Guest Bath

I'm finally getting around to updating a few of the house projects. The guest bedroom and bathroom needed to get done pretty quickly because we wanted everyone to be able to come visit but the rooms needed serious updating first! The bedroom was easy - just painted the trim bright white, the walls are a pale green\blue - moved in the furniture, added a small television and it's complete.

The guest bath was started when we did the kitchen - we weren't living in the house yet so we decided to do the messiest projects before we arrived.

We started with this:

What a mess!

We took out the vanity and replaced it with a 35" tall one - no bending over the sink to brush! We also installed the comfort height, elongated bowl toilet. I really wanted wallpaper - but the one I loved was $200 a roll!! Yikes! I'm going to change my mind and want different in probably a year and then I'd have to tear it out - I couldn't bring myself to spend that much money. So I found a company online that sells large stencils - and like magic - I had made my own wallpaper!!

Really easy - took about 6 hours start to finish! 

The entire project cost about $40

Now, when I change my mind and want a different color - I'm not gonna feel guilty of the waste of money I would have spent on wallpaper!

We also replaced the old mirror with a framed one, added new lighting, a shelf for storing towels over the toilet and the cutest knobs! Bam! One weekend and we're ready for company!

I love the bright spots of coral in an otherwise calm blue room - it adds a little pizzazz! And the knobs are probably my favorite part!

Studio Progress

     So, for the first time in my life I'm going to have a room of my own. I don't have to share it with anyone, I can do what I want in there and I can decorate however I want! It's such an amazing thing.

     This is my space, it doesn't look like much but it's gonna be amazing. The big windows face south, I can see the water! It's a great size 14' x 12' with a large closet. Since the space will be my studio, it needs to be practical, so the first thing that needs to happen is the carpet has to go!

     Ciao carpet!

I want the flooring to be durable, easy to clean, not expensive, and fun to look at! After an unhealthy amount of research I decided to go with a tile product, VCT  - Vinyl Compsition Tile. This is a commercial glue down product designed for high traffic areas. It's really easy to put down - basically you put down a layer of adhesive, wait 20 minutes and set the tiles down. They cut with an exacto knife, come in a ton of fun colors and truly are indestructable.

                                   But first.... as long as the room is empty - let's PAINT!

     I chose this incredible, dark teal - it's going to be perfect with all my white cabinets and tables! But back to the tile....

     I simply found the center of the room, snapped chalk lines in both directions and layed the tiles along the lines - really is that easy!

BEAUTIFUL!! Now, on to those cabinets....

You've Gotta Break a Few Eggs...

And so it begins....

We bought this cute little house:

     It's a two level condo in a water front neighborhood. Pretty standard three bedrooms, three bathrooms. Nice size rooms, large eat-in kitchen, big windows. It's great for casual,  relaxed living.

    Some of my favorite things are that I have a smaller yard, which is a lovely plant filled space that I don't have to take care of. I don't have to do any of the yard work or any outside maintenance.

     It faces south and gets wonderful light in the room that I'll be using for my studio space. It's spacious but feels cozy and familiar. It's a beautiful color!

     It's within walking distance of my sister - there are gonna be sister adventures!

I'm excited about our new adventure in our new place.


     But of course, nothings perfect. The house sat empty for almost ten years. Everything is original to the house which was built in 1990. We decided that since we still owned our home in West Virginia we'd do some of the major renovations before we moved - less mess to live in. Structurally everything is in good shape but it needs a major update. We decided to do the kitchen, the bathrooms and the fireplace initially - then it just got out of control and lighting, my studio and the laundry room were added to the pre-move-in list.

Much craziness ensued.

   
     We gutted the kitchen, all three bathrooms and the fireplace. The thought process was that we weren't living there, these were the biggest projects, they would make the biggest mess and be the most inconvenient if we were in the
house while it happened.

     We're thinking how brilliant and organized we are!

     While we were making messes, we decided that more lighting would be wonderful, so we added pot lights to the kitchen and living room projects.

     More demo  ~  more holes

     Of course nothing went exactly as planned.

     When the cabinets came out and they took out the bulkhead (which the contractor was sure was empty) it was full of plumbing and electrical and heating ducts.

More demo  ~  more holes

     The estimated time to completion was six to eight weeks.  This stretched into six months. We failed electrical inspections FIVE times. For awhile it seemed as though they just kept adding more holes. We were about eight weeks with no water (yea, we failed those inspections too!).

   
     Oh, and we put new flooring in the foyer.That pile in the living room is the flooring.

     One of my favorite stories about this insanity is that while the house looked like nuclear fallout my husbands biggest priority was getting a television big enough to fit over the fireplace. That television and cable hook up were the first things done the minute he could get someone out there!

     He was the happiest man alive that day, and the next day when he was able to stroll down to our dock and cast a line.

     Stay tuned - it's all gonna come together and be our happy place!

Making a Different House a Home...

     It's been ages since I've posted anything - not because there was nothing to share, more because there's been too much. Sometimes you just get so caught up in the 'daily grind' you can't find time to do the things you love. The last couple of years have seen job changes, health issues and family stuff, seems like we're just rolling along from one catastrophe to the next around here.

     Well, there's about to be another big change - we've bought a house in the most amazing place, Soloman's Island, MD. There's about to be a whole lot of renovations going on! This was one of those, "too good to be true" sort of situations. We weren't looking for a house, it just sort of fell on us, like the Wizard of Oz! The first two years we owned the house we rented it out because it was the easiest thing at the time and the original thought was we'd move there when we retired.

     My husband had a heart attack in 2016. To say this was a life altering event is an understatement. We decided that waiting for retirement to live in paradise was the stupidest decision we'd made in a long time. So, after much planning we're headed to this lovely location:

     The house has a little age on it - built in 1990 but it sat empty for almost 10 years while the previous owner and a bank had a tug-o-war over it. Eventually the bank won and then... well, we won! So now I get views like this:

     I'm feeling pretty lucky! So stay tuned, there's a ton of work to do to make this house a home!