little more free time for random projects, which worked out nicely. Next, to figure out where to put the chalkboard and see if I still had any old paint lying around. Handily, as a habitual craft-hoarder, I did have all the supplies necessary here already. I was a little worried that the paint would be to old and may be goopy, but it was good! Two coats later, we had a chalkboard.

After a 3-day wait for the paint to fully set, they had a good time breaking it in.

Also, as we're doing all this home learning, we've been doing a fair number of artsy activities. Moon is really a big fan of these and Townshend will come join us when the mood strikes. Most recently, we made these cute little jellyfish.

Moon and I each made two, and he was so excited only one of his ended up on the wall.. the other swims around the house and alternates between stinging and tickling people. Townshend wasn't into making a jellyfish, but he painted one and it turned out really well!

All this art making has lead to an art gallery growing on a wall leading to our stairwell.

It's a little different decoration than we'd had previously, but I'm digging it.

Pleasant Side-Effects

One of my goals this new year is to get rid of some of our excess clutter. I try to keep the worst of it to a minimum and make recurring attempts at organization of it all. However, there's always room for improvements!

The first place I started was the kitchen. There's one corner where things tend to gather. All sorts of things had piled up; some needing to be tossed, some needing a real place to be put away. Things on the counter (around the organizer there) and some up in the cupboard all mixed in with the dishes. 

First thing was to find a home for the office supplies that were mixed in with the cups. As it happened, that black box was full of sippy cups - it's been a long time since we've needed those, which gave me an idea! creative juices flowed and away went the old sippy cups and the box was transformed into a new organizer for all the scissors, post-its, tape, pencils and other sundry. 

cardboard divider covered with contact paper, beauty and function!

Voila! Back into the cupboard it goes, but with a purpose! I moved a few other things around, putting like with like. I found new homes for all the important things and cleared away things that weren't and, in clearing up this one corner, I actually ended up clearing up all the counters in the kitchen. It's not a *huge* difference, but it's so much better.

After the kitchen project was done, I turned to my work space downstairs. I'm really good at collecting bits and pieces and half-started projects.. This year, my goal is to complete more of them! Clear out things that I really don't need.. and in so doing, already, I've cleared the top of and the space around my desk, which has lead to going through piles of things... which, again, lead to a burst of creativity and suddenly the piles of furry fabric and scraps became fuzzy monsters!

Pretty awesome side-effects.

Updating an Old Project

This sweet, sweet lantern lives in our downstairs bathroom. I built it some time ago, and put in some greenery. But, I admit, the greenery has been giving my perfectionist self some trouble.

Originally, I thought a fern mixed with ivy would be perfect.. so that's what I put in! However, it didn't take much time until I plucked out a good chunk of the fern 'cuz it was too bushy...

Not bad. Really, there's nothing actually wrong with it.. but, then the little balls I used as filler (which looked so colorful and fun before I put them in with the greenery) started bugging me 'cuz they just blended in too much.

So, finally, I recently did a sort of overhaul to the greenery again... I took it all apart, wrested out all those little balls, then reassembled it. This time, with earthy colored rocks (for a better contrast) and replaced the fern with a different type of trailing ivy. Here it is all put back together:

A small, silly thing, but I like it much better now!

So much better. Hopefully my inner-perfectionist will finally be able to rest.

More Fun Projects

The end of the year has come again. A week or two ago, on one of the last warm days, I cleaned up the patio and put away the summer toys. There are a few last things to put away before true winter sets in, but first, a little project for the garage.

We don't have a basement, so a lot of our miscellaneous storage ends up in the garage. While, technically, ours is a two car garage, it really is a tight fit for two cars and has a lamentable lack of rafters that so often grace garage ceilings. Since the footprint of the garage isn't enormous, we've taken to utilizing the walls. We've got some cabinets and one wall with some vertical storage, but I've been thinking it might be time to expand.

In the garage there's this short, corner wall that's got a big pipe running through it. Most of the time we just back the bike trailer into the corner and that's about all it's good for. However, a while back, it occurred to me that the space did have some potential if I could figure out how to use the wall.... 

Then, about the time we were transitioning Moon into his toddler bed, I did some searches for possible upcycled uses for crib railings. In all my internet wanderings, someone somewhere suggested using them to hang stuff on. Turns out, this little corner is just the right size for putting a crib railing and turning it into some extra vertical storage. 

hooray for fans in bathrooms allowing for cold-weather painting projects!

This was another one of those projects where I dug into my scraps and odds and ends and, sure enough, I already had most everything I needed to make it happen! First, I cut some left over wood to the right size and painted it white to match the wall before hanging the boards. Next, I made sure to screw the, freshly painted, slates into the studs in the wall:

Then, came the railing. An excellent fit! I affixed the railing to the slats, and so it's all pretty sturdy and well attached and should be able to hold a decent amount of stuff without falling off the wall (*fingers crossed*)

Now, I did have to go out and buy the hooks and things for hanging stuff, but I say it's still a win 'cuz I got to use bits and bobs already lying around and assemble them into things that'll make my garage all the more useful - my favorite kind of projects! Plus, it all came together so quickly I felt a little silly for putting it off for so long.

Voila! Sweet, sweet organization.