The state of things...

The master bathroom is torn up:

As a refresher, this is what it looked like as of last Saturday morning:

So, yeah.  We took out the vanity and on Monday morning my parents removed the tile floor.  That wasn't really in the original plan, but there were cracks in the tile, the grout was horrible, and it was laid directly on the sub-floor, which isn't ideal.  While it'll be more work, it'll be worth it to do it once and do it right.

We're not straying too far from what the old tile looked like--we'll be going with this hexagonal white pattern.  And the other day I picked up a bunch of different glass tiles to see which one we should use for the backsplash.  OF COURSE the one we liked far more than the others was the most expensive.  Of course.

The glass tile brings in the wall color, the white from the ceramic tile, the blue tile in the shower (which we're not changing for awhile even though I don't love it), and the gray from the vanities.  I'm super excited about our plan.

Also excited to get our house back to normal, especially since we'll have houseguests in two weeks:

Nothing says "Welcome!" like a bathroom vanity in the entryway.

The current state of our living room.  Yikes.

This is what we're going with

Short post today.  These are the vanities that we chose for the master bathroom:

And the medicine cabinets:

The medicine cabinets arrived already and the vanities should be in later today (they're both from the Martha Stewart Collection at Home Depot).  We'll spend some time tomorrow dismantling the existing vanity and figuring out the tile situation underneath.  Fingers crossed!!!  Is it all going to be done this weekend?  Highly, highly doubtful, but at least we're moving in the right direction.

Master Bathroom

So, we knew when we moved into this house that we'd need to tackle the master bathroom at one point or another.  The shower tile is dated and the vanity offers surprisingly little storage and is just plain fugly:

(Ignore the "After" on the photos.  Also the white balance is totally off.)

(This is much more indicative of the actual colors)

This is pretty much what the countertop looks like on a daily basis because there is NO ROOM anywhere for the stuff we use on a day-to-day basis: contact solution, vitamins, hair products, etc.  Those mirrors aren't medicine cabinets, so as a result, all of the daily-use stuff just sits on the counter and drives me crazy.

So, a few weekends ago, we decided to get started on this whole project.  Unfortunately, the vanity is a non-standard (and HUGE) 78" wide.  We'd either have to have a custom cabinet built ($$$), or put two 36" cabinets together and then figure out what to do to make up the 6" of leftover space.  Or we could get two smaller vanities and make them completely separate, which is what we've decided. 

Unfortunately, we don't think the tile extends under the current vanities, so we'll have to figure that out.  So far we've ordered the vanities and they're on their way.  The medicine cabinets arrived yesterday. 

Anyway, this is what it looks like now that the walls have been painted and the ugly sconces were replaced with some pretty new light fixtures:

I LOVE the new light fixtures and the blue wall color is a lot better than the beige.  This coming weekend is DEMO TIME!  Muahahahaha!  I'm getting very excited.  Goodbye blue countertop! 

Painted Bathrooms

I think I promised these photos last week, but the fatigue I had in the first trimester came a-roarin' back last week and I never got around to posting the pics.  Anyway, I painted both the guest bathroom and the master bathroom the weekend before last in preparation for a mini bathroom makeover before the baby gets here.

Here's what we were working with before.  (Ignore the "After" written on the photo--it's from my House Anniversary post back in March.)

It all started when we decided to install a new light fixture (sorry I don't have a "Before" of the light fixture, but I promise you've seen them before in your life--a bar with 4 round bulbs on it--not terribly interesting).  When Chris removed the light fixture, we saw the room's original color: Salmon.  Mmmm...

The new light fixture doesn't have the same footprint:

So I picked out three paint colors and painted some swatches.  We ended up going with the top one, Martha Stewart's Salt Glaze.  (Also, I'm pretty sure Chris thought I was completely insane, since he couldn't tell a difference between the blues at all.)

Since the bathroom is pretty small, it didn't take me very long to paint and now it looks like this!:

So, future plans include removing the vanity and installing a new one (which may or may not require some tiling work), probably getting a new shower curtain, and removing the mirror and installing a medicine cabinet with some actual storage space.

Pics of the master bath to come as well.

Nursery Update

I wasn't going to post pics of the nursery until it was done, but that might be awhile, so I'll go ahead and post "In Progress" pics.  There are still a few things we need to do:  get artwork for above the dresser, find a small bookshelf for underneath the mirror (between the windows), and get a side table for next to the glider.  Once we get a bookshelf, we'll be on to a few other accessories and small projects and then we'll be done!

While navy blue might seem like an odd choice for a gender-neutral baby's room, I find navy really easy to work with and because of the light in the room (especially in the afternoon), the room doesn't feel dark at all.  I also opted for high gloss navy paint, which bounces the light around a bit instead of just sucking the light into the walls.

Anyway, here are some "in progress" pics for you:

Well?  What do you think?

Where have I been?

Here's a clue:

Yup!  I had a quick business trip in South Dakota last week.  I had ZERO cell phone reception while I was there, so my plans to blog from my phone were completely thwarted.  Oh well. 

South Dakota was fine.  Not a whole lot going on there, it appears, but there was some beautiful scenery.  We got to see Mt. Rushmore, which is truly impressive, especially when it's lit at night.  The Crazy Horse Memorial was also quite impressive, although one does have to wonder when it will be done.  After 60+ years, this is where it's at:

They have a ways to go.  The crazy thing about Crazy Horse is how absolutely HUGE it is.  For scale purposes, check out the top of the horse's head above.  Those are tractors.  It's big.

In other news, this weekend we started tackling the master bathroom and I'm exciiiiiiiiiiiiiiited!  I need to order the vanities this week, but we've made progress in painting the walls and changing out the light fixtures and it looks much better already.  In fact, I not only painted the master bathroom this weekend, but also painted the guest/future kid's bathroom this weekend.  Photos to follow tomorrow.