bloomin' beautiful

Flowers are my absolute favorite. And my nose is super sensitive to smells so I can’t enjoy them nearly as much as I love them. I remember when I was younger and stayed home with mom sick, she would tell me to imagine a beautiful arrangement of flowers to get my mind off of puking or however I was sick. She usually took it a step farther and would bring home a bouquet of roses too. LOVE those memories and to this day that is what I think about when I’m sick. It puts me in my happy place!

Of course we know I kill any and every thing I touch (plant/flower wise). I am waaay better with flowers than plants, but I forget those suckers depend on their most basic need- water. So I wanted a way to have my cake and eat it too. Have flowers, and the beauty of them (minus the smell) AND not have to water them.

This is what evolved.

Now as my disclaimer- NO I didn’t invent these, NO I’m not going to walk through a step by step tutorial of how to make them, but my idea or not they are just as beautiful!

The idea came from Pinterest. It led me to this blog. And SHE has a step by step tutorial. I used some of the sticks from my “Thankful Tree” as the stems.

The vase was an idea I have been wanting to try- paint poured in a vase. I used the same color as my wall paint (Ben Moore Gray Horse) and found the vase at a thrift store for $0.99. This has been made for over a month, and the paint still hasn’t fully dried… not sure what to think of that- but it really does give it a cool look. Every couple days I’ll tilt the vase to respread the paint. I mean eventually it has to dry RIGHT??? But no big deal.

Here is a close up of the petals. This fabric just tickles me pink.

And it gives me those same warm fuzzies that real flowers did fromwhen I was home sick as a kid.

They sit on my new pretty little vanity to greet me every morning, night, and hopefully NOT in the middle of the night!

Master Bath Renovation: Part 5 (cost breakdown)

Just a quick update from here. Went to the dermatologist and she did end up removing the mole that I was worried about. She wanted it sent to the lab to test… so now we wait for a few days. The only part of me that is SUPER nervous is it’s on my arm that gets direct sun at recess. The right side of my body is always more tan than the left because of the angle of the sun. And I never think to put sunscreen on at school. I will FOR SURE be doing it this year though. And even though she sliced off a tiny piece it is hurting bad. I can’t imagine how it would feel to have to dig deeper. Also I have one on my back that we are watching for the next year to make sure it’s not changing at all.

This week went by SO slowly. Shorter weeks always do that to me for some reason. Today was a workday and Monday is a holiday.  Luke came down with bronchitis last weekend and we did the whole “wait to see” if it gets worse. Sure enough it did and by Wednesday night he was coughing so hard he puked. It’s so pitiful to see little ones sick. We got him medicine Thursday and he seems completely back to himself today (except for a pretty epic cough).

Ok on to the vanity:

Keep in mind that if we were to have bought just a vanity it would have been $270+ just for a new cabinet, top and possibly mirror (that we really didn’t need anyways). At the minimum, we would have still needed to get a new floor, and my gray walls would have had to wait.

Also, we didn’t have to buy any wood for the built in vanity (it was all leftover from other projects), or most of the trim (for the mirror), or caulk, wood putty, nails, and Kilz Primer. We also already had the trim paint on hand from other touchups in the house.

ORB Spray Paint: $6
Spray Primer x2: $8 ($4 each)
Liquid Sander/Deglosser: $6
Liquid nails (for the mirror): $5
Martha Stewart semi-gloss paint (vanity color): $6.50
Martha Stewart eggshell paint (wall color): $6
Martha Stewart glaze: $6
New pipes under the sink x2: $16 total ($8 each)
All the trim (included the top piece for the mirror, and other pieces on the vanity): $7
Foam Roller replacements: $10
Shelf Support pegs: $7
New knobs/hinges for vanity: $9 (3 knobs, 2 hinges)
Vinyl Tile: $30
Caulk: $3
Organization containers: $30 (the cream colored one was the only one we could find to fit the space. It was a splurge at $16. The rest we just from Target).

Total: $156 (rounded).
Like I said in the vanity post, we are still looking for a new faucet. I’m not ready to spend $80 on one, so what’s there will work for now. I’m hoping to maybe fnd one for under $50. Either way, we are still waaaay underbudget.

We did get Home Depot’s generous Veteran’s Discount of 10% off all the purchases! Pretty great since that basically cuts out tax- (not really but it feels like it).

