UN DEUX TWA... And we are Finished!

1. Bathroom demolished ..... CHECK!
2. Pluming reconstructed ..... CHECK!
3. Drywall ........................... CHECK!
4. Tile ................................. CHECK!
5. Floor................................ CHCEK!
6. Molding .......................... CHECK!
7. Toilet .............................. CHECK!
8. Vanity??????? 

Being a fan of the listsssss, you can see what's next to come. We are almost there so just stick with me for this little bit of bathroom bliss that is left.

Vanity, storage, mirror, there is none of this. Jared destroyed it all when the whole little bathroom had to be built from the bottom up again. So what better to do then MAKE our OWN CUSTOM VANITY! YAYA FOR CRAFTY BOYFRIENDS!!!!

Being the handy boy that he is, Jared decided to build us a vanity that suited the size of the bathroom we had. The original was a little large and actually was built around the tub, like half sitting on the tub, kinda get it? ... well thats how it was. A little weird-o, right. TO actually go out and buy some cabinet and sink combo that we liked, agreed on and actually fit, would be a bit of a challenge as well as pretty much the same price as it would be for Jared to put in his own.  

Here is what we were thinking:

A vessel sink on top of a vanity 3 1/2 feet tall by 2 feet wide or so. The bottom doors will be on grooves to slide back with 3 drawers on the left side and a larger area on the right where the pluming will go through and connect. 

And back to work Jared went. 

Ran in to a few sizing issues along the way, but hey it's ok.... 3 down to 2 drawers and but thats really all. The doors are covered with white laminate. This is so it is easier to keep clean with the opening and closing with make up fingers, and it's better in a humid area. 

With the doors all covered with the white laminate, We decided to choose a faux wood style of laminate for the outer shell as well as the top surface to go along with the wood trim that we have around the bathroom tile. 

And the finished product turned out AHH MAZING! 

So  now we will take our last trip down memory lane...

Before:

After:

And there you have it! A little unorganized, but thats life. 

Thanks for sticking around for this true life bathroom saga! 

Till next times!  

Loo La La part Duex

I last left off with the bathroom nearly in shambles, with only a tub and toilet and holes in the walls.

There you go... Remember? I sure do. So what we had to do next was start putting it all back together again so we actually had a bathroom. 

We started by picking out new time for the tub and walls and a new floor. 

Are any of you Dwell readers out there? Or just look on line at home improvement sites and blogs? If you are, I am sure you have read and seen the adds for Mod Walls. They have all types of tile and great color combo's to choose from. You can even make up your own and it is ohsoreasonably priced! 

 TA DA!!!!! Our new tile for our new bathroom! As you can see, it has many of the same existing colors going on through out the house so it all ties together. Love it! ... Also it is the little 1X1 tiles but you will notice that they come in about 1"x1" sheets, so no piecing in on one by one silly kids.

After a few sessions of YouTube Jared started tiling the bathroom. 

 Here is our friend Chris who helped Jared get it all started as well as helped with adding the sheet rock back to the wall framing.

Little by little it started to really come together. Another thing with this tile is that after you add it to the walls with grout, you then have to go back and grout all of the groves between each tile. It's not a one by one process but you smooth it over the tile as a whole and then clean the excess off. A process we had on our hands, but how awesome is it starting to look!

If you remember in the last post, Jared broke out the original window during the demo. process. Because it is an older home, the window's are not the typical sizes that the houses today have. To get a window custom for the space was a bit more money they we had at the moment and decided to think of a quick solution. We got one as close to the size as we could find, and Jared mad his own framing. He used 1x2's in the back to hold it in place and places subway tile around it to make it pop a little as well as cover the hand made framing. I personally really like it. It gives the window a bit more depth and I am able to use it as a shelf for shampoos' soaps or whatever.

SO what's a bathroom with out a floor right .... This actually. YUCK! 

In search for the floor of his dreams, Jared sent out for sample upon sample and came to the conclusion of returning to a similar flooring that was placed in the bathroom from the get go. It's is common to find VCT flooring with in older mid century homes and this was the room calling it back. 

Now this project was a little more then what a YouTube sesh could really teach, so we hired a pro to do the work. Plus I think Jared was a little on the work overload side of things. 

