House Renovation - Bathrooms Before And After

I think today I’ll do a bathroom tour.  Our house has five, FIVE, bathrooms.  And before you go thinking how luxurious my life must be, I have to remind you that all FIVE bathrooms need to be cleaned.  That’s 7 sinks, 5 toilets, 3 tubs, 4 showers, and all that tile flooring with the associated GROUT that my children have free rein to pee in, on, and around, as well as dropping and spitting toothpaste, mouthwash, boogers, and other worse things.  I despise cleaning tile flooring.  That is, I despise cleaning grout. But only slightly less, I detest scrubbing bathtubs and showers.  Toilets I don’t mind.  I know that seems weird.  But it’s the grout, the mildew in the corners of the grout, the unreachable spots in the tubs and showers that give me fits.  But enough about this sordid aspect of the topic.  Suffice it to say that cleaning five bathrooms blows.  Now...let’s move on to the transformations!

Bathroom 1:  I’ll start with the basement bath because it was so shockingly horrible before, and so lovely now.  We nick-named it “The StarTrek bathroom” when we bought the house because of the weird rounded shower enclosure and nooks.  It reminded us of something from the original 1960’s Star Trek TV show set.  

But we tore out every speck of that bathroom.  It has now made a successful leap into the 21^st century. And I give Big Daddy full credit for this one.  He picked out everything himself, from the tiles to the layout to the furnishings.  He wanted a spa feel since this is the guest bath, being closest to the guest bathroom.  And it turned out absolutely stunning, I think. 

Here, for dramatic effect, is the before and after shot...

 What do you think?

The House Is Done!!!

So...ahem...I'm embarrassed to realize that it hasn't been the 3 or 4 weeks I thought it had been since I last posted. Nope, it's been 3 MONTHS. Uh, sorry about that. So here's your update: 

We moved in June 1.

 The house isn't done.

 The house probably won't be done for a long time.

 The important things in the house are all done. The things which did not get done are just "frosting" not "toilets." In other words, the house is very functional and we can live without the things that didn't get done until such time as more money materializes out of thin air.

 The things that did not get done are: the garage doors (still bent up, 2 of 3 won't open), the bog (someday it will be a beautiful waterfall and pond), the landscaping (we did a little bit, but there's still 80% to be done), the loft (it's there and carpeted but no railing and no stairs/ladder), the spiral staircase (hindsight tells me we should have left it in and remodeled it, but instead it's just gone and will someday be replaced), the back deck (outside the master there used to be a patio but now it's a pile of rubble. Very attractive), the garage (the shiz-covered walls bear the last remaining signs of how nasty this house was before, floor still unstained), and the entire exterior (more on that in a minute). And there are a dozen or so loose ends such as missing closet doors, a range hood that's not vented, etc. I know it may seem like a lot didn't get done, but the list of what DID get done is even more impressive. So overall we feel like the house is in a good place and we are loving it.

We are not loving the new over-sized a/c bill to go with our new over-sized house.

We also didn't love the various plumbing issues that cropped up when the city's irrigation water main sprung a leak under our park strip or when my yard maintenance guy accidentally hooked the irrigation water pipe and culinary water pipe together causing, oh, about a million gallons of culinary water to dump down the irrigation pipe for a month. And no, that's not an exaggeration. When they guy came to my door to tell me our water usage was high, he didn't mention that it was literally ONE MILLION GALLONS high. I won't show you the bill that just came for that. I will give you 3,358.20 hints.  But let's keep this post positive.

Moving on to the awesome parts, I'm about to start doing a room by room before-and-after series. It won't be daily, but hopefully at least several times a week. Here's the first one....

House Exterior Before and After!

If you check it out, please leave a comment and tell me what you think!

Let There Be Light!

