Bathroom Inspiration: Grey, white, black, and green.

After seeing what we've been up to in the bathroom, I thought I'd share a glimpse of the sort of style I've settled on.

All images via Decor Pad










Grays, whites, smokey greens, rich dark woods, and a hint of black.
Classy, yet tranquil.

I can't wait to get to the decorating part!

Bathroom Update: It's coming along.

As our bathroom project starts to show a little light at the end of the tunnel, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into what we are working with.

We updated our vanity with a new double sink and I have started painting the vanity gray, but I'm still deciding if I want to distress it or not. Part of me craves old, gray, distressed pieces like those made by Holly at "In the Fun Lane"... but part of me likes the clean look of just the gray...

I guess you'll have to wait and see!

We have hit quite a few snags along the way and have seriously blown through our $1,200 budget. We have literally lost track of spending (big no-no in the renovation world, but it happens!), but we know we will still finish for under $2,000, which in the bathroom world is DIRT cheap. Especially when you consider the average DIY bathroom remodel costs $9,720 with a 81% return rate... so, we aren't too bad right?!

Here's one of the snags: The Fan.


We purchased a simple $30 fan for the bathroom and Brandon planned on running the wires and installing a double switch by the light. I have no idea how he figures out how to do everything, but he is strangely good at it... However, this time it wasn't going to work. He came down out of the attic and explained he can't run the wires down the same wall as the light switch. Bummer.

So, plan B: We decided to run the switch down a different wall near the toilet where it could be hidden in a shelf.

Seemed simple enough.

We decided that we would try to make the switch more at home by adding a light fixture over the shower with the wires running to the same switch. However, during our trip to Lowes we realized that we were going to end up spending a lot more money, time, and sweat to install two separate fixtures-- and then having it probably end up ugly. So, we took a little stroll down to the all in one fan/light section and picked out one we liked.

This little beauty was $78, but when you factor in the duct work, wiring, switches (we put ours on a timer so it will turn off automatically), it ends up over $100.


We are really happy with the second light, and the fan is SUPER quiet... but the timer ticks very loudly-- something to think about if you are in the same boat.

A few other budget busting areas:

1.) Hidden plumbing costs.
Under the sink alone added a good $100 in plumbing to our budget, even doing it ourselves.

2.) Caulk, mortar, grout, spare tools, tape, etc.
It adds up. Plan for these annoying little expenses!

3.) Doors.
We thought about this ahead of time, but keep forgetting about it and then realizing "Oh wait, we need new doors in here!"

4.) Fixing preexisting problems.
In the photo above with the fan you will notice we scraped paint off the freshly painted walls.. That's because someone before did such a poor job puttying that we have to literally scrape and re-texture the wall to do it right. We also hit a lot of snags with the paint they used for the trim in our home-- it peels off by hand and requires a lot of care to keep it from making a bigger mess while trying to fix it.

But when you stand back and see your first time bathroom remodel and it's coming along pretty well, you can't help but feel satisfied.

Merry Christmas

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!


After what seemed like endless shopping and baking, we were spoiled rotten with a new microwave for over our range, a new sewing machine for me --so I can finally finish my projects-- a Nintendo Wii, several Lowes gift cards (You KNOW we always need those), and lots of other wonderful goodies!We had an hour commute down to our families, went to four houses, and had to drive back in the rain, so it was a VERY long day, but we had a lot of fun too.

(This is us with my side of the family at my brother's house)

(and us with Brandon's family at his parent's home)



And my all-time-favorite little boy had some favorite gifts of his own...

A new tractor.

Trains.


and his favorite of all... an .89 cent can of olives...

Plus, my dad splurged to get my mom the iPad she wanted so badly.
It's needless to say she was excited.

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's That Time Again.

It's that time again. The time of year when the weather gets chilly, the malls get packed, students get stressed, and waitresses get busy--hence my absence.

We put up our decorations the second week in December, but I had been too busy to get them all up online for everyone. Just know that we appreciate your patience.

Here's a little mini-update from our world to yours of some of the things going on and some of the stuff I have forgotten to share:

1.) I start the master's program in less than 30 days and I'm kinda freaking out because they are all night classes-- something new to me. But I'm really excited at the possibility of that schedule forcing me to get a day-job. I'd love to have my weekends back. Seriously people, appreciate those who work while you have time off-- while we are at it, let's just appreciate everyone, okay? Good.

