DIY

Hallway Bath Renovation: Questions Answered

May 15, 2013 By Jena 3 Comments

Thanks all for the nice comments on our hallway bath reveal. I thought I’d go into a little more detail and answer a few questions I’ve received.

Silestone Corner Shelves in Shower

A few of you asked how the Silestone Lagoon corner shelves are installed in the shower. They are installed while tiling. The shelf is set on a row of tile, then cut the next row to fit around them. The thinset on the wall and the grout locks them in.

We put the shelves in that location because I didn’t want the first thing you see when you walk into the bathroom to be our shampoo bottles. While the shelves are one of my favorite features of the bathroom, the doorway to the shower is right at the top of the stairs and you can see into the shower and the other corner, so I wanted to keep that corner looking clean and tidy.

The Hand Shower

I’ve also received some questions about how we like using a hand shower on a sliding bar as our main shower head. I looove it.

I’ve seen tons of pictures of bathrooms with the regular shower head and then a hand shower on a bar off to the side, which seems to be the thing to do these days, but it’s more expensive to have the plumbing done for this configuration, and I’m guessing that second hand shower gets mostly ignored if it’s off to the side like that. A hand shower was important to us because I like it for cleaning, and I just think they are super functional. Also, our alcove tub isn’t as deep as, say, a luxurious master shower you see in BH&G, so to fit in a hand shower would have been tight, especially with the corner shelves up by the plumbing.

For a tight space or budget conscious I’d highly recommend going with just a hand shower on a bar. I particularly like having the style on a bar, as opposed to the kind you can just screw into your regular shower head arm, because I’m 5’1, so it’s much more comfortable to have the shower head at my height. You taller folk might be wondering why :). Down where I am, I end up getting the widest part of the spray, so if I’m rinsing out my hair, half the water is going around my head. It’s nice to have the more concentrated part of the spray closer by lowering it down. Not that big of a deal, and I could certainly live with it if we had a different setup, but it was an easy enough fix while we were renovating the bathroom. Marty still uses our other shower mostly (it’s kinda nice that we each have our “own” showers!) but when he does use this one he can easily raise it up. I also think for a hand shower, the kind on a bar look nicer than the kind you screw into the regular shower head arm. The kind you can use with the arm are great if you are working with an existing shower, but since we were renovating, we figured we’d design it for the way we planned to use it.

Cleaning Beveled Subway Tile

I’ve also had some questions about cleaning the beveled subway tile in the shower and if the bevels attract extra soap scum and grime. It doesn’t seem to…but I’ve also been actively preventing that, which I’ll get to in a sec. Our beveled tile isn’t as deep of a bevel as some. I would definitely recommend a shallower bevel for a shower and save the deeper bevels for backsplashes and other decorative areas. I could see a deeper bevel being an issue.

I have actually gotten in the habit of wiping down the shower with a towel after getting out, and I’m experimenting with this to see if this will keep us from needing to clean and scrub it as often. So far so good. It’s been over a month that we have had the shower, and not a single bit of mold, mildew, or soap scum, and I haven’t cleaned it except for wiping it out daily. I have a special towel that I wash regularly that hangs on its own hook for this purpose, and we had a bathroom fan installed which I make sure to run. This might seem kind of gross at first, since we’re all so in the habit of spraying bleach, chemicals, or even vinegar to disinfect, but what makes showers a germ-fest is the standing water, day after day, which allows bacteria, mold, and mildew to grow. We started from day 1, so a clean slate, literally. I’m still going to disinfect it sometimes, just because I’ll probably start to imagine these things are crawling around and I just can tell, but drying it out seems to be keeping the shower clean and sparkly. I’ll keep up with this experiment and let you guys know how it goes!

I also realized I didn’t show a good picture of our mirror and vanity together, and I LOVE how this area turned out.

If you haven’t already, check out my hallway bath “done” post for all of the sources and to see the rest of the bathroom!

