I Don't Even Know Where to Start...

I've thought every day, "Today will be the day I can finally decorate the bathroom to duplicate my inspiration picture", but every day something prevents that from happening!  For one thing, everything....E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G...has prevented that from happening!  It just takes longer, folks, than what you'd think...certainly longer than we thought!  You have to wait for stain to dry, polyurethane to dry, plumbing to get done, pedestal sinks to be ordered and delivered (and delayed), and paint to dry, repaint and dry, repaint and dry....(you get the picture). All is well though.  I've learned to....

 

 

I have painted a LOT over the past few days.  Jim says it looks like a white bomb has exploded in the bathroom.  Yep, that's what I was going for.

 

 

             

 

 

The window had (has) layers of paint.....lay-ers!  Shamedly, I just slapped some more on....I was pretty much just painting paint!!  Before we started renovating the bathroom the window was painted shut, but Jim finally got it opened. It's probably painted shut again after today!

 

I love this window.


I did sand the door facing before painting it though. I sorta, kinda liked the look and for about half a second I thought about leaving it like this.

   

I also sanded an old built-in in the bathroom.  I had started painting it when I took this picture, but actually I liked the look of it after it was sanded too.  If I hadn't wanted a totally white bathroom, I would have been tempted to leave it as is too!

 

However, as you can see, I painted the door frame and the built-in cabinet (part of the white bomb).  I still have to find knobs or handles for the built-in.  Jim lined it and added a couple of shelves. It's big and will work great for holding towels and the such.

Fresh paint on the door frame.

Fresh paint on the built-in cabinet.

 

I don't have a picture of the bathroom door to show you right now, but Jim took it down and used the dreaded heat gun (refer to kitchen pictures for that nightmare!) to peel the layers of paint off it.  I painted it (white, of course) and it looks good....better than I thought.  The wood panel on the door isn't in great shape, but it looks good enough to keep.....for sure. Jim is going to hang the door tomorrow after the paint on the door frame dries....I'll post a picture.  Until then.

 



Bathroom progressing....

A lot of progress HAS been made.........and a lot still needs to be made.

 

  

 

 

The trim still needs to be painted...

 

 

....and some trim needs to be added....

 

....and the door still needs to be taken down, painted, and rehung.

AND....the ceiling needs to be done!!!

However, it looks tons better....and cleaner...than it did!!!

I don't know if I've mentioned it in previous posts, but this tile surround was already there when we bought SunnyGrace.  The contractor had made some renovations to the house.  Most ceilings had been repaired and most walls repainted...and the tile surround in both the upstairs and downstairs bath. I really appreciate the work they had already done on the ceillings and walls, but I truly wished we'd bought the house before they tiled around the bathtubs. I don't love it. I would have wanted subway tile like in my old house. Jim laid the tile in my previous bathroom.  It looked just like this....and I loved it!!  Oh well!!!!!

Fall....my favorite season.

I got fall fever and had to decorate....even though it's just one room.....our only clean room!
We rummaged around in the garage and found some fall decor from last year and......

.....I had at it.

From this:

To this:

 

 

 

Tonight's post.....short and sweet.

Porch...

My sis-in-law sent me this picture because she thinks our porch could look this good....I love it!

 

What do you think?!

 

I wanted to decorate the porch for fall, but odds are that I won't be doing much of that this year.  We're just so busy fixing up the inside......and putting most of our bucks into doing that as well!!!

Speaking of inside, here's a picture of the floor in the downstairs bath....

Before:

After:!!!!!

 

Still needs trim, of course, but....YAY!

I'm thinkin' you need a sweet little building like this!

"I'm thinkin' you need a sweet little building like this!"  Yep, that's an exact quote from my sweet friend, Kristie!

Here's what she was referring to....

 

I've actually got a stinkin' old building like this....

:D

We are going to take that building down a board at a time. Truth. It's not high on the priority list though. We're going to save the old boards and build a wonderful potting shed....

.....more like this.....

with a nice potting bench..

I've saved a ton of pictures of potting sheds and potting benches....gathered from everywhere!!!! I had to make myself stop with these!

Downstairs bath...downstairs bath...downstairs bath, and a portion of the porch!

