room-by-room: bathroom #2

This picture looks familiar, yes that's bathroom #2, the header picture for bathroom #1 (I had best of intentions of putting both bathrooms in one post, darn power outages). So, here we go!


The original bathroom was not terrible, it just needed a little facelift. The tub (pictured below) is one of the only original things left in the house.

bathroom before

 

tub before

 This bathroom had both a tub and a shower, separate from each other. Since we have 3 (young) boys, and already have a stand alone shower downstairs, we decided to eliminate this bathroom's shower, plumb the tub area for a showerhead, cap the shower area's plumbing and turn it into a much needed closet... yes, this house lacks closet space, it's made for us to get creative! Follow that?

Under construction

old shower, new closet

vanity area left, closet right

The vanity... we were going to try to salvage it, maybe add a coat of paint and make it like new. Well, it was pretty nasty, so we went on to plan B - buy one... until we realized how much they were, seriously Ryan should go into the bathroom vanity making business, they're so expensive, at least the ones we found from the Big Box store by us. Time to get creative - yes! I had to really convince Ryan of this idea, actually I had a little help from his mom, which helps a lot! And this is what transpired:

We bought this table from an auction for $10 I think. (the auction was at The Coop, before Ryan's parent's owned it). We've been storing it in the barn for about 6 years now, just waiting for that special use. Well, we found it!

Don't worry guys, you can use your power tools, us girls like to use hand tools. Thankfully, the table was pretty easy to separate and cut through with a hand-saw.

I used our hardwood floor sealer on the top of the vanity, and painted the underside and legs. This table has beautiful detailing, I think the paint really brings it out.

Ryan sees the vision and is on board, and power tools come out :) Legs are chopped off to correct height. One half of the table is used for the bottom, the other side for the top. A whole is cut out to fit our semi-raised sink, the vanity is mounted to the wall, sink and faucet placed, plumbing is hooked up, and we have an amazing one-of-a-kind vanity!

 

 The mirror is replaced and we bought a medicine cabinet to the left (because if I'm going to be honest, the real hesitation with this vanity is there is no place to hide or store stuff, which is a legitimate concern... BUT we have a very large storage space now right next to it) and so the medicine cabinet adds that extra bit, too. There's also a little built-in area we will add shelving too. The vanity will store our towels, always looking nice rolled-up and pretty - wishful thinking?

 

The closet area. Maybe one day will be cutely organized.

Subway tiled shower-surround, wrap around curtain, and still need to paint some areas :)

We decided to put slate flooring in with no grout lines. We love it! Since slate is a natural stone, the tiles vary in thickness, so it doesn't create an even surface. I hardly notice it anymore, but it's not for someone who's looking for a perfectly even floor. I sealed the slate with 4 coats of a concrete sealer, just to be on the safe-side there's no water seeping through.

I love it's bright and cheery-ness! We have a few small things to do in our bathrooms, but it feels so good to be this far along, and the little things might take us a while to get to :)

room-by-room: bathrooms

 

Bathrooms! Maybe the most thought-out/debated-on rooms of the house. Downstairs is a TINY bathroom with shower, toilet, and sink. It's so tiny it was hard to get a whole full view, so you'll bet some tidbits. I'll start with before

bathroom before (sorry for the terrible pic)

Another view bathroom before

demolition begins

halfway there! green water sealer was painted on the backerboard.

subway tiling - I'm thankful our tiling is done because Ryan has declared he will never tile again :)

And the finished product! Cute, cozy, comfortable, functional! I love it.

 

Another view. 

Our power went out last night during this post, and now demands of life will keep me from getting back the next bathroom until the end of the week. There's a sneak peak of the other bathroom on the first photo, there's some pretty special things we did with that bathroom. Have a great week!

room-by-room: the kitchen

Well, what do you think? It's November now, our goal was to be in by Nov. 1st, and that's gone, so now we're just taking our time moving in. We're nearly complete with the whole house, just a couple more odds and ends that will get done probably when we're moved. Since it'd be really overwhelming to show you the whole house, I'm going through it room by room. This is what the kitchen looked like before we bought.

 

And this is what it looks like now:

 I can't believe this is our (almost) final product. We still have to add cabinet hardware and the island will be getting a new top. Here's a few of my favorite things:

Soapstone countertops

 These were a fun find. Our original plan A was for Ryan to make wood countertops from the same wood we had our flooring milled from. That didn't work and we didn't have a plan B. We had always loved concrete, but at this point, Ryan was overwhelmed with projects so that undertaking wasn't an option. So we did some research and weren't completely happy with the other options that we were finding, still keeping budget in mind (since we had $0 planned for countertops). We were about to order Martha Stewart's line Corian Soapstone countertops, and it dawned on me, why not look for the real deal? So with a little research I found DIY soapstone countertops from M. Teixeira (for less than Corian). With little knowledge of the stone, it looked do-able online - doesn't everything? And the installation actually went pretty smooth with just one little chip at the end, but epoxy covered it up! The countertops are beautiful!

This is how the soapstone arrived: 6 - 48" x 25 1/2" slabs

Soapstone's natural state

Manufacturer suggests mineral oil. My knowledgeable friend from The Green Design Center suggested using beeswax for a more natural application and it worked great.

 

Eat-In Area Beams & Stools

Industrial style stools are a neat contrast to the rustic beams.

Since soapstone needs a lot of support, we had to figure out a support system over our eat-in area. Our friends had a 100 year old, hand-hewn timber they salvaged from a barn. This is such an awesome touch! Here are some installation pictures:

Cut to size with some pretty fancy machinery.

Set in place, level, have kiddos make sure it's sturdy.

 

Kitchen Island

Something that we overlooked to begin with has turned out to be the perfect match for the job. Original plan was for Ryan to make an island. Yah, that wasn't going to happen at least for another year, so we had bought this about 5 years ago, painted it and it's a whole new piece of furniture for us. We will be replacing the top with a piece of reclaimed wood.

After

Before

Open Shelving

I am so in love with open shelving! I would've done the whole kitchen, Ryan convinced me otherwise and now that it's said and done I'm glad we have some cabinets to hide things. We used wood slabs from Ryan's milled wood.

Kitchen Appliances

We chose GE Slate appliances (minus refrigerator - which is basic basic, which = low energy costs) but I love the finish of these and no fingerprints.

My favorite part of kitchen cabinets = pull out drawers for the pantry.

 

Kitchen Island Lights

Mason jar pendant lights from my favorite store - Angelus in Walworth, WI

 

Our reclaimed barnwood hutch (that's storing random things) also came from Angelus.

I can't wait to start cooking here. If you have any questions about anything else, let me know!