A Snow Day!

First I would like to apologize for the extreme tardiness of my last post. Life gets in the way sometimes and I get easily distracted. I started writing that post back in the beginning of November! Sheesh. But we can just glaze over that and pretend it never happened.

As I am sure many of you have seen that the state of Washington, particularly the region around the Sound has been a pretty popular news topic. Mother Nature decided to have a snow party in our area and has been dumping snow on us this week. And when I say dumping, I really mean it! We have had 8 inches or so fall in just one day!
Needless to say this has all been quite the adventure. I had my first experience driving in ice early Monday morning and then my first experience driving in snow later in the same day! It was so weird and a little bit scary. Thankfully I don't have too many places to go and I feel like I am a pretty safe and observant driver.

Since Jeff and his friend Jason had been staying with us since last Wednesday (Jeff is now a permanent resident) I decided I would take them out to breakfast on the last full day here. We made the trek out to Denny's in what seemed like a blizzard of snow to me.
It was crazy and fun all at the same time. I still can't get over how weird everything looks all covered in snow!

On Tuesday Glenn ended up taking a snow day because the streets looked pretty gross and not safe to drive on and he worked from home. It was nice getting to have him home all day, even if he did have to work!
Wednesday morning we awoke to an amazing amount of snow outside. It was piled everywhere! Glenn took another snow day, but this time he just took the day off. I called in to work and I was told not to come in today and to enjoy the snow. How fun! I've never had a snow day before!
Jeff and I decided to brave the snow and get donuts. It was pretty funny crunching around in the snow. We saw some people go by with cross country skis and some with snow shoes! You can see how deep the snow if you look at where Jeff's feet are supposed to be! Later in the day though, we were getting a bit stir crazy. Normally we are perfectly fine not going anywhere, but just knowing that we actually could not leave the house gave us a little cabin fever.
Today (Thursday) was supposed to be a little bit better but the streets still looked pretty bad. Despite the worst of the snow having passed the next stage was here in full force. Ice everywhere. All the piles of snow were solidifying and icicles were forming everywhere.
Even the plants were covered in ice, some shrubs even being frozen solid! My work called me around noon and told me that my shift for the evening was canceled and to stay home. I'm not complaining.
Glenn ended up working at home again today as well. Around lunch time we just HAD to get out of the house so we all suited up and made our way over to Southern Kitchen for a delicious and filling lunch of catfish and fried chicken. YUM!
I should also mention that before we walked to Southern Kitchen we attempted to drive so we could get lunch and take Jeff to a credit union. Once our car made it off of our driveway and partially into the street we came to a definite halt. The tires whirred around to no avail. Jeff got out of the car while Glenn accelerated and steered us back into the garage. Guess we weren't going anywhere by car for awhile.
We've definitely been having a lot of fun experiencing all the crazy snow and learning how to deal with it now that we have a big ol' house to take care of. Things have certainly been interesting around here. And if you are wondering if I still like the weather around here, I have to answer with a resounding YES! This stuff doesn't happen everyday after all.

Our Biggest Undertaking

I'm not really sure where to begin when it comes to the story of how a single room in our house went from a semi demolished bathroom (when we first saw it when touring the house) to a very simply/cheaply finished bathroom (when we had the inspection) to a completely gutted bathroom (during the renovation) to a stunning one of a kind bathroom that truly represents who we are. There's a lot to tell in that story! I think the best way will be to break it down in a bit.

I will let this post act as a summary of my feelings from beginning to end. Hopefully I can get Glenn to detail his experience as well because he certainly had a much different experience than I did.

When we first saw the bathroom while touring the home it had a gross blue toilet, a sink (I'm not positive on that) and a gutted shower/tub area with the lath showing. The owner assured us that they would finish it if we were to buy the house. Ideally we would have rather them not finished the bathroom because we wanted to redo it anyway. It seemed such a shame for someone to spend time and money on something we would rip out. Unfortunately our loan required the bathroom to be finished in order for the house to qualify. The bathroom got finished. On the cheap.