2.) I finally finished my physical therapy-- I don't know if I mentioned that on here, but I've been in therapy since November for a shoulder injury and finally feel back to normal (and I'll be hitting the gym again soon!)

3.) We've been working like crazy in that bathroom and realizing how quickly budgets get tossed out the window.

4.) We have a lot to share here on the blog (mostly bathroom progress), but that wont be until after Christmas-- We are REALLY trying to have it in working order when Garrett gets back Monday the 27th.

5.) Tis' the year for love. Our friend's Victoria and Blake just got engaged a few months back, and Brandon's little brother and his long-term girlfriend just got engaged on Wednesday. That brings the count to five weddings next year (not counting ours) that I can think of off hand!

6.) This rainy central-cali weather is flooding everyone back home. Brandon's parent's are pretty darn close to having a moat right now!

7.) I cut 9" off my hair--- a few weeks back--- told you I've forgotten to share a lot!

8.) We decided we are just going to win the lottery and quit our jobs so we can play around and do projects all the time... if only :-)

9.) I can't wait for spring cleaning and getting rid of a bunch of stuff. I might try to do the "Throw away 50 things challenge"

10.) Brandon and I could really go for a week of nothing to do but hang out together.









The view of our living room with our standard red, green, and gold tree.

Plus, a stocking for Brandon, Garrett, the kids, and me.



There are WAY more gifts now...



We want to know, are you losing your minds during the holidays? Or did you keep it simple to save your sanity?

It continues.

So, it continues.

Brandon picked up where we left off by tearing out the old, mildewy, drywall last weekend while I was at work. He was also making a huge drywall-dust mess at the same time... Then, last Saturday, we hung the hardie-backer before we got started on the tiling.

We decided to extend the tile up a little farther than before, but we didn't want to take it as high as the ceiling. After all, this is his first time tiling and we were going into it with caution.


He started laying the tiles and it was progressing pretty well....then I thought something looked a little "off".

This is when we started playing the game "Guess what's wrong"...

Can you find our mistake?


Did you find it?

Yep, there are three "bone" colored tiles in our white tiles... oops! Apparently when we bought our tile a few (about 20 to be exact) "bone" colored tiles made it into our cart. We stared at them side by side and they were hard to tell apart, but on the wall they stuck out like a sore thumb. Fortunately we caught it early enough to easily correct the mistake and then I had the lovely job of examining ALL the tile to make sure it wouldn't happen again.

But of course, I didn't check the soap dish. We bought it for $4.00 at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore along with two shelves and although they were labeled as "white", the soap dish was "bone". Back to Lowes.... frantically this time. We even joked about how much it would suck to be in the same situation at either of our parent's country homes where an "emergency" trip to Lowes would take at least forty-five minutes while we only have a tw0-minute drive down the street or so. And thank goodness because that mortar was drying QUICK!

We got a move back on and started progressing again. Little by little each night he was making his way.

Ready for another round of "Guess what's wrong"?

This one is a little more tricky... it's somewhat personal opinion, but look around the gray accent lines... do you see it?

We tried to align the accent lines as if they were part of the pattern, and by doing so it made the white tiles look as if they went off pattern. We stopped, stared, sulked, and then pulled off the two lines between the gray stripes. I scrubbed the mortar off the tiles as he prepped the wall to reapply the tiles in the opposite pattern. It still looks a little off, and Brandon admitted he probably should have positioned the accents at about a 1/3 distance so the grout lines would work out better, but it was too late to turn back. Thankfully, we will be using light colored gray grout and hopefully that will cover up some of the minor errors.

P.S. The gray tiles were some cheap scores from the ReStore again. Originally we were doing black and white, but then we found these tiles at 10 cents a piece for the lower and $1.00 a piece for the top and I couldn't turn down that deal! We wanted to do black, white, and gray, but when we put it all together we decided that just the gray was better.

Now for some more BIG decisions...

A BIG New Project!

That's right. We started a big new project!
(Please ignore the sleepy faces-- it was Black Friday!)

On the morning of Black Friday we got up at 4:30am and went to Lowes (every DIYer's dream right?!) and I must say, it was WAY better than Target that cold November morning. We went inside and most everyone was smiling, friendly, and it wasn't busy at all. For $156.00 we picked up a couple Christmas gifts, some dirt cheap poinsettias, two work platforms, and an air tool kit for Brandon's new air compressor.

