Friday, July 8, 2011

Check out our 'Splash

Another big thing that happened over the 4th of July weekend is that we finally finished the kitchen -and by finished the kitchen, I mean we finally had the backsplash installed. We stuck with the original mood board when it came to the tile selection. In fact, the only things we stuck to on there were the tile, the hood, and the pendants. We ordered our tile from here. Not quite as cheap as some tile stores, but they were nice enough to send us a sample of EVERY shade of green they had -which was close to 30 tiles! In addition, when we ordered a sample 12"x12" sheet, they suggested we send back the sample to swap out for one of the same lot of the final order in the event that the glass color might be slightly off. The green we chose perfectly matches our dining chairs and it really ties the whole room together.

Here is where I admit that I suck at measuring and we ordered WAY too much. The one downside of Susan Jablon Mosaics, is while they accept returns, they charge a 45% restocking fee, plus with shipping something so heavy back, it's just not worth it. -So you might just find some super nice subway tile on CL for a steal of a deal. If anyone's reading this and you're in the market for some dark lime green 1x3" subway tiles, feel free to contact me, and I'll let you know if we still have them. My guess is we have about 15 12x12" sheets, maybe more.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

I pledge allegiance to our bathroom

The room in our house that has had the most amount of time invested in it for the least result is for sure our guest bathroom. First I was determined to make it purplish blue. The first time, that was a monster fail. Mark and I scraped the entire room and I took a second stab at it with oil based primer. That time the paint stuck -but almost two years later, I was so over the purple.

There's something about walking by a room when the door is opened and all of a sudden, BAM! IT'S PURPLE!

We are not in a position to gut the bathroom and redo it entirely, so over this 4th of July weekend, I decided to see what I could do with the shell that we had -a blue tiled shower/tub and an old, severely over-painted vanity.

I first started with the walls and some Killz. It took 2 coats of heavy duty stain blocking primer to block out the purple.

In between coats, I had the brilliant idea of starting to peel off the white paint that I had sloppily applied to the vanity when we first bought the house.

The previous owners must have switched from pulls to knobs, because on each drawer or cabinet, there were 3 holes. The extra holes had been hidden by small white ceramic rings, but I decided just the knobs looked much better and filled the holes with putty.

Cut to 2am on Saturday morning. I was tired and high on paint fumes.

I continued the project on Saturday, with 2 coats of Glidden's Arctic Blue. The color tied perfectly with the tile in the shower and was much more subtle and serene than its purple predecessor, Behr's Endure.

I then redirected my attention to the vanity. I had hand-scraped all that I could. It was time to bust out the hand sander. I sanded the entire thing through who knows how many coats. I didn't ever get down to the wood, but since I knew I was just repainting it, that wasn't necessary. It just had to be smooth.

I applied 2 coats of Killz and then 2 coats of Behr Pure White (Satin Kitchen and Bath). The transformation is remarkable.

While it's definitely not my dream bathroom, it's a bathroom that we can absolutely live with, and doesn't hurt the resale value of our home the way it may have before. Mark has already installed a nice white cabinet above the toilet that adds more dimension (and storage) to the room. Overall it was well worth the weekend of work it took, and I think I'll leave this room alone for a while. :)