During our inspection the inspector noted that there was basically no water pressure but that he wasn't sure what the reason for it was. Glenn was almost certain that it had something to do with the mixing cartridge and I was certain that this was all way over my head. Just a short time later and the house was ours and we would eventually start thinking about what we wanted to do to the bathroom. And then it sat.

Fast forward to the middle of August and you will find Glenn ripping out the shower. A week or so later Glenn pulled the sink out and I finished pulling up the sheet laminate flooring. We also got Freyja at that time :o) Not much longer after that, Glenn pulled out the toilet, much to my disgust. We stuck all the fixtures in the atrium and attempted to get rid of them via Craigslist, which we did. At this point we had found ourselves relegated to using the downstairs bathroom only. It was annoying, but it was doable.

If I'm completely honest with myself, I can't really recall a whole lot of what happened while doing the bathroom and in what order things happened. It seems like such a blur, and really it was. Once our friend Ashley informed us she would be visiting we had a deadline. The bathroom simply HAD to be finished by October 13. With maybe a month to go we kicked it into high gear.
We ordered a beautiful acrylic claw foot slipper tub online (SCARY!) and began a relentless search for the perfect piece of furniture to turn into a vanity.
On one fateful weekend Glenn lined up a handful of yard sales for us to visit and we began searching. We had no idea what we were looking for, but we were positive that we would know it when we laid eyes on it. Thanks to Glenn's hard work and persistence we found exactly what we were looking for and to this day we still don't know what to call it. I later finished the vanity with a good coating of polyurethane to give it some durability.

Next on the list was to find a sink and a faucet to go on top of the previously mentioned vanity. We found a nice looking inexpensive faucet on Amazon and we got a nice vessel sink at Lowe's.
Lastly we needed to find a toilet. We were pretty adamant about getting a highly efficient dual flush toilet, but all the ones we had seen up to this point were pretty ugly and not as efficient as we would have liked. Finally we remembered a very cool place we had once visited in Seattle called EcoHaus. Sure enough, they had the most perfect toilet for us at more than half off! So basically we got the most efficient dual flush toilet commercially available for a steal.
Now we had everything we needed for the bathroom except for the flooring. At this time we were walking on plywood, but we weren't in there all that often. Again, we made a trip to the big blue home improvement store to find what we needed. They had cute little hex tiles that I just loved. Best of all, they came with a mesh backing, and if I have learned anything from Holmes on Homes it is that a mesh backed tile does not need to be "buttered" with thin set.
I feel like tiling should be a separate post, as this one is already pretty lengthy, so I will just finish with we bought the tile and we laid the tile.
My next task was to paint the walls. We chose a deep cobalt blue called Bottle Blue from the Eddie Bauer for Valspar collection. It really is a beautiful color that plays quite nicely with the rich warm wood tone and the bright white of everything else. Painting was a breeze.
Finally everything was getting installed! Somewhere in between we made a trip to Target and Bed Bath & Beyond to pick up some bathroom necessities like a shower curtain, bathmat, hand towels, and curtain hooks. The bathroom was really looking like a bathroom now! Not only is it functional, but oh my goodness is it beautiful!
On the last day of our deadline I ran to Lowe's, at this point we were extremely familiar with their employees, and picked up a big white framed mirror to go above the vanity. The previous bathroom had no mirror so we didn't realize that the lights were installed too low to allow the mirror to hang at a proper height. Being too exhausted too care and too happy with everything else to worry about it, we hung the mirror as high as we could and called it complete.
The very last thing we did a few weeks later was reward ourselves, as promised, with white huge, luxurious, expensive, fluffy bath sheets that I had my eye on at Macy's. We only bought two because they were so expensive. We also splurged and bought some pretty luxurious guest towels (not sheets this time) so our guests can bathe happy too.
This has been a pretty long post for a pretty long and tiring project, but I think you get the idea. Until next time!

How I Lost My Mojo...But Made It Work Anyway

I would consider myself a pretty good painter. I've painted quite a few walls and developed techniques along the way. I've painted walls every color from primer white to glossy black. I'm not afraid of color in the least and in fact embrace it.
When we first bought the house, the downstairs bathroom was a lovely shade of poop brown. According to my rule book, two colors should never be painted in bathrooms - brown and yellow. I don't think I need to explain why, those are just my rules. Anyway, I had been wanting to get rid of that gross brown for quite a while but the right color never seemed to jump out at me, no matter how many paint swatches I stared at. Finally, after multiple paint samples for the dining room I found our color. Fuchsia!