Linking up to: Linking up to: Funky Junk Interiors, Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic,The DIY Show Off, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Home Stories A2Z, House of Hepworths, Life in Grace, House of Rose

Filed Under: Cleaning, Decorating, DIY, Tips Tagged With: cleaning, Hallway Bathroom, tips 3 Comments

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Hallway Bath “Done”

March 22, 2013 By Jena 33 Comments

Why “done” and not just…done? I haven’t figured out what to hang over the toilet! It’s what the room is missing, so I don’t want to declare complete doneness until that’s done.

I last left off with a little sneak peek of our new tub, tile surround, and tile floor and also how we solved a little looks vs. durability dilemma. We have since painted the walls, re-installed and painted the baseboards, installed the vanity and sink, hung a new mirror, split out the single light fixture into two sconces (with the help of my dad), and added additional towel hooks. We did all this while painting the laundry room and patio doors, so we’ve been busy around here!

And just as a reminder, here’s where we started.

I am so smitten over the color we chose. It is Sherwin Williams Mega Greige. The mirror is by Allen+Roth from Lowe’s and the sconces are by Martha Stewart from Home Depot (and a total steal!).

Every time I find a new color I really like, I get the urge to paint my whole house that color. But, I’m sure that will pass. I really do like it a lot though.

The vanity is so so so functional. Vanities in general often seem less than efficient with storage to me, but this one by St. Paul has the perfect sized drawers and the perfect combo of drawers and cabinet. I wish all vanities came with a pullout bottom drawer. It is exactly the right height for extra TP, and there is still room to spare for more storage of stuff. The side drawers are deep enough to still be functional, and the cabinet part is just the right size for all of our taller bottles. And it was only $289!

The counters are Silestone Lagoon and the sink is a Kohler Archer. Check out my durable bathroom materials post for all the deets on why we chose Silestone.

Silestone Lagoon with Kohler Archer Sink

The floors are Florim Stratos Avorio, a porcelain 12×24 tile.

The beveled white subway tiles are are classic and functional. I’ve started wiping down the shower each time I get out to keep our grout fresh and new, and it really keeps the shower so much cleaner overall.

The hand shower is amazing. It’s set low right now to accommodate my 5’1 height. Marty raises it up when he gets in. It really is so much more comfortable to have showerhead at your own custom height.

And these Silestone corner shelves make me so happy to be done with our old grungy shower caddy.

Silestone Lagoon Corner Shelves in Shower

I also hung a couple hooks right outside the shower for extra towels.

We went with larger hooks made by Martha Stewart from Home Depot because I find that they help with drying out the towels better. I think these are technically called robe hooks if you are searching for something similar.

Sources:

Wall Paint: Sherwin Williams Mega Greige
Trim Paint: Benjamin Moore Simply White (leftover from painting our kitchen crown molding)
Vanity: St. Paul Manchester from Home Depot
Vanity Top: Silestone Lagoon
Vanity Faucet: Moen
Vanity Sink: Kohler Archer
Mirror: Allen+Roth from Lowe’s
Sconces: Martha Stewart from Home Depot
Tub: Kohler Archer
Hand Shower: Moen
Tub Faucet and Handle: Moen
Toilet: Old American Standard
Shower corner shelves: Silestone Lagoon (same as vanity)
Floor Tile: Florim Stratos Avorio
Towel Hooks: Martha Stewart from Home Depot

Filed Under: Decorating, DIY Tagged With: Hallway Bathroom, painting 33 Comments

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Laundry Room Paint Makeover

March 14, 2013 By Jena Leave a Comment

Yesterday I shared my review of Clark+Kensington paint on Involving Color. It’s really great paint if you haven’t had a chance to test it out yet!

I gave laundry room and the door leading to it a little paint makeover, and wow what a difference paint can make. This space had been completely ignored since the day we moved in, and let’s just say laundry rooms get…icky. We vacuum and dust and wipe down stuff in there, but when I was prepping the walls I realized just how much dust and grime (think splatters of laundry detergent) get all over the walls. I have no idea how. I blame the previous owners :). Really, I do kinda because I think they used to keep their dog in there…can I still blame unexplained grime on them almost four years after moving in?