I just can’t believe that for so little money, how different and great it looks! And I’m sure my parents were happy to save $110+ on our gift! (wink wink I could use some new clothes). 

See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. 

Master Bath Renovation: Part 4 (mirror)

It is unbelievable to me that in all the “before” pictures, I never took one of the mirror. Close your eyes and imagine a BIG, shiny, reflective, untrimmed mirror held up with little plastic clips.

But what we found behind it was truly the biggest shocker of the whole renovation (besides the old nasty carpet pieces we found):

When we took the mirror off the wall we got quite a surprise: a huge hole that used to house a medicine cabinet.

This was a huge speed bump because we were planning to use Liquid Nails Mirror Adhesive to attach the mirror to the wall. We did have a secondary support system in mind (small nails around the perimeter of the mirror) just for double protection from the mirror falling off the wall. But this huge hole creates that much less space to put the mirror adhesive. Time for some improvising!

Josh ended up patching the hole with some 2×4′s cut to fit in the hole. The other side of the mirror wall is my closet, so we attached the 2x4s with screws from that wall. Surprisingly, I took no pictures of this procedure. I guess since we were winging it, we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best!

The 2×4′s worked quite well. We attached the mirror to the wall using liquid nails for mirrors and left it to set for 3-4 days. While it was setting, we did re-install the ugly mirror clips to have “extra” protection from the mirror crashing off the wall. Also the mirror was not centered to the wall, or to the vanity (complete head scratcher to us too). Only thing we can think is they went for the studs and centered the clips in the studs to the mirror. We ended up centering the mirror to the wall. If you REALLY look at it, it feels weird that it’s not centered to the vanity top, but the trim wouldn’t have fit on the right side if we centered the mirror to the vanity top. Since there are no before pictures, you are just going to have to go by my word!

We also nailed some finishing nails around the perimeter of the mirror which would be the permanent secondary support system that the trim would cover. As we held our breath, and simultaneously crossed our fingers- we unscrewed the mirror clips and hoped for the best. Thankfully there was no mirror crashing down incident! The mirror held and it was time for trim!

Tidus, a dog we gave away earlier last year had chewed some trim in the laundry room:

This trim needed to be replaced ASAP so we used the top of the chewed trim as the side pieces around the mirror.

We measured, cut, and nailed the new trim in place. <—– makes the whole process seem painless, but in reality 2 drill bits bit the dust, I chipped the mirror (to the tune of a small crack- that magically disappeared 2 hours later…. still not sure what to think about that), and spilled brown paint on a white rug while touching up the vanity… all in a matter of 10 minutes. Frustrated is too small a word to use for how I felt. But with the magicallydisappearingmirrorcrack a few hours later, things improved tremendously and we were able to finish.

Loving this new mirror trim- but during the whole process I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about tearing the whole thing down and buying an already trimmed mirror!  All’s well that ends well.

I am painfully behind on painting as you can see in the pictures. The bottom half is completely done (trim and all) but up by the ceiling is just slow going. Plus painting paneling is a pain! <— holy alliteration.

Stay tuned for post 5 that will show how much it all cost! We came in under $200- just for a spoiler.

Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Master Bath Renovation: Part 3 (paint)

(just in case you missed part 1 and part 2)


It’s back again…. my beloved ORB (oil rubbed bronze spray paint). We have already painted our entire patio set with it, and the color is just so beautiful that I wanted to do all the hardware in the bathroom with it. Outside they went for a coat of primer and 2 coats of ORB. 2-3 days of drying and they are back in place beautifully!  I absolutely love the color with the wall color too!

I’m not opposed to buying new fixtures (toilet paper, towel rack), but I thought before we threw these away, that we would add new life to them and see how long they hold up.

Speaking of wall color-  I found it on pinterest (and young house love) of course! I seriously can’t believe I chose a paint color without actually testing it first. I wanted a gray (not blue) that would stand out against white trim. The color we have in there now came with the house and is actually the paint color throughout the rest of the house (master, hallway, living room, and dining room). It’s a great neutral “China Doll” by Sherwin Williams, but I have always felt like it’s just too light. Although dark colors “close in small spaces,” I feel like light colors get lost in a room. So the gray was perfect. It’s called “Gray Horse” by Benjamin Moore, but I had it color matched at HD.  I actually got really nervous at the paint counter because when she opened it to show me, it looked white… I was bummed and thought “oh well, I’ll see how it looks at home.” I put a test strip up on the wall and it was PERFECT. EEEK.