As soon as the color was selected I knew where I wanted to take the rest of the room. Ideally I would be going all out glam and glitz, but that's not realistic since I live with a man. Not exactly fair. Anyway I decided that I wanted to keep everything black and white except for the crazy colored walls, that way nothing would be too overwhelming. We'll get back to all this good stuff, but we've got to get past the bad first.
Since the brown on the walls was such a dark color I knew it needed to be primed. When we were picking up paint for the dining room we also grabbed a can of primer. I have heard that this primer is an excellent quality primer so I was confident it would work just fine.
I put on two coats (this picture only shows one) and everything looked nice. I began painting the fuchsia and that is where my problems began. Despite putting on two solid coats of primer, patches of ugly brown were beginning to peek through in various spots. Some were worse than others.

This was not pretty and I was a bit upset. I continued on in hopes that a couple more coats would fix everything. It usually does, but not this time. Things were starting to look worse. It basically looked like a murder scene as Glenn so kindly pointed out when I hesitantly showed him my progress. I decided I needed to start over.
This time I was going to use a primer I had used a million times before and was comfortable using. We picked up a gallon at Lowe's and I got to work yet again. This time my primer practically refused to stick to the walls. It was like I had painted latex over oil based, which was certainly not the case. Now I was more than a bit upset. It left these hideous patchy spots all over with a really bizarre texture. Some spots even had gruesome looking drips when I came back to look at it 15 minutes later.

I lost it. I was at my wit's end and I broke down in tears. I didn't know what to do and I was literally sobbing on the bathroom floor like a child. It's embarrassing to admit that, but not only is it true, I feel like it is an important aspect to my story. I angrily stabbed out words on my computer begging for some sort of consolation from Glenn while he was at work. Unfortunately for me he was busy and was not about to deal with me being ridiculous. In fact, he thought it was funny. At this point I was fuming. In retrospect, this may be about the most absurd display of behavior I have ever exhibited.
After calming down and hours of Googling possible solutions I decided I would try oil-based primer. It supposedly works wonders and stinks to the high heavens. I had nothing to lose and what did it matter if I added yet another useless can of primer to my ever growing collection. As soon as I set the primer soaked roller to the wall my worries started to melt away. It covered like a dream and aside from the textural mistakes, the wall looked clean and new again. Two coats later and my bathroom was ready for it's lipstick.

Six or seven coats of pink paint in I learned a valuable lesson. Tinted primer is ALWAYS a good idea. I could get into the science of how the pigments work to reflect light and why you need a base of a certain color to get the truest final result, but I'm not going to. If you are doing a bold color, just be safe and get a gray tinted primer. I was quickly running out of paint and I realized that more layers of color were just not going to even out some of the lighter areas in the bathroom. I decided to just accept the bathroom for what it was and enjoy the fact that I have a pink room in my house and that I have a pretty incredible husband who is basically a saint for dealing with me through this awful month long process.
To tie everything together I began adding the details. I wanted a semi-masculine shower curtain to balance all the girly. I went with horizontal racing stripes.
To keep things a little bit glam I replaced the old shower curtain and rings with shiny chrome. At some point all the rest of the metals in the room will also be chrome.
I finally got to buy the rug I have been wanting for ages now. The fun zig zag pattern adds a bit of chaos and graphic pop.
We added a simple black framed mirror in place of the mirrored medicine cabinet.
To make up for the storage I removed we added an interesting chrome and glass shelf unit. The stuff sitting on it is not permanent. I'll be accessorizing more appropriately at a later time. I also bought some hanging ceramic pots to keep bathroom essentials in like Q-Tips and cotton balls.

That my friends, is how I lost my mojo. It certainly wasn't pretty and I certainly didn't enjoy it. There was a lesson to be learned and I have since taken it to heart. I didn't hesitate for one second in buying tinted primer for the dining room. I also learned that despite all of my frustration, I still love the color pink and I love my pink bathroom more and more every day.