BAM! We have a floor. A dirty one, but a floor. Because the area is so small, it needed to be buffed as well as waxed by hand. We had 6 coats of wax put on this sucker. We would have liked it with a bit more shine but, enough is enough. 

Still not in 100% working order, another detail was added. As you can kind of see on the right bottom side, the tile could not, well didn't go all the way to the floor. As a fix to the problem and another great element to the bathroom we added a 1x3 molding around the tile to frame it all out.

Boy at work once again. Notice; you'll see a lot of plaid wearing going on in this house.... Plaid means you're hard at work. 

Be ready for some more of my amazing camera skillzzz!

It's hard guys! To get a great picture, is just not gonna happen if I take it... I'm sure you have noticed. 

I hop you are all up for a trilogy of a real bathroom story because there is still another post to come!

               

"LOO" La La ....

So, I have been hesitating on this post for some time now. I try and get Jared to do the one's like this because for : 1) I was in L.A. for most of this demolition, there for I had no real hands on experience with it and can't go in to "guy talk" detail, but can mis spell about everything with in the entire post and REALLY teach you all how to go about a run on sentence. Oh and 2) There is a lot that is going to go in to this post, so hold tight to those panties!
I am going to have to break it down in probably a few posts, to keep you all interested as well as give me something to continually write about.
BATHROOM!
I really wanted a house with at least two bathrooms. I know, it seems more and more that I am just a horrible complainer but really I am. It is just because it all stems back to my problem of collecting things. I feel more and more that I am on the verge or "Hoardisim". I just have to much stuff, and I like to see it all while I am in the process of getting ready so I know what my options are. Even though it is obvious that I get ready in 15 and I'm kind of a "dirt bag" in the sense of dirt. Another story. But the Bathroom. Yes we only have one, but it works and it the only room in the house that in 1oo%, kind of.

These are some of the "before" photos that we took. I don't know if you can tell, but it is not the biggest of spaces. I know my camera work is deceiving.  Tub, toilet, sink, vanity, what more do you need... space?

It had white and dark red tile along the counter top, some great sliding doors on the tub, and some old VCT flooring which was actually pretty cool. So much had to be done with in the bathroom that we needed to rip it all out and there was no way to save the floor, or anything in that case.

First things first, in deciding to re-do the bathroom, we had to check out all the plumbing and see what type of condition it was all it. Like you all have already seen and read about it previous post's, plumbing has been the greatest area of opportunity for us here, as well as the most costly. But it is smart to get it all done at ONE TIME. If you ever have a plumber come check things out and give an diagnosis on what you probably should do, do what the man says. I know it may be a lot of $$ but it is for your own good!  

And what do you think the chances were that we had to replace the plumbing in the entire bathroom? You got it, 100%. :(

On with the demo....

Here are some photos taken during the process of tearing everything out to try and get to all of the plumbing with in the floors of the bathroom. 

Here is where we started. The doors from the tub were removed so there was more room to get in the area where the faucet is to get to the plumbing. You will also take a little note that in this process, Jared did a smooth job in breaking out the bathroom window too. 

We also had to remove all of the old tiling from with in the shower area to replace it with the NEW tile that we picked out. 

This is where we thought we were starting but little did we know, it was really just the start. 

We were and had planed on doing new tile, new floor, new toilet (because who know's who sat there before :) )and new sink. 

As we got a little further along, we decided on doing a new tub all together as well. So on my following trip home to Vegas, this is what I came home to:

Holy F word! "What happened to the bathroom, and who and how are we going to put it all back together again?" Were the thought going through my head. Jared kept updating me on the progress while I was away but I really had no idea it was turning in to this, and I don't think he thought it would be like this either. 

We did our best to turn the frowns up side down and smile them away because this is what we did buy a house for, to make it our own, Right?!?

One thing about Jared is that he  believes that he can do anything, that he watches on YouTube. There are a lot of things on YouTube. SO with my faith in Jared, I headed back to L.A. and left the fate of the bathroom all up to him. 

Another two weeks went by and I made another trip home. Low and behold, we had a tub!!! A new tub at that too. The plumbing dealing with the tub and toilet had all been completed and it was time we started putting everything back together again. 

I know it still looks a little scary in there but, believe me, YouTube is God. 

To be Continued......

A collection in progress.