The trim got a coat of white which I swear adds new life to the whole room. I never realized how much fresh white trim is just so crisp and gorgeous.

And speaking of trim- Our mirror project isn’t quite done, which was my project to post about tomorrow… oh well. It’ll be ready is due time. We hit a speed bump when we took the mirror off the wall, only to discover a huge hole from where a medicine cabinet used to be… it caught us totally off guard and sidelined our project a few days while we patched up the hole.

The good news is it was the only speed bump (so far)! We wanted to add trim around the mirror but had those annoying mirror clips to work around-

We wanted to get rid of the mirror clips, so when we took the mirror down, we put Liquid Nails for mirrors all over the back of it. Liquid nails can’t be used alone for something that heavy, so we hammered nails all the way around the mirror to hopefully give it a second form of backup. We did reinstall the mirror clips for 3 days to let the Liquid Nails set, and pushed on the mirror every so ofen to make sure it was sticking.

So far so good (and its been up over a week):

I will post later about how we put up the trim (we actually ripped it out from another part of the house) and how we had to center the mirror (it was totally off center).

It’s amazing how LITTLE time I have around the house during the work week! I guess I just have to re-adjust to being out all day. I ususally have some energy to do a project or two a night, but the past 2 days have been exhausting and I haven’t been able to do anything (besides make a huge mess with the Christmas decoration storage)! Oh well.

Master Bath Renovation: Part 2 (floor)

While we were deciding whether we wanted to get a completely new vanity or if we wanted to build our own, we knew the floor would be going regardless. 4 years of hairspray build up had created a sticky, tacky layer on the floor (and it didn’t matter how much I cleaned it, it was still there).

Although ceramic tile was my #1 choice, the logistics just didn’t add up. We would have to look into a different sub floor, take up the molding, work in a TINY area with alot of cuts… get a wet saw, grout, spacers… it just wasn’t something we wanted were ready to conquer.

We decided on vinyl stick down tile. A.) because we aren’t going to be here forever B.) because it was easy C.) I guess this goes along with B, but all we had to take up was the quarter-round (not the thicker molding around floor). After the vanity was out we started ripping up the sheet of vinyl. We did have to take the toilet out to get the old vinyl out (and if you have never experienced it before, it’s pretty romantic to have a toilet sitting in your master bedroom for 2 days :/).

Also when we ripped up the floor we found not one but TWO types/pieces of CARPET that used to be in the bathroom. I know it used to be stylish to have carpet in the bathroom, but that’s like a 15 (out of 10) on my ick factor. I just feel like carpet holds dirt and bathroom dirt is not something I want around!

Prepping the subfloor was pretty easy-  We scraped up the old glue, sanded the rough spots, made sure all the dust was up, and primed the floor with Kilz primer. It covered some nasty spots and left us with a perfectly prepped surface for the tile.  I had to find the center of the room and then worked on the quadrants from there. (I feel like this picture shows how truly TINY this space is! If  had to guess it’s around 20 sq feet.)

The tile went down easily- the directions were practically self explanatory. There were arrows on the back of the tile (see the above picture to the left of my left leg) that had to add face the same way. And I had to be sure that any “seen” edges were the original edges (not what I cut) so they could fit together perfectly. To fit in corners and around the door I had to cut the tile with a razor blade. That was the most tedious part. I am totally NOT a spacial/visual person, so there were a couple tiles I cut wrong… but the majority of cuts were easy! You peel off the paper and stick it down like a sticker.

So after reinstalling the quarter round, touching up nail holes, repainting the trim, and reinstalling the toilet (with a new wax seal of course) the floor is DUN-ZO! We also caulked around the door opening where there is no moulding. I seriously LOVE caulk. It covers so much and makes things look so much better!

Part 1 was updating the vanity. See it here. 

Master Bath Renovation: Part 1 (vanity)

Let me start by saying I am SO glad it is done!

When we moved in, we knew we wanted to do something about the bathroom configuration in our house. How it is now, We have a full bath in the hallway and a half bath in the master. Alot of ideas went through our heads about knocking out some closets, and creating a huge master bath complete with a separate tub/shower. The hall bath would turn in to a .75 bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower (no tub). Then the economy tanked in 2007 and 2008. We reevaluated everything and decided it just wasn’t smart to sink a ton of money into a house that we know we won’t be in forever. Not to mention, we need to get out of debt and this would not have helped!

