Bathroom Progress

There is only one bathroom in the house and it was in dire straights two years ago. There were pink walls, broken tile, a hole in the floor and lots of dirt. Lots and lots of dirt. Seriously- I can't stress the dirt enough. It was gross.

First up was emptying the bathroom of its contents. Since we bought the house from an estate (my grandparents estate, but my uncle had occupied the house for 8 years) there were still tons of things in the entire house. Including the bathroom.

After everything was out and we did a thorough cleaning, we set to work.

Tiago painted. Greg the plumber fixed the plumbing and put in a new vanity. Tia Zeta scrubbed the tub. I picked out paint colors and put in a new floor.

Here's what it looked like in progress:





I absolutely loved the tiled floor. (Notice the past tense there?) Yeah. It had a huge, unrepairable hole in it:


So unfortunately we had to go over it. We were looking for a quick fix, since we eventually plan to do a huge reno of the entire space. So while we wait until that reno, we've settled on inexpensive linoleum flooring that looks like wood. It was relatively easy to put in, but kind of hard to cut. Oh well... I'm just waiting for the day we rip it out and put in penny rounds.

I Picked out a neutral gray paint color, from Sherwin Williams of course. I'll explain in another post why I love a neutral bathroom.

But anyways, here's what the bathroom now looks like on any normal day:










Okay. That's all for now. Bye.

Bedroom Progress

The master bedroom in our house has come a long way. We started with blue, flocked wallpaper (maybe it's nostalgia from when it was my Nanny's room, but I actually loved that wallpaper), turquoise green carpet and a huge hole in the floor.









Tiago took down the wallpaper and painted the room, and after a few months without any furniture, my mom bought us a great bedroom set. Everyone compliments us on our West Elm furniture, but it was actually a bargain, courtesy of Raymour and Flanigan. Great for us- since we love West Elm! The room color is Sherwin Williams Antique White, with Urbane Bronze as the accent wall.







This buddha was a gift from my dad. He bought it in Vietnam (after he was drafted for the war). The mirror was being trashed by my parents, so I spruced it up a bit and painted it with black and bronze.



These paintings are of my friends Natalie, Marta and Kelly. The artist is me!



Here is a (really bad quality) photo of my Nanny looking out of the window:

Here is a shot of the same spot while we were renovating:


And here is the same angle now:


This dresser was my Nanny's, and as much as it pained my mother that I painted the cherry wood with blue paint, I really like the results.



I'll leave you with an amazing photo of my uncle Tom in this room in the 80's. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.

Oh my!

Ew! My Mom just shared these photos with me. I'm always thinking about how far we have to go to get our house where we want it. But I forget to stop and reflect on how far it has come....

From this:




To this:

Ivy Land

Our house had some major landscaping issues when we bought it. (To be honest, it still has some major landscaping issues.) There were bushes that were growing all the way up to the second floor windows and most of the yard and house were covered in ivy.

(Sorry for the dark images.)

We ripped out most of the ivy and overgrowth before we even moved in and then again when we built the patio. Unfortunately there was still a large portion of the backyard covered in ivy. But after last week, we have finally eliminated ALL of the ivy! (Well... save for a small portion on the old fence on the side of the house that we plan to rip down soon.)

Ripping out the ivy looked something like this:


And after some serious elbow grease and patience it was looking much better. So we collected some sticks and twigs on the property and composted them. (We didn't compost the ivy because we thought it was a bad idea. We wouldn't want it to grow back in our plants and flower beds from the compost. Most likely it wouldn't, but we didn't want to risk it.)

Above is a view of our house from the "compost corner". As you can see, we still have a lot of work to do before our house is the backyard retreat that we envision...

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Just needed to remind you of what it used to look like.