Brandon had originally planned on going to the desert with his family, but when the weather got down to 19 degrees with 25 mph winds, they called it quits early and came home. That is when Brandon uttered the words he probably will regret the most this year, "So, now what am I going to do all weekend?". With a little over $2,000 cash saved up from my graduation, I knew exactly what we were going to do: THE DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM!

Never again will it look like this!

Fortunately his new air tool kit came with an air chisel that made it really quick and simple to pull up that hideous tile. He was done in about 30 minutes and it was my job to sweep.

Getting out the tub was a whole other story. Although it only took us about two and a half hours to demolish the whole bathroom, removing the tub was by far the most difficult. We cut apart out drywall, pulled, kicked, rocked, and wedged, but it kept catching. Finally, we realized we would have to ruin the tub to get it out (it was really pretty nasty anyway!). He hammered in the side just enough to make a crease and then used the arm from the floor jack as a lever to get it out.



We realized we had some new problems, such as replacing the drywall because it was covered in mildew, but we were still pretty optimistic that by Monday morning we would have a new shower/tub insert back in.

Then we waited until Saturday morning to sneak off to Home Depot to check out three piece tub/shower inserts since Lowes didn't have exactly what we were looking for. Let me stop here and say that we are big fans of blue over orange. I don't mean to bash all Home Depots, but it seems like here in the valley ALL Home Depots are notorious for terrible customer service-- but we were still optimisic.

We wound up spending an hour in Home Depot, getting several wrong answers about are questions surrounding three-piece inserts. We finally called it quits after waiting and waiting for an answer about an offer we saw for money off of a purchase of $500 or more. We just couldn't take it there, so we went back to Lowes.

At Lowes we changed our minds and realized we needed to toss the idea of a insert out the door. I was very excited because I wanted tile all along, but we wanted less maintenance since the shower is only used by our roommate, Garrett.

We wound up spending four hours in Lowes and recieved a ton of help from two different gentlemen; one in tile, one in bath.

We came home with a new double vanity top, a new faucet, new shower hardware, lots of plumbing, lots of tile, hardiebacker, and a new tub. After spending nearly $1,000 buying everything we needed we headed home. We unloaded and started to unwrap everything-- that's when things got complicated.

Our tub was cracked... back to Lowes... then Brandon came home with a second tub, cracked again. What the heck?! It is a very nice tub, but so poorly packaged, it was pathetic. For the third tub he opened the box in store-- cracked again.

Then we found it! The fourth tub was safe and sound! Plus, installation wasn't too complicated!


---and that is when we started having plumbing problems---



Stay tuned for more updates on our bathroom overhaul, but for now, we want to know about your bathroom renovation nightmares-- make us feel a little bit better about ours!

Birthday Week Re-cap

So, it's been a little quiet here in blog world for the last week or so.

But trust me, it's going to get really fun around here!


It all started with my birthday week.

As a "Turkey Baby", my birthday occasionally falls on Thanksgiving (such as this year) and I always try to extend my birthday to last the entire week. This year, it started off with a shopping trip with my mom on Monday, followed by a "Pre-Thanksgiving dinner" with friends on Wednesday, and then on Thanksgiving day I worked a 8 hour shift of total mayhem (really people? Who goes out on Thanksgiving?!). Thankfully, I was off right about seven o'clock on my birthday and I pulled into the drive right behind my parents and we enjoyed a very simple homemade turkey dinner with just the four of us.


It was Brandon's first time ever making a turkey and he loves using his smoker that he built in this post, so I figured he'd love being in charge of making the most important part of our meal. He started off by thawing out the turkey we so kindly named "Garfunkel" and we pulled out all his guts (we apologized the whole time of course!). Then, he soaked him overnight in our chilly garage in a mixture of hot water, apple cider, salts, and a ton of spices/seasonings. Then, after soaking overnight, he stuffed Garfunkel with apples and then strategically placed some lemons under his skin. This is when "Garfunkel" became "Gertrude".



I have to say, Gertrude was THE BEST tasting turkey I have ever had. So flavorful, so moist, so mmmmmm.... I think I need to get some leftovers...


Stay tuned for what we did on Black Friday and how my birthday week sparked a new project that has been long overdue!