Are you ready?

 

 

So much of the bead board is already up!

 

 We ordered this tonight....

 

 

We bought this today....

 

 

 

We're making this tomorrow....

 

 

Soon....soon...soon!!

 

 

 

                                                   Decided to improve (at least for me) on this picture a tad....

BY ADDING:

1)  A pedestal sink with a backsplash

2)  An oiled bronze faucet

3)  A light above the sink instead of to the side (only out of necessity though)

4)  A hardwood floor

5)  A bead board ceiling too!!

 

 

A Portion of the Porch

I was inspired by a visit from family yesterday.

Thank you, Rachael, for the inspiration! Mine is lacking a wonderful rustic flag ;-)



This is a picture I uncovered on the internet!

This is my bench..and my porch

The tiniest bit of order...

....and praying friends have lifted my spirits.  Thank you ;)

 

A downstairs sitting room...



 

and the upstairs sitting room..... 

 

....have the tiniest bit of order....Not prettied up very much.....but still, I feel so much better!

As you can see, especially in the downstairs room, there is still a lot of cleaning that needs to be done; however, I'm a happy girl.
 

We took a much needed day off and went to a movie!

 

A little bit of everything and a whole lot of nothin'.

You know, nothing ever seems to go as planned.  Poor Jim. From one room to the next.....every day has been pretty much a new adventure.  We went from what we initially thought would be a kitchen completely finished to plumbing issues and then the downstairs bath getting new flooring.

I remember in one blog post saying that the kitchen would have crown moulding the next day....not yet.  I've learned that stuff happens, and you take it as it comes...which is perfectly OK with me.  I like having the downstairs bathroom flooring done just as much or more than I would having the crown moulding up in the kitchen. I like every little bit of progress I see...no matter where it is.

Yesterday I took pictures of the bathroom floor in question.....

Gross....                                                                
                         


                                       

                                                                  

It was a total stinkin' mess....literally.

Today the flooring is laid and it's far less stinky. 

I've decided to stop saying "tomorrow this will get finished", however, I can say, "this will get finished"......at some point. I'm not at all concerned with when.

When it does, here's what I'll show you....

A dark stained hardwood floor, white bead board walls, a white bead board ceiling, white trim, a white potty, a white pedestal sink.....the bathroom will be totally white.  Now that sounds really bland and boring, huh? 

Not so....

....isn't this lovely?!

The medicine cabinet?  Recessed....

 

......and costs $250 dollars.  Sorry, but I don't want a medicine cabinet that bad! Jim has the stuff to build this exact frame, except the mirror (that's $15 at Lowe's).  So, our's will be a fake medicine cabinet....with only what you see here showing....which is what you can see showing in the unfake medicine cabinet.  And....see that little latch on the medicine cabinet in the

inspiration bathroom picture? I'll have that in place of the little knob on the costly one.  I'm happy. Definitely.

 

 



The pedestal sink we'll have is slightly different from the one in the picture too.  This is the one I want...

 

I love the backsplash of this one.  The one in the inspiration picture doesn't have a backsplash.

 

 

 

I'm telling you, with the placement of the window and the placement of the 'medicine cabinet' (shhh) in our existing bath, this inspiration bath is the perfect bath to "copy".  Can you see it?

 





Character vs.....HELP!

All is NOT charm and character in an old house!!!

 

This is me rigging up a way to get my work files downloaded (I'm a home-based medical transcriptionist).

 

 

Old houses have precious FEW electrical "plug-ins"!!!!!

So you stretch a loooong way.

 

 

  And then they're not the three-prong type.  Although that high baseboard is oozing charm and character....or it will when it finally gets cleaned and has the trim board replaced, it's still so aggravating (to say the least!) when you have one of these per room.

 

 

And this itty bitty closet isn't so charming either! It's about a foot in depth! But, I knew that going in. I'll admit, I didn't really anticipate the aggravation of that, but it is what it is.....and, I'm still glad we're here when I look at what is true character....like these wonderful door knobs on every single door in the house.

 

...and, as one of my dear friends suggested, when I feel discouraged I look at this wonderful staircase....

and remember why we decided to undertake this sometimes-overwhelming-seeming project!