Well, in any case, the fresh coat of paint took care of it.

Here’s what we were dealing with before. I like white rooms, but this was definitely not white done right. Too much of a good thing.

Much better. I painted the breaker panel the same color to help blend it in better. We already had the green baskets which were a Homegoods find. Hoping someday to replace the wire shelves with cabinets.

This color looks really good with bright accents.

I wanted to make this room a little fun so I snagged an extra piece of fabric from my no sew table runner and framed it.

I also painted the exterior doors right outside with Clark + Kensington Spanish Eyes.

Before it was…bad. Very bad. Plastic trim turns yellow if it isn’t painted.

But once painted, it’s all good.

And since it’s only barely becoming spring outside, our patio landscaping is looking a little barren. So I’m going to cheat and use a pretty summer picture of our patio to show how nice this color looks with the whole thing :)

Have you had a chance to try out Clark+Kensington paint yet? You can read my full review over on Involving Color and also see my super fast method of painting doors!

Filed Under: DIY Tagged With: Laundry Room, painting, Patio Leave a Comment

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Ikea Kitchen Renovation – The Final Budget Rundown

February 12, 2013 By Jena 39 Comments

I’m going to spoil the ending of this post. Our final cost for the kitchen was just below $8,500.

This was for a complete kitchen remodel that included everything but the floors. Previous owners had installed laminate which we decided to keep for the time being. We replaced everything else – cabinets, counters, appliances, backsplash, and added some custom trim. All was DIY’d!

Ikea Lidingo Cabinets – $2,700

Kashmir White Granite Counters – $1,400

Appliances (range, fridge, dishwasher, hood) – $3,000

Tile Shop Hampton Carrara Marble Backsplash – $300

Restoration Hardware Cabinet Pulls/Knobs – $200

Restoration Hardware Heath Flushmount – $200

Trim – ~$100 (I don’t remember exactly…might be overestimating)

Kingston Brass Faucet – $200

Huuuge 32″ Kraus Sink – $300

GE 0.7 cu ft Microwave that tucks away perfectly in the micro cabinet – $75

Final Rundown:

Ikea Lidingo Cabinets – $2,700
Kashmir White Granite Counters – $1,400
Appliances (range, fridge, dishwasher, hood) – $3,000
Tile Shop Hampton Carrara Marble Backsplash – $300
Restoration Hardware Cabinet Pulls/Knobs – $200
Restoration Hardware Heath Flushmount – $200
Custom Trim – ~$100 (I don’t remember exactly…might be overestimating)
Kingston Brass Faucet – $200
32″ Kraus Sink – $300
GE 0.7 cu ft Microwave – $75

Grand Total – $8,475

Also, I just want to let you guys know I’m now on Twitter and Instagram! Or rather, I’m trying to figure out Twitter and Instagram :). Come over and say hi!

Linking up to: Funky Junk Interiors, Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, The DIY Show Off, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Home Stories A2Z, Thrifty Decor Chick

Filed Under: Decorating, DIY Tagged With: appliances, backsplash, Ikea cabinets, kashmir white, kitchen 39 Comments

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Hallway Bathroom – Sneak Peek

January 29, 2013 By Jena 2 Comments

We had our tub and tile installed for our hallway bath the other day! So excited. It looks even better than I thought it would, which is always a good feeling.

This bathroom is getting a complete overhaul. Here’s where we started. Old fiberglass surround. Old peel and stick vinyl tile. A little bit of mold (yuck). Baseboards that were only half installed by previous owners. And a vanity that was falling apart.

We are over halfway completed in here thanks to hiring some of the work out. We hired a contractor to install the tub and tile, so now we are working on installing baseboards, painting, and putting in the new vanity.

The tile is Florim Stratos Avorio 12×24 porcelain tile.

The corner shelves are Silestone Lagoon, which are the same as our soon to be installed vanity top.

The tub is a Kohler Archer and the fixtures are all Moen.

Stay tuned for the rest!