You'd think designing and decorating a house would be so much fun!  And for some people--people who are really decisive--it probably is.  But you know what?  A lot of the choices I've had to make for the house have been more stressful than fun!  For one thing, I'm not super in tune with my style.  That is to say, I know what I don't like.  But I don't always know what I DO like until I see it.   And I often have to see it in context to know if I like it.  And sometimes I like a couple of different things that are nothing alike--like I really like modern, but I also like antiques.  So then I'm confused!   I also worry about making a really important choice and not knowing if it's the right choice.  Trying to choose paint colors, for example, nearly gave me a nervous breakdown.  I was so sure I'd end up hating what I chose!  And carpet...what if it didn't end up matching the walls?  Or the furniture we need to put in there that we haven't even bought yet??  Even the tile...there were so many beautiful choices, but tile is so expensive that it took so much of the fun out of it.  And then there was the whole grout issue.... But now it's time to choose lighting, and I'm actually really enjoying it! For some reason these choices don't seem nearly so life and death.  And somehow I seem to be honed in on what I like more when it comes to lights. So here are some of the lights I've picked...

The first thing I chose, I actually picked last summer before I ever even found this house!  I was on the Parade of Homes tour in SLC and saw a house with the most lovely white kitchen.

 In it were these amazing aqua seeded-glass pendants.  I FELL. IN. LOVE!   I took several pictures just in case I ever needed them.  So flash forward a few months later when we discovered and bought Little Pink House III, and I found out I was going to be able to create my perfect white kitchen (just like the one in the picture); I knew I HAD to try to find those blue pendants!   So I searched and searched through pages of pendants on google and....I found them!  They were at Ballard Designs.  So as soon as they had a sale, I swooped in and bought 5: one for above the kitchen sink, one for above the window seat, and 3 for above the island.  And I've held onto them since December!  Finally they're installed.  And they're so lovely, don't you think??

The second light I chose, I also chose way back in December, though I just finally ordered it last week.  In fact, I think it was the first thing I actually decided to buy for the house.   When I saw this chandelier, I knew it would look stunning in my master closet.  So when it was due to arrive last week at the new house, I waited with baited breath.  Only I didn't see it the day it was supposed to arrive.  Or the next day.  The third day I was about to do a tracking search on it, but then I found it...installed in my office!  Whoops, I have no idea why the electrician thought it went there.  But it looked so nice, I let it stay and ordered another one for my closet.  

This is the light I got for most of the rest of the rooms in the house--this white linen drum light.  It looks more golden when turned on.  But you can see it below turned off, along with the vanity lights that will go in most of the bathrooms.




Here it is turned on.

This is a more flush mounted version of the drum light that goes in some of the more utilitarian areas, like the pantry and laundry room.

The guest bath has this ceiling light and this vanity sconce:

 And the outdoor lights are going to be these pewter lanterns.  (Did you know that at least 98% of all outdoor lights look like lanterns of some kind?  It's true!  Unless you want some really ultra-modern tube or something, lanterns are IT.)




Pippa's black and white bathroom got this girly crystal vanity light...


(From Lowe's mix-and-match collection.  You choose any bar you want with any light covers you want.  I love it!  Though I think it needs smaller light bulbs).


This will be the chandelier for the dining room.




And the giant brass chandelier in the entry that we took down will either be spray painted turquoise and put back up (if I have my way)  ...

or replaced with something else (If Big Daddy has his way).  Maybe something like this.  


But who wants to spend an extra $700-1000 on a chandelier??  Not me!

The rest of the lighting is all recessed lighting.  When we bought the house they were this awful yellowed plastic.  Now they're pure white.  I really wanted stainless steel cans but the lighting guy looked at me like I was asking him to build me a space ship to Neptune when I suggested that.  And even though I assured him that they do exist, when I came to the house one day, they were all put in....white.  So I guess I'm getting white!

We also had dusk-activated lights installed along the stairways and hallways for the kids at night.  I'm very exited about that since our current hallway lights are plug-in nightlights that always seem to go missing!  These lights are built in.  They are that blue-ish LED color, though, which I'm not in love with.  I'll have to see if they can change them out for normal warm light.  

Anyway, that is the lighting for the new house.  What do you think?