Vacancy

As I am sure I mentioned before, our guest room has also been completed in my absence from blogging. I think that the end result, while pretty minimalistic for the time being, is quite beautiful. It is also a bit of a departure from our usual style.

While preparing to tackle this project I thought for a long and hard time about what direction I wanted to go. The main thing was that I wanted it to be clean and comfortable for our guests and I also wanted it to feel cozy and relaxing. Our typical style is not exactly cozy and relaxing looking since we tend to lean towards bright or cool colors and more modern-type design. We just needed to be creative.
It took us (me) a really long time to settle on a color to paint the walls because I really wanted to let the bedding dictate the style. I didn't want to find a color I loved and then never be able to find bedding for it. That would suck. On one of our many, many trips to Target we found a bedding set (complete with decorative pillows!) that we both really liked. I pored over my hundreds of paint swatches I chose a few colors to get samples of. Turns out all of them were terrible. At least at this point we had a direction and were able to choose new colors based on what we didn't like about the previous choices. I picked two more and off to Lowe's again. Since I always check the "oops section" I also found a 50 cent no name paint sample in a similar shade of yellow and grabbed that as well.
I slapped all of the samples up on the wall and sure enough, we decided on the sample with no name. Surely it could be color matched just fine. We took it in to Lowe's, where the paint guy probably dreads seeing me, and handed over the sample to get matched. I came back about 20 minutes later and see the paint guy shaking his head and muttering. Things must not have been going well for him. I wandered back to where Glenn was in the plumbing section and waited for him to finish up before going back to the paint area. When we returned to the paint section the guy set our gallon on the counter with an exasperated look and told us that it took him three tries to get the color close enough. It wasn't exact, but I liked it and I wasn't about to make him do it again so I thanked him and we were off. Then the walls got painted.
A while back we made a visit to JC Penney and purchase a mattress set at an AMAZING deal. Seriously, we saved almost twice what we paid because the mattress was being discontinued. We got the mattress set delivered only to find out that the box spring would not fit up the stairs. We decided our best option was just to refuse delivery of the box spring, get our money back, and find a different option. The mattress was just fine though. Since there is this hilariously cheesy looking place that we pass by quite often called The Mattress Ranch we decided to give it a shot and see what they recommended. Lucky for us they had a couple of cool guys working who were more interested in being honest with us than trying to sell us something more expensive. They showed us a bed frame that basically had a box spring built in and it was very cheap and compact enough to fit in our car. Deal! Little did we know that it would take about 2-3 hours between the two of us to set it up.
The next step was a headboard. The wall that the bed is up against is actually sloped so we had a fairly tight space to work within. It couldn't be any taller than 47" which ruled out a lot of headboards that I really liked. On top of that, everything was just so expensive! I wanted to keep this room budget-friendly - after all we were working on a complete bathroom renovation at the same time - so it was time to think outside of the box. On one of our countless trips to Lowe's Glenn mentioned using a piece of fencing as a headboard. I was definitely intrigued. The particular piece we looked at also happens to be similar to my dream fencing for the outside. The horizontal/semi-irregular spacing of the slats made it interesting looking but simple. A pass with the sander and a coat of stain and poly in one and we were golden! Glenn installed the headboard to the frame because I am a weenie.
As for finishing touches to the room it's still pretty simple at this point. The main goal was just to make it comfortable and functional for the time being. We added an inexpensive rug to the end of the bed that we bought at IKEA to keep things cozy.
We bought my favorite sheets from Target (organic cotton in a beautiful shimmery gold color - so soft).
We installed a more attractive roman shade to cover the hideous blinds for now.
I also added a couple of hooks inside the closet that actually allow hangers to fit inside that tiny space!

I still have a lot more that I would like to do in this room to really personalize it and give it some character, but that is all for another day after we have completed other things that are a little higher on our priority list. But for now, I love the room and I think it looks beautiful. In case anyone is looking, there is an availability for guests right now! :o)

Time For Some Dining Room Action!

Things have finally, FINALLY settled down here. We had our first house guest a couple weeks ago and finished our second MAJOR project shortly before that. There will be a series of blog posts about our major project a little later, but for now I thought I would share with you our beautiful dining room.

