Busy, Busy

Posted on April 19, 2012 by

We have been slow to post updates, but that’s because over the past three weeks we have:

  • Had 7 giant dead trees, and 7 humongous bushes removed from the back and side yards
  • Spent 3 days grinding 13 stumps out of the backyard
  • Filled 50 garbage bags with the chips from stump grinding
  • Broke down 150ft of old fencing so that it could be hauled away
  • Decided to DIY a privacy fence along the edge of the backyard (to match the fencing around the rest of the yard — almost finished with it!
  • Finished the hallway bathroom walls (drywall and beadboard), and some plumbing work for the sink and toilet
  • Measured and purchased all of the trim for the hallway bathroom
  • Removed all of the old trim from the bathroom doorway, then fixed the pocket door so that it hangs a bit higher and doesn’t catch when being pulled closed
  • Reworked the existing medicine cabinet hole so that it will fit the new cabinet we purchased
  • Started the bathroom floor tile (which is taking longer than expected)
  • Cleaned, organized, and got rid of a ton of stuff from our basement and garage so that my brother could move in with us
  • Fixed up the scary basement bathroom so that it’s useable for my brother

Whew! We have been spending all of our evenings and weekends working on this list, and there is still a long way to go before we’re finished. Progress is being made though!

Our family is having a big memorial day party, so we’re trying to focus our efforts on getting the yard cleaned up and ready for everyone. The weather has been beautiful lately and we would much rather put up a new fence and work on landscaping when its 70° vs. 90°.

Our friend, Justin, has been a huge help with our projects and we owe him big time.  I joke that he’s our day laborer because he’s always lending us a hand. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Justin!

The fence should be finished by the end of this week, then I’ll have some time to put up some pictures and more details about what we’ve been up to around here.

Stay tuned!

Posted in Basement, Hall Bath, Landscaping, Misc., Outside, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Decisions, Decisions

Posted on March 16, 2012 by

We have gone back and forth for weeks trying to decide what sink and toilet we want for the hallway bathroom.  Finally, a decision has been made and the pieces are purchased!

The bathroom is small, and the wall that the sink and toilet are going on is only 5.5’ wide.  Whatever sink option we went with could only be 26” at the most, but we were hoping for closer to 24”. Also, this bathroom doesn’t have a linen closet and the only storage is inside the medicine cabinet.

A vanity was ruled out almost immediately, although we did reconsider it a few times because of the storage it would offer.  Ultimately, we ruled it out because we felt it would close off the space too much and we wanted this tiny bathroom to feel as open as possible.

vanity

(via: Décor Pad)

The second option was a console sink.  We loved the idea of one of these, especially with chrome legs.  A basket underneath the sink could have held towels and would have given us a little extra storage.  We searched everywhere for a chrome-leg option and found that they were way out of our price range.

rhconsole sink

(via: Restoration Hardware)

A few non-chrome legged sink options were considered, but we never found one that we really cared for.  The closest we found was the Milan sink from Menards.  It is only $150 for the sink + legs, which is much less than what we saw it being sold for by numerous other retailers.  We even brought this one home so that we could make sure the 32” width was too large, and unfortunately, it was.

milan

(via: Menards)

Finally, we went back to our original plan of having a pedestal sink. We were trying to avoid this since it was the option that offered the least amount of storage, but it also ended up being the option that was most budget friendly as well as the look we liked the most.  This option ended up winning.  We looked at a bunch of different stores, and kept going back to the Kohler Memoirs series since it is more square and closely matches the pedestal sink in our downstairs bathroom.

We shopped around for the best prices, and ended up purchasing the sink and matching toilet from Lowes since their prices were the lowest.  The sink was on sale for $298, and the toilet was on sale for $299.  We had a 10% off coupon, which brought our total to right around $550 after tax.toilet

sink(sink and toilet via: Lowes)

Since we had the 10% off coupon for Lowes, we decided to pick up a faucet on the same trip.  We wanted a 3 piece faucet (for 8” widespread holes) vs. a 1 piece (for 4” holes).  The Memoirs series offers both options for their sinks, but we prefer the 8” holes.  The faucet that we ended up going with is from Peerless, and was around $85 after our coupon and tax were applied.

faucet

(via: Lowes)

To solve the storage issue, I think we are going to put shelves up above the toilet.  There is also enough room on one side of the sink to put a small basket full of towels.  Plus, the medicine cabinet is pretty large and can hold quite a bit.

The total for all 3 pieces was $635. We took all of the pieces out of their boxes this evening and put set them in the bathroom just to make sure they’ll work.  We love them!  They’re going to look great with the white hex tile, beadboard walls, and clawfoot tub!

Posted in Hall Bath, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Clawfoot Tub Progress

Posted on March 14, 2012 by

Before we can move any further in the bathroom renovation, we have to get the tub finished. The plumbing has already been worked on (will post about that soon), but we need to double check it before laying floor tile.

The first step in refinishing the tub was removing the paint from the outside. We decided to try using Citristrip, because it is safer than most of the other chemical strippers and can even be used inside. We wanted to do this project in the garage, and didn’t want to have to worry about fumes building up. The product worked great, however, we quickly realized that stripping the entire tub was going to take days, and even after the paint was off we would still have to sand it down. 

Our game plan changed, and we decided to sand all of the paint off of the tub. We bought the Makita 5”  disc sander from Home Depot on sale for $80, and also stocked up on tons of replacement pads. There were layers and layers of paint on the tub, and each disc was only lasting a few minutes before it was worn down and needed to be replaced. I think we went through around 30 discs total, which was about $20.

DSC_0147

The tub looks pretty bad, I know. Not much better than it looked before. After this picture was taken, we used a wire brush to get the remaining paint off of the rim, then used tack cloths to clean off all of the dust and debris.

We have decided to finish the outside of the tub ourselves and have the inside re-glazed by a local company. There are a lot of tutorials for painting the outside of clawfoot tubs, so we are trying to read through them and come up with what we think is the best plan. 

The claw feet are hanging from bike hooks in our garage, and the tub has also been moved into the garage (we were sanding it outside). Everything is ready for the next step – primer!

DSC_0149

In case you missed the earlier posts, we’ve been working on remodeling our upstairs hallway bathroom. You can read about why we’re remodeling here, what the plan is here, and a progress update here, and more about the clawfoot tub here.

Posted in Clawfoot Tub, Hall Bath | Leave a comment