Wood Floors

Hello again!  So, the remodel is coming along really well.  For the most part.  One of my favorite developments of late is the hard wood floors.   Little Pink House III already had hardwood floors on the main floor.  You can see them best in this picture:

Kind of the ubiquitous (i.e. ugly) golden oak color of the 90's.  But, surprisingly, they were in pretty good shape (miraculous, really, considering the state of the rest of the house).  They weren't the trendy wide planks. Not even the mainstream medium planks; they were the traditional, even old-fashioned, skinny planks of red oak.  But they were not terribly scratched or dented.  And skinny red-oak planks are at least pretty classic.  So we decided to refinish them rather than rip them out and start over.

Our flooring guy, Josh, and his crew came over and patched some spots that had to be cut to fix pipes/vents, filled in holes from the previous island configuration, added wood to the office and new dining room, and removed hardwood from the old half of the enlarged family room (where we will put in carpet).  

Next we got to choose a stain.  Right now über dark floors are very a la mode.  (Meaning "of the fashion" not "with ice cream" in case you thought we were going to serve ice cream on them. :) (Although, now that I think of it, my floors are covered in ice cream often enough that you could use either meaning really).   So that was our first thought--VERY dark.  Espresso dark. But then we've also seen a few examples of floors done with a grey stain.  Sort of Cape Cod beach house looking.  It was intriguing.  And after every person we know with dark wood floors had told us that dark wood floors are of the devil (dirt-wise) we though maybe grey might be a better option.  Or a lighter brown.  Yes, indecisive is a good word for us.  So we had Josh paint us a bunch of swatches:

Immediately, we both decided we hated the grey.  It was very blue and brown.  Red Oak is a very grainy wood with a lot of light and dark variation.  And it seemed that the light spots turned very blue but the dark spots kept a lot of their brown.  And overall, instead of seeming beachy like it might on hickory or maple, it just looked hideous.

The two lighter brown stains were...blah.  Safe, practical, and super boring.  They look the same in this picture, but the one on the far left "spice brown" is more cool and the one 2nd to the right "dark walnut" is more red.   

The white glaze was thrown in on a whim.  And we both were immediately intrigued by it.  It also carried a sort of beach house look, but somehow more clean and modern.  And Josh The Floor Guy said that white is surprisingly good for floors in terms of not showing dirt. Probably the best of all of the colors, he said.  So that made us even more interested in the white.  But it also tended to look just a little bit unfinished. And we worried that people would wonder if we even had the floors stained.  We also wondered if we had the balls to carry off something that bold and unconventional.  Hmmm...it warranted some thought.

And then there was the black "Ebony".  Although we were both immediately drawn towards it because all the pictures in our minds and on our Houzz accounts had dark wood floors, it was VERY dark.   And very cool, not a warm espresso color.    And then there were all the horror stories about every speck of dust and every crumb of any kind standing out like dandruff on a priest.  So we just weren't sure.

A day or two later, Big Daddy had gone to lunch at a local favorite called The Dodo.  And as he looked down at their floors, he realized they were the exact size and type of wood as our floors, and the color was PERFECT.  So he snapped a picture, we sent it to Josh, and Josh made up a concoction all his own to produce a lighter warmer shade of brown than the Ebony, but darker and more dramatic than the medium browns.   With 2 parts Spice Brown and 1 part Ebony....




We saw the swatch and loved it.  It looked just right to us.  So we gave the go ahead.  And within a couple of days, our hardwood floors were done!   One thing to note, we also used a water-based clear coat, not polyurethane, because poly is quite yellow and we wanted to keep the color cool.  We also chose a high-gloss because we like shiny things! (And the water base is not nearly as glossy as polyurethane).

Behold!  Spiced Ebony!!
 

To be perfectly honest, we both expected it to be a bit darker.  So when we first saw the finished floors, we were like, "....um...?"  But the more we look at it, the more we like it.   It's light enough to be classic and timeless, but dark enough to be striking.  I can't wait to see how it looks with furniture!

And one surprise... 

WHITE!