I think it is safe to say that every decision made about the direction our dining room would be going was heavily influenced by the furniture in it. Glenn and I fell in love with our table quite a while ago and even more so now that it actually lives in our house. On a trip to Oly we found another piece we couldn't live without and it complements the table perfectly. You can see pictures of the buffet table HERE and the dining room table HERE in case you haven't seen them yet. In any event, both pieces of furniture are Mid-Century Modern and we felt like they needed just the right wall color and lighting to accentuate them just right while still staying true to our own style. If you were to ask me what our style is, I would have no clue what to tell you. :o)
As far as paint color went, Glenn and I were pretty opposite. He wanted something complementary to our table. Something warm and rich was the direction he seemed to be heading. I wanted something entirely different. I wanted a rich saturated hue that contrasted with the table. I was looking opposite the color wheel while Glenn was looking adjacent. I can tell you one thing about differing opinions when it comes to wall color though. Show a man enough paint chips and he will let you pick whatever color you choose.
My main inspiration came from the above photo. I loved how bold it was but somehow not overwhelming and cozy feeling.
I ran with that idea and picked a couple paint colors I thought looked similar. We also grabbed a fuchsia sample and a deep purple gray sample. Yes, you did read that right about the fuchsia. It was actually considered.

Obviously, a lot of thought went into choosing color. Of course none of them were right though. Since I had purchased a Groupon to a local paint store in Tacoma we thought that now was as good a time as ever to check them out and hopefully find a good color. We flipped through the fan decks and I landed on a color. I knew it had to be it. Tropical Surf. We took it right up to the counter to get mixed. The guy at the counter suggested we take it outside to see if we liked it in that light as well but we had decided already. As soon as we got it home I started getting nervous that it was not going to be good. And so it sat for 2 months.

I should insert my horrible nightmare of a painting situation here, but that is for another post. I'll update this one and link it when I write it. Essentially, I lost my painting mojo. I have never felt so defeated in my life. Painting one more wall was out of my reach and apparently beyond the scope of my abilities. That is why the paint sat untouched for 2 months. Finally enough was enough and I tackled the dining room. I was determined that things would work out just fine. I got an appropriate gray primer and covered those nasty red walls.
Things went very smoothly while I primed. I felt instantly better about my painting abilities. The first coat got nearly all the red covered. The second coat flew by. I actually liked the color of the primer and thought it looked nice! As soon as I had the green light for color I pried that first can open and my eyes bulged a little. I was still a bit scared of the color. It was really intense in the can, so surely it would be more intense on four walls! I was nervous. The second I rolled the color on the wall all of my worries disappeared. Not only was the wall color stunning, but it was the exact color I had been picturing in my head. I was in love. I finished painting within the day.
I am thrilled with how the dining room turned out. The color is amazing and looks wonderful in contrast with the wood tones of the table and buffet table. Even more exciting is that our awesome Seattle World's Fair artwork that we had custom framed just comes to life in there. The colors couldn't have worked more perfectly. As soon as we have a good idea of where we want to hang it in there we will put that bad boy up on the walls.
I also can't forget to mention our awesome new lighting. While we were perusing Posh Home on 6th Ave (one of my very favorite stores) an interesting light installment caught our eye. Hanging from a suspended ceiling was a random grouping of light bulbs on cords. It looked really cool but needed some fine tuning. We were certain we could create the look ourselves with a little more polish. We gathered our supplies at IKEA and Glenn got to work. Getting the lights up was the easy part, but trying to figure out how to cover the ugly electrical box wasn't so simple.
After some intense brainstorming and searching I grabbed a tissue paper cover at Target and thought it might work. Sure enough, it did. Well, almost. The first configuration we came up with for the lights wasn't working for us. We wanted something a little more streamlined. Unfortunately the cords were so long it made things difficult on Glenn. He tried stuffing them in the tissue holder the best he could but he couldn't quite get things to stay. I'm not sure what he did, but it is up there now. It still needs a little fine tuning and camouflage to be truly perfect, but we are very happy with it now. I'll see if I can't get Glenn to do a more detailed post on the lighting. After all, he did most of the work!
So there you have it! We have a fully functional dining room that doesn't disgust me! Clearly it isn't fully furnished and accessorized but it is getting there and it makes me happy just to walk by it now. That's the way I want every room to feel. I should feel happy looking at it, just knowing that it is turning out exactly the way I hoped.