I love collecting! I love looking at whatever the collection is from beginning through never ending. Feeding it with whatever you find, and watching it grow and grow. Jared thinks that I am crazy and maybe a hoarder, but these "collections" -o- mine are not out of control, yet.
I collect clothes, (hello I work in retail) shoes... oh the beautiful shoes. Books, I am a huge believer in print and I am trying my best to keep it going. Magazines as well. I read Vogue, Bazar, Paper, and Lula magazine on a normal basis and have a closet full of the old issues archived in chronological order. I look through them from time to time to get new inspiration because everything does come to a circle.
But the collection that I want to share with you all is my love for Cathrineholm enameled dishes. Oh I love them! The colors, simple lotus leaf design and character!

Here is mine so far. How I just really love to look at it! It's so pretty right?

Carthrineholm is originally from Norway. For those of you that are interested on learning a bit more of the history please check out : here and here for the facts.

I first came across these dishes just while looking on blogs such as the photo below, as well as going to antique markets. I loved them. You can and will often see them in many mid century homes that people are restoring and I wanted our home to have a part of it as well.

When I first stared, I only wanted specific colors. Silly silly really because they are all great! 

You can see that I don't have any red or black pieces but that doesn't mean that I won't ever. I also have a few pieces around the house and we are working on displaying more of them as well move along with our house project. 

It is still continuing to grow and I am always looking for new pieces to add. They are the PERFECT GIFT (hint hint) for any occasion also! 

A home is only as good as it's closets....

Hard to believe, but this life of being a retail slave for the past ten or so years, has given me quite the closet. I am not saying that it is all amazing but it is vast, large, and growing! I have a love hate relationship with the whole thing but it is something that I am not ready to downsize quite yet... but soon I may. Something in the works :).
Ok really this post should have nothing to do with my bad habits or more so addictions, but the mini. In the quest for our home, my ONE and only ONE main concern and actually request was that the closets be able to hold my gems. Is that so hard to ask? I have had those stinky slider closets in every home these days and it really does nothing for me. I have to replace the hanging bars with in 6 months and continue to have buckets of things everywhere. Why can't every home be made with walk in bedroom closets? It is a hard thing to find, and my request was not really a deal breaker when it came to the actual buy of the house. WOMP WOMP.
But we do have some pretty sweet built in's! Let me show you!

Cute right? HA hahahah! I know it looks really little but it actually fits quiet a bit! I am not saying that EVERYTHING that I have is in just our bedroom closet, oh no no no ... I have taken over the guest one as well as the hall but Jared didn't listen. OK, really what this is about is how we gave them a little bit of a face lift to go along with the color palette of the whole house.

SO they are slider doors to open, with a cabinet top and two sliding drawers at the bottom. When you first take a glance it doesn't look that big like i said but it is.
See I fit standing up! Because I am so tall I know it is really hard to believe but here I am. I love that the first owner or whoever added these hooks along the back as well as the side! They have come in handy to store all of my belts in eyes view to see what I have to choose from!
The top part also looks a little deceiving. I really should have taken a photo of how deep it is, but maybe in the future. Let me just tell you, it holds my entire boot collection of 32 pairs as well as all of my boxed shoes!!! Yes I keep many of my shoes in the original boxes to keep them pretty. I just write what they are on the front so they are a little easier to find. Do it to save the shoe!

Ok so we had to paint the interior because it was dingy and old and we just did that white.

We started by taping off the outer molding and painting it a dark brown to look like a real dark woody brown. Before we did that, we made sure to remove each of the doors as well as drawers. See you can see a little of how deep the top really is! Swear I could sleep up there!

Each square of the closet was taped of as well so we could paint them different pop colors from around the house.

We also painted the doors and drawers pop colors .

Alright.... So this is the guest closet... Not the finished product, but it shows the steps we took as a whole.

Guest room completed! We only chose to leave one square white ... I really don't like white. When i wear it I feel dirty and so I stay away from the color all together...
Because we did not want each square to be a solid color, Jared added squares of luan which is a really thin wood. He chose two colors of stain and left one natural. It gives it a little more raw look and not so color blocked. Plus we really like the look of wood.

And here is the master! You can tell that we used the room color in each room to pop the drawers at the bottom as well as one square with in the 6 on the main doors.
It added so much to each room and I LOVE IT! It also goes along with some of the other pieces Jared has mad around the house... pictures to come in the future so stick with me!!!