Bathroom Remodel Part One: Painting & Planning

My recent post about painting the middle of our house- the kitchen, hallway, and bathrooms- was actually a set up for our next big project: a bathroom overhaul.  We're talking new floors, doors, vanities and mirrors my friend.


We've been dragging our heels on this update for awhile now because


A. We were afraid, and
B. We were saving our money.


But now that we got a big trip to Europe out of the way, we've decided to forgo the long weekend at the beach we had planned this fall and instead save up to redo the bathroom.  After reading some awesomely clear directions on a bathroom we really found inspiring, Tim decided that it sounded simple enough for us to do!


So what all do we have in store for the major rehaul?

• Paint the walls a serene blue
• Search and find the perfect vanity- most likely a dresser and possibly a nightstand for the half bath
• Install peel and stick tiles to the floor and kitchen- holding out on this step until we find the vanities
• Install a shower door (finally!)
• Replace the tile in the shower with white subway tile
• Install new vanities and new sinks :)
• Install new lighting
• Frame existing mirrors or possible buy new ones
• Add energy efficient touches: low flow shower head, and a dual flush on the toilet. 

 Well, nothing too major, this is more of a "face lift" than the grand redesign that we really have pictured in our heads and will never do- it involves merging the two bathrooms into one and we don't want to have to lose value on losing a half bath.  But all these updates we have planned should make for a totally new look!


The look we're going for is a sophisticated, classy, and warm, like this mood board we found on YHL:

They ended up going a slightly different route with theirs but we're planning on sticking fairly close to the  mood board above.   We've been hemming and hawing over these tile choices below.  Gray or chocolate?  

After careful evaluation of each color for months, we've decided the gray looks a lot better with our kitchen and bathroom.  Neither really matches our carpet right now, but we plan to replace it with a grayer color in the next few months.  


So there you have it!  Our plans for a bathroom face lift- and I'm very excited to get started!  A lot of it is going to be very challenging, like replacing the shower tile, and some of it should be easy, like laying out the peel and stick vinyl tile.  It will all be new projects that I've never tried, so that is the most exciting part!  Anyone else have any big plans in the months ahead?

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Skydivers!

This weekend I checked a big item off my life's bucket list: Skydiving!!!


I think it can suffice to say that it was a blast!!  It's something I definitely plan on doing again one day- even Tim agreed.  He wasn't so keen on falling out of an airplane at 13,500 feet, but as soon as he landed, he came running over shouting, "OMG I so would do that again!" 


I wasn't nervous to skydive until the first few seconds of free fall.  I've heard that you don't get that 'rollercoaster feeling' at all, but you do for a good five seconds!  Then it was just shock, awe, and pure adrenaline as you gaze for miles upon the gorgeous backdrop of Olympic and Cascade Mountains.  


We had to reschedule after my birthday was full of clouds a few weeks ago, but it was so worth it.  We couldn't have picked a clearer day to jump! Skydive Snohomish was amazing, and I can't wait to go back!!

Tim, me, and my dad

 

Boarding the plane!

Tim touching down!!!

Tim's down safe!

Here comes my dad!

Jim's landed