It's Been A While

It's been well over a month since the last blog post, and I apologize for that. Since we got Freyja and decided to go full steam ahead with the house renovations, we have been very very busy. I won't have any pictures for this post but I will give a basic run through of everything we have been up to lately. It is my intention to write some more detailed/picture filled posts of our projects when I have some time, but we will see about that.

I finally finished the downstairs bathroom. It took 3 different kinds of primer and 329 coats of pink paint. Well, not really that many coats, but given the length of time it took to complete and the general never-endingness of it all I would say that number at least feels accurate. It was nothing short of an epic painting disaster that just about destroyed every last ounce of painting mojo and confidence that I had. Not fun. Now I am just slowly working on "finishing" the room with accents and flourishes here and there.

We finally ordered our new bathtub for upstairs! It was pretty nerve-wracking (at least for me) to be spending a big chunk of change on something we only saw pictures of online. When it came though, I couldn't have been happier. It is B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L! Glenn has done most of the gutting on the bathroom. I did help a little bit by removing a lot of the previous vinyl tiles. Ugh. So tacky. Now we have a chunk of floor missing, pipes exposed, a new tub, yet we still have that disgusting blue toilet. Glenn has been working pretty tirelessly (literally every free minute he has from the time he gets home until the time he goes to bed) and it definitely shows. We are hoping to have it done in a couple weeks, but we will see.

After 6 sample cans I finally chose a color for the guest bedroom. It happened to be an "oops" sample that was mistakenly tinted so I got it for 50 cents. Go figure. The poor guy at Lowe's had to color match it and it took him 3 tries before it looked right. I started edging the room and I plan on finishing it tomorrow. Our friend Ashley will be visiting us in about 2 weeks and she is staying with us so I need to get the room done pronto!

We purchased a piece of fencing from Lowe's that Glenn suggested would make a good headboard. We bought some stain and sandpaper and transformed it into something custom and beautiful. I think it will look really cool in the guest bedroom. Since the wall that the bed will be against is slanted the dimensions were really difficult and constraining but this fence was perfect! I am excited to see it all come together.

I finished painting the dining room and it looks stunning. I am SO IN LOVE with it! We had the hardest time picking out a paint color for this room. Glenn wanted something warmer that coordinated with the wood, but I really wanted high contrast. Since Glenn loves me so much and was probably tired of me showing him pictures of paint colors I liked online, we went with my inclinations. I had a very specific shade of teal in mind that was very difficult to pinpoint. I have a slew of paint swatches but nothing ever looked right. Finally we went to our local paint store, Parker Paint (I had a Groupon) and chose a color on the spot. Now that the walls are fully saturated in this gorgeous hue, I knew we got the color in my head spot-on. It looks absolutely amazing in contrast with our beautiful midcentury modern furniture. I can't wait to see what the room will look like when it is truly done and fully accessorized. As a side note, I think our awesome Seattle World's Fair art piece will be living in the dining room. It really comes to life and pops against the walls.

That pretty much sums up our projects for now. It's been a lot of grunt work for Glenn and painting, painting, and more painting for me. It's exciting watching things progress quickly but it sure is exhausting. On a different note, Freyja is doing wonderfully. Both she and Rally get along fantastically and they love to play together. Potty training sucks. She has found a green rug in the kitchen that she seems to think is her pee patch and she goes there when we aren't looking. Ugh. Other than that she is 3 weeks away from her last round of shots and she will be ready to brave the world on her own feet and not in her Momma's arms. I can't wait to take both dogs to the dog park. It will be fun. She is also growing well and is quite healthy and active. When we first got her she was 7 weeks old and weighed 2.2 pounds. Now she is almost 13 weeks old and over 10 pounds.

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the cooler weather. I know I am! Call me a weirdo but the season change here along with the rain and requisite jacket in the morning makes me happy. I love the fog, the mist, and the rain!