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On Soffits and Crown

November 19, 2012 By Jena 3 Comments

You know that crown molding in the kitchen I’ve been talking about for…well…about a year? It’s finally done. I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again – the finishing touches are sometimes the hardest things to finish because the room looks pretty good, and there are worse spaces in the house that need fixin that end up distracting me.

The crown really finishes off the Ikea Lidingo cabinets and further gives them a more customized look.

I showed previously how we used some of the Ikea trim that went with our Lidingo cabinets to make it appear that the cabinets came to the edge of the soffit. I did this because in all the high end kitchens I’ve seen, the soffit is built to the depth of the cabinet. Since our soffit was already there, and I happen to like the look of soffit above the cabinets, we fit the cabinets to the soffit. If you’re doing a kitchen reno and have an old soffit, consider keeping it and dressing it up! It can end up looking nicer in the end if done right and saves you lots of time (or money) for demo and drywall repair.

The crown wasn’t terribly difficult to put up. We used the miter and caulk method. Some are opposed to this method and say coping is superior, and while that may be true, I’ve been really pleased with how our dining room crown molding turned out. My parents used this method for their crown molding which has been in place for many many years and have yet to have any caulk cracking issues.

One big upgrade to the process this time around was the addition of a compound miter saw and a nail gun. While not required (you can use an inexpensive miter box and hammer), they sure do make it easier and more precise.

I’m far from an expert in installing crown molding, and you can Google much better how to guides than I could write, but I’ll give you one tip I haven’t seen illustrated before. Use test pieces! They don’t take long to make and can help save you from wasting huge long runs of molding because you may have gotten your angles mixed up. I bring the test pieces for a particular cut with me when I go to make the cut, so I position it the same as the piece I’m cutting (i.e., flipped over) to make sure the saw is set up properly. I labeled all of them either inside or outside as well as wrote down the angles to set the compound miter saw for the next time I’m cutting crown (saves me from having to look it up)

Back when I compared paint colors that go with the Lidingo finish, I found that Benjamin Moore Simply White was the best match for latex paint, so I got a quart of that in Aura satin finish for the soffit and crown. It’s great paint and goes on really smoothly. It isn’t quite as good as some of the self leveling acrylic trim paints out there right now (although it’s really close), it is probably the best of the regular acrylic latex paints I’ve tried. It is a very shiny satin finish, so if you are considering Aura for any trim projects, I think semi-gloss might be too glossy and show every little imperfection and brush stroke. The satin finish is a good match to the Lidingo finish.

Even though I had tested the Benjamin Moore Simply White on a leftover scrap of the Ikea Lidingo trim, I was still worried it might not match perfectly once it was up. My worries were all for nothing since I can’t tell a bit of difference. The visual line of the trim connecting to the soffit provides just enough break that any difference in color is negligible.

Filed Under: DIY Tagged With: Ikea cabinets, kitchen, painting 3 Comments

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Have you ever looked at modern art and thought…

September 24, 2012 By Jena 2 Comments

…phsaw, I could totally paint that.

I know I do. Which is why I tried my hand at creating a little artwork for our living room.

I will start this off by saying I don’t really think all modern art is easy. It does take talent, and there are many great modern artists that have amazing skills. But, you know you’ve thought it when looking at some of it.

Awhile back I had printed off some some free prints as filler since I couldn’t figure out what to put in them. Now over a year later I still hadn’t updated them, so off to Michael’s I went for some art supplies.

I picked up a pack of canvases, some cheap brushes, and a pack of small acrylic paints to get me started. The last time I painted anything for the purpose of making art was in 7th grade, so I’m sure any real artists are having a good chuckle at my little attempt at art here.

After trying (and failing) at getting good colors mixed up, a little light bulb went off. I have a hoard of paint samples already mixed into beautiful shades of grays, blues, tans, and greens! Score.

The background for all of these is Sherwin Williams Comfort Gray. I dabbed a little white here and there on two of the canvases, and I used straight horizontal strokes on the other two canvases.

I used a little red from my new pack of acrylic paints on this one.

I used a little golden yellow on this one.

This one is basically just Sherwin Williams Comfort Gray and white.