We chickened out on doing the whole house, but we both liked the idea enough to do one room in it.  So Josh built in a threshold piece to divide the entry from the office and put on the white glaze.   And we love it!  Way more than I expected to.  In fact, now I kind of wish we'd done the whole house in it!  Ha!  Oh well.  I do love the color we chose.  And now I know that in some future world where I refinish or install wood floors again (NEVER), the white glaze is beautiful, and I don't need to be such a wuss!

This is the whitewash.  It looks kind of like natural, unfinished wood, but a bit cooler in color.  Love it!

Next up?  Carpet!

** I've added some pictures later, after the remodel was finished, at the request of some readers who wanted more pictures of the finished product.

If you stopped by, leave a comment!  I'd love to know what you think.

Pippa's Room

I finished Pippa's nursery a few days before she was born, but I never got a chance to post pictures. So I thought I'd do it now since my life is too hectic at the moment to do much of a real post.

This is how the nursery looked before:

World map on the wall, tan paint color, no valance, no style. It was our general purpose room--Big Daddy's closet, book case full of my travel mementos, extra boxes, ugly 2nd hand recliner, etc. So I had my work cut out for me, turning this into a girly nursery. I also didn't want to make it like Daphne's room, which is pink and green and yellow with flowers and butterflies. I wanted girly, but in a whole new way.

First came the beautiful bedding. It started with a swatch of fabric I saw online at a fancy (i.e. expensive) nursery design website. : It became the inspiration for Pippa's nursery. So I bought a few yards of that pricey fabric and then bought coordinating fabric from the local fabric store (i.e. WAY cheaper), handed it over to the capable hands of my seamstress mother, and this is how it turned out:

The birds and the polka dots became the theme of sorts for the rest of the decor.


Next I had Big Daddy print me a giant wall sticker. I got the idea for the tree from this picture I found online:
I made some changes and Big Daddy found some birds to put in the trees instead of the flowers.


Cute, huh? Pippa loves to stare up at the tree while she lies in bed.

By far the biggest project (for me, at least--the other big projects were done by everyone else!) was the alphabet wall. I saw the alphabet frames idea on a blog called Design Sponge. Hers looked like this:

So I spent a week or so collecting various sizes and shapes of frames from the local thrift stores.
I think I only spent bout $45 for all the frames! Then I took them all apart, ripped off the stands if they had them, cleaned the glass, and spray painted them. While they were drying, I measured the holes, found fonts online, and had Big Daddy print the inserts for me. Then I cut them down, put them in the frames, and laid them out on the floor so I could rearrange them 600 times. Finally, I put them on the wall. What do you think?


(Pippa absolutely LOVES to stare at the letters on the wall while I'm changing her diaper. The contrast of black and pale pink is so fascinating to her.)

Then I just had to add a few more touches. Once again, Mom came to the rescue and made a slip cover for the 2nd hand reclining rocker to match the trim on the bedding.


A lamp and some wall art finished it off. I still have one or two more things I want to add, but I felt good enough about the way things looked to put the baby in the nursery and not stress. I guess there were a few advantages to Pippa coming late.

This is the final product as it stands...

If I have a few spare hours over the summer, I may get the gumption up to paint the tan walls. The tan doesn't do anything for me. Maybe a pale blue? Or a soft yellow? Or maybe they'll end up staying tan because I'd rather be at the pool with my kids, working on MY tan. At any rate, there is a beautiful, one of a kind nursery where a modge-podge room used to be. Hooray!

Expecting The Unexpected

When Daphne started school, I wasn't expecting to cry. I did.

When Beck started school, I was expecting to cry. I didn't.

When I moved away from my old house, I was expecting to feel heartbroken. I'm not.

When we got our trampoline, I was expecting it to be a pain. It isn't.

When we got a house with no upstairs, I was expecting the house to feel strange. It doesn't.

I was expecting to hate having an open backyard that we share with the neighbors. I don't.

I was expecting having more space to be awesome. But not this awesome!

I expected our garage would be so full of stuff we wouldn't be able to park in it for months. It isn't. (One of us is parking in it already).