So we went to plan B… we evaluated what annoyed us the most about the master bathroom (besides the fact that it doesn’t have a shower)…. and the height/look of the vanity won. It was too narrow and too short for our preferences. The vanity measured 24 inches wide, right at 30 inches tall, and it had very limited storage.

Here it is on move in day:

Since move in day I have painted the back wall red and added a curtain:

Changed out the old light

and hung a gorgeous chandelier (and I have painted that ugly rim since taking this picture):

and tried to work it the best we could.

The obvious fix was to get a new vanity. My parents offered it as a Christmas gift so that got us looking pretty quickly because we didn’t want to turn down that offer! We measured the opening in the wall and it was 30 3/4 inches wide. Most vanities are 30 in wide, but then the granite top makes it 31+ inches. bummer. We did find a few at Lowes and Home Depot that would have worked, but none really jumped out at us (and that didn’t require notching the door trim because of the overhang of the top). The absolute CHEAPEST vanity we could find that we liked was $270. Ouch. That doesn’t include ANYTHING else (floor, paint, trim, etc).

We did more and more brainstorming, and I started pinterest-ing of course. We decided that the best thing for us would be to repurpose what we already had.

I came upon a few ideas and created the mental picture in my mind of what I hoped to accomplish. Basically I wanted him to build a “box” or stand to raise the vanity 4 or so inches.The vanity top was in great shape so we really wanted to keep as much as we could by adding here and taking away there. Our ultimate goal was to change the color of the vanity, and make it look more built in- like it was meant to be there, not just dropped into place like it used to look. Fortunately I am married to practically a master carpenter who isn’t afraid of power tools. He was actually thrilled to be able to use some tools that he doesn’t typically get to use.

On the old vanity I didn’t like how the base of it leaned in. I wanted that gone. This is such a tight space and I couldn’t get a good angle for a picture. But take my word for it, it angled in…

I also didn’t like the color. I call it builder’s grade oak. ick. Nothing about the color of oak appeals to me- ever.

We primed everything that we wanted to paint. I used a spray primer in gray. It leaves a smooth finish, I didn’t have to worry about drips, and it dried really fast.

I let the primer to set for a few hours and then started painting. I used a quart of Martha Stewart semi-gloss (only because it was on sale) in “Deep Cavern” by Behr (Home Depot color matched it for me). I used a small foam roller to apply 2 coats of the semi-gloss. I did the initial coat, and then let that fully dry- then I did a second coat, and then touchups. The foam roller puts a beautiful finish on it (without a bunch of brush marks). I did use a brush in the cracks and crevices, but most of it was rolled on.

Next came the glaze. Once again Martha Stewart came through. I found the glaze in the same area I bought the crackle paint for my magnetic make-up holder. It is called Black Coffee and it is a delicious brownish bronzey glaze that adds depth to the paint. I applied this with a practically dry brush. Once the vanity was placed in the bathroom, the natural light showed some places that I needed to go over with the glaze. It turned out 10 times better than expected and I love it!

Josh also replaced all the pipes under the sink. They were old, outdated, and ready to be changed. Plus when we raised the vanity 4 inches, we needed longer pipes. He did all that and even added tile underneath to match the new floor!

Storage space was lacking in the old vanity so that was one thing we made sure to include. The shelves to the left of the vanity are custom built to fit a paper towel roll and toilet paper perfectly (I use papertowels when I scrunch my hair- totally un eco-friendly: I know). The top shelf is tall enough to hold my tall bottles that won’t fit in drawers (lotions, hairspray).

Inside the vanity he added a small shelf to hold another bin. I wanted it to be “fun” under here since there aren’t many places in my house where I can use pink and lime green!! This is also a really great picture of the glaze!

Here it is all put together! Love the new look! I actually look forward to getting ready in here…

We are planning on updating the faucet eventually to an black/bronze finish- but we just haven’t found one we love! Thankfully the old one is fully functional and will stay put until we fall in love with one.

Thanks mom and dad for funding this project! And to give a sneak peek to Friday’s post we came in $100 under the price of a new vanity (including new floors, paint, storage, etc.).

So that’s it! Parts 2-5 are coming! Part 2 is the floor, part 3 is the paint, part 4 is the mirror, and part 5 is the cost breakdown (’cause boy did we save alot of moolah!)

EDIT: I've done an update a year later about how the vanity is holding up! Check it out here.