And on this one I used a little Sherwin Williams Liveable Green for the stripe (kind of hard to see with the reflections…the pitfalls of a bright room!)

I probably won’t quit my day job to become an artist, but I may jazz these up a bit more one of these days to add more of…something. They are a little plain, but for now they add the colors I was going for. I’ve been looking around at art for inspiration (I would never copy, but just getting ideas here and there) to see what more I can do with these. I’m also thinking of getting some larger stand alone canvases to paint and put in other spots around the house.

Filed Under: Decorating, DIY, Tips Tagged With: Living Room, tips 2 Comments

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Bathroom Renovation – Here We Come!

August 17, 2012 By Jena 4 Comments

Now that we’re almost done with the kitchen, we’ve been planning out our upstairs hallway bath. We have two full bathrooms in need of renovation – a “master” bathroom and this hallway bath. I put master in quotes because it’s about the smallest full bathroom I’ve ever seen. But it works.

That’s a post for another day, though. Today, let me present you our hallway bath!

Ugh. Yeah. It’s really hard to grasp from pictures just how much this bathroom needs to be renovated. The tub and surround are old, stained fiberglass (I think? Or something plastic). The tub frame is actually cracked around the base on the outside, so it squeaks when you stand in it to shower.

The vanity is circa 1985 and has a sort of peel and stick faux wood veneer. The floors are linoleum. The baseboards were never caulked, and nail holes were not patched. That is one bonus because at least they will be easy to remove when we put in new floors. The light fixture is also screams 80′s. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the 80′s. Just not the decor.

So, needless to say, everything is going to go. Well except the plantation shutter. We put that in and love it (perfect for privacy but still letting light in!). We put in the towel rack too. So the easy to replace things? We’ve got those covered already. Everything else? Not so much.

We’re meeting with contractors right now to get quotes. We know we’re going to use a plumber for the tub installation, but we are undecided on if we are up to the task of installing the tile surround and floors ourselves. It really depends on the cost and if we find someone we are comfortable with.

I’ve been looking at lots of these lately. We may or may not be using some or none of these. I’m not keeping secrets from you guys. I just really have no idea what tile to go with.

All of these samples are from the Tile Shop. We were really happy with the tile we got for our kitchen backsplash, so considering them again for bathroom tile. I really liked that they stock the tile and take returns, and they have a decent selection. I’m looking at some tiles through Home Depot and Lowe’s as well. I haven’t been able to find any other tile stores in our area that stock tile and take returns.

I might sound a bit like a stickler on this only-going-to-tile-stores-that-take-returns thing, but I just really don’t like the idea of having to special order tile after only seeing one or two sample tiles, get it in, then what if we hate it? I’m really bad about buyers remorse, so I need the security blanket of returns! Sorry to all the other tile shops around. I’m a returning kind of girl.

For tubs, we are strongly considering either the Kohler Bancroft:

Or the Kohler Archer:

I like the look of the Archer more, but it only comes with a pop up drain. We’re weighing the pros and cons of different drains. Any experts, feel free to weigh in :)

If you follow me on Pinterest, you might have seen my bathroom board blowing up lately. I have more ideas floating around in my head than I know what to do with. While coming up with the overall design is so fun and exiting, it’s also somewhat stressful. Decisions decisions!

Filed Under: DIY Tagged With: Hallway Bathroom 4 Comments

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Kitchen Light Fixture

July 30, 2012 By Jena 3 Comments

Hey all! I’ve been on a little blog break, but back in full swing again. I’ve missed you all terribly and glad to be back with a quick post on our kitchen light fixture. You might be thinking, “wait, you’re still working on your kitchen?” Yes, yes we are. The last finishing touches are sometimes the hardest because I have a habit of moving on to other projects before I’m completely done with my old projects. But we’re trying to finish up, really we are. This flush mount light fixture is the newest addition to our kitchen.

Here’s what we were dealing with before. Both of these light fixtures had to go.

The new flush mount light is from Restoration Hardware (scored during their 20% off sale). It was a little tricky to install because it has those four vertical bars, and if you are anything like me you want them squared off to something, and they weren’t…or rather, they aren’t.