I expected having air conditioning to be nice and cool. I didn't expect the basement to feel like Antarctica.

I expected there to be more kids in our new neighborhood than the last one. There aren't.

I expected the general population at church to be much younger. It isn't.

I didn't expect the neighbors and ward to be friendly and nice. They are!

I expected having to drive the kids 10 minutes to school and back would drive me nuts. It doesn't.

I didn't expect there to be horses, cows and goats living across the street. There are.

I expected the hot tub we inherited at this house to go unused. It isn't.



There are lots of things about my life lately that have been other than I expected. But I was NEVER expecting this...

R.I.P. Yellow Couch

Our old house, the Little Pink House from two centuries ago that we lived in until last week, was quirky. Quirky in a lot of really cool ways. Like the way that there were brick chimneys going up through the middle of several rooms. No fireplaces, just chimneys. And the way that the ceilings slanted in the upstairs bedrooms. And the way that the super steep, formerly-attic stairs split into a T at the top of the landing forcing you to either go left or right.

The downside of the quirkiness was that the chimneys caused you to have to arrange your furniture in an odd way. The slanted ceilings meant you couldn't put anything taller than 3 feet against the side walls. And the T at the top of the stairs meant you couldn't bring up any large furniture that wasn't as flexible as macaroni--it just wouldn't turn those corners.

A few years ago we got a couch. A friend that owed Big Daddy some money and had a Chinese importing business offered to pay him in couches. So we looked at the color swatches and ordered a beautiful soft butter yellow, microfiber sectional for our bonus room. It arrived a few weeks later. And as we opened it and tried to remove the school bus yellow packing around the couch, we realized that WAS the couch. So, not the color we'd planned. And then we realized the bigger problem: that T at the top of the stairs. A lot of lifting, twisting and maneuvering by strong and spatially gifted people managed to get all but one piece of the couch around that corner and into the bonus room. But the chaise longue part of the sectional would not budge, not with any amount of pushing, pulling, turning, or swearing. So finally, in desperation, Big Daddy removed the top two stairs (carpet and all) to get that stupid couch in. Then he rebuilt the stairs and recarpeted them. We decided that yellow couch would be staying with the house. We would not be moving it out again. The new owners of the future, whoever they would be, would inherit this couch, like it or not. Or that couch would have to come out in pieces.

Flash forward six years... the new soon-to-be owners of our house do not want our Chinese, school bus yellow sectional.


So.......




Ni how, old friend. Ni how.

Two Steps Forward...

Well, we're in. In our new house. Us and 8 extra people. My bestfrister, Jennie, is here from Texas with her 6 kids and husband. The trip was planned long before we decided to move so we only had 2 days to get as settled as possible before the Central Hordes of Asia descended upon us. (I mean that in the nicest way, of course, Jennie.)

We have furniture set up in most rooms. Ok half.

Our kitchen is unpacked. Minus all the food. Minor detail.

The new dining room table has been purchased, put together, and set in place. The chairs, however, have not. (Thanks a lot for being out of stock, Stupid Swedish Discount Furniture Store Starting with I and ending with kea. I would hate you if your chairs weren't so cute and so cheap.) So we're using the old dining room chairs for now. All four of them. For all 12 of us. We eat in shifts. Once the 4th breakfast shift finishes up, we wipe down the table and begin seating for the 1st lunch shift.

We have most of our clothes unpacked although Big Daddy and I have recently discovered the downside of previously having had built-ins in our closet: Now we have no dresser! So we have our socks and underwear and belts neatly folded on shelves in the closet. It's kind of hard to fold bras to look nice sitting on a shelf. No matter which way you twist and turn and tuck them, they look wrong. It's like solving a Rubik's Cube pretty much.

The most important room, the family room, is far from set up. We are short several sets of furniture including couches for the family room. We put our one giant sectional in the playroom/home theater downstairs. It was too wide for our family room. So now we have no family room furniture. But sitting on bar stools and an ottoman and the old dining room table with no chairs is kind of like having a picnic in your front room. Sort of. Not really.