I guess I should say this would have been tricky to install if I went back and fixed it so that the vertical bars were squared off to something, and since I didn’t realize until after I got the light up, and I was in a bit of a hurry, I didn’t fix it right away. Right now they are a little crooked if you look straight on at the light when you enter the kitchen. Just add fixing this to my to-do list of 8456 other things :)

We originally wanted to do recessed lighting, but after looking more closely at our ceilings, we realized there is a bunch of duct work running up between our floor joists that would be in the way of the lights. We might have been able to make recessed lighting work, but we didn’t want it that badly, so we took the easier route and just replaced the old fixture.

We debated over going with oil rubbed bronze to match all of our other light fixtures or satin nickel to match all of the stainless and cabinet hardware in the kitchen. There’s no right answer, but we decided on ORB to go with our drum pendant over the kitchen table.

We also moved this smaller fixture that is right in front of the soffit with the help of my dad.

moving a kitchen light fixture

We moved the fixture to be under the soffit and replaced it with a single recessed light. The main reason for doing this was so we can install crown molding around the soffit, but I also just think it looks better in the new spot. It just kind of blends in which is the look we were going for.

Next up for the kitchen? Crown!

Linking up to: Funky Junk Interiors, Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, The DIY Show Off, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Home Stories A2Z

Filed Under: DIY Tagged With: kitchen 3 Comments

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Making the Peninsula Trim – Part 2 (All Finished!)

May 8, 2012 By Jena 15 Comments

Check out Making the Peninsula Trim – Part 1 for the beginning of this here story.

Here’s where we left off. We had finished the rails and stiles.

custom trim for ikea lidingo cabinets

Next up was laying out where they would go. This was actually kind of hard because our floors are not anywhere close to level. Since the counters are level and the floors are not level, it took a little bit of trial and error to figure out how to hide this. Are we the only ones who spend half of our renovating energy just trying to hide imperfections? Yes? No?

Anyway, we decided that we’d make the trim square to the counter, then the shoe molding around the floor could cover up the gap. It was about an inch difference in height between the wall and the end of the peninsula.

We used one of the large panels from Ikea for the back of the panel then screwed the rails and stiles in from behind.

We attached the baseboard to this too, but forgot to take a pic pre-spray paint. I’m blaming our wonderfully unlevel existing floors from the previous owners for making me forget.

So once we had the rails, stiles, and baseboards screwed onto the panel, we spray painted with Rustoleum Primer then Rustoleum Blossom White (see my previous post about white paints to match Ikea cabinets).

We spray painted and attached the corbels after painting the panel, then attached the whole panel to the cabinets by screwing through the cabinets into the panel from behind.

I would have preferred to use white shoe molding, but previous owners had used pre-finished oak all around the rest of the baseboards, so we stuck with that to be consistent.

We tried to make the molding look consistent style wise with the Ikea Lidingo doors. The router bit we used was not an exact match, but giving it some detail rather than leaving the edges square made it coordinate a lot better.

I think it really dresses up the kitchen and gives a much more custom look. It’s the first thing you see when you come through our front door.

I’m not sure I’ve ever shown our layout like this, but when you walk in the front door you can see part of our kitchen, and I really like that this part is what you see.

And by the way, see that blue clock? It’s hiding a huge ugly silver phone jack. And it was not in fact 8:35 when I took these pictures, but really I’m just too, er, lazy to change the battery. We have the stove, microwave, and hood with digital clocks. This one is purely there to hide the phone jack :). One day maybe we’ll get some art for that wall.

I found the corbels from Architectural Depot. They were a little more than I wanted to spend at about $23 a pop, but the detail was exactly what I was looking for. They are actually made from Urethane, which according to them is about the density of pine. I had to shave off about 1/8 inch from the back of the corbels to keep them from sticking out past the counters. I did this using our compound miter saw and it cut very cleanly. No picture (bad blogger). Part 1 my dad did most of the work, so I was picture snappy. This part, part 2, I did most of it myself, and I still blame my floors for making me forget pictures :)