Our patio chairs are all set up. The patio table, however, is still at our old house. So we sit around the patio in the evening on chairs in a big circle with no table in the middle and it feels so much like we're at a group therapy session that if we're not careful a few family secrets could slip out. But who knows. Maybe it'll be cathartic.

I haven't figured out yet where the hose spigots are. I have figured out, however, that tropical plants don't do so well in high dessert sunlight and no water.

I have also figured out that cats don't adjust well to moving. We've tried to keep Flossie sequestered in the laundry room, but 8 children always want to pet her, so the door gets opened and then she runs under our bed and then the kids offer her salami to coax her out, not knowing that cats hate salami (DUH), so the salami gets left under the bed, causing various husbands to accuse the cat of peeing under the bed and threatening to return her to the cat pound. (Does anyone know what product best removes the smell of salami from the under side of your boxspring?)

Well, that's where we stand. With some rooms set up, some rooms not set up, lots of boxes still unopened, the kitchen clock being in one of them so I never know what time it is unless I walk right up to the oven and peer at it with squinted eyes to see the dim digital read-out, lots of extra kids to keep my kids occupied, lots of fun activities planned to keep the kids entertained and me from finding the kitchen clock.

Ya, that sums it up. Be back soon, when peace and quiet and the kitchen clock have been restored.

Recession? What Recession?

For some reason my mother, who already knows everything that is going on in my life, keeps insisting that I write blog posts about things I've already told her all about. I'm not sure why. She is protecting me from the blog police, I think. I've heard they give you a ticket if they find out that something happened in your life that you didn't blog about. I'm so glad someone out there is looking out for my finances. So without further ado (and for those 4 of you who don't already know this...)

We are officially on the market!
We officially have an offer!
We unofficially have two offers!
We are officially under contract!!!

Wow, that sure went fast! We went from listed to under contract in 1 day! I guess selling our house was meant to be. But it does make me:
1) wonder if we listed our house too cheap
2) wish I hadn't hired a realtor for one day at the tune of $5000
3) wish I had re-activated my own real estate license and saved myself $4000 (stupid dues)
4) wonder if I should just shut up about the money and be happy it sold so fast
5) feel a bit nostalgic about leaving behind this beautiful, charming Victorian house
6) suddenly feel panicked at how much we still have to do to get ready to move
7) get really super excited about parking my car IN A GARAGE
7) wonder if we're really ready to move to the 21st century


I guess we'll find out in 3 days!

Ok...back to packing.




p.s. For those of you (Mom) who are wondering whether I will feel compelled to change my blog name/address/picture now that we're moving, the answer is no. It all started with a little pink house from 1895, and that's the way it's going to stay.

Berry Season

I will resist the urge to use the word "berry" for the word "very" in this post. It's so trite. But it's also berry hard. Whoops! I mean very hard. Because what else is there to say when you post pictures of the luscious strawberries, red raspberries, and purple raspberries that are bursting forth all over your yard? Except maybe how sad you will be that they most likely won't be YOUR berries by this time next year. That does make one berry sad. Oh dang it! Very sad. Anyway, if you have a spare patch of ground in the corner of your hard, I highly recommend some berry bushes or a berry patch. They grow back on their own every year and are berry very little maintenance. Start with everbearing strawberries. They'll start blooming in early spring and by late May or early June you'll have your first handful of delicious, sweet berries. In July your raspberries will bear fruit and will do so all month long. In August you will still get a few raspberries and some strawberries, though they will dwindle a bit in the heat. And then in September, as it cools down, you'll get one last burst of strawberries. There are so may ways to use raspberries and strawberries in your food: You can freeze them for smoothies, boil them with some sugar for hot berry sauce over vanilla ice cream. You can throw them on your cereal so that you feel all official like the cereal box picture. Mix them into your lemonade or pancake batter. Sprinkle them between layers of chocolate cake. Or, just eat them right off the bush, like my daughter and I love to do. No matter what way you use them, summer berries, fresh from your garden, are, well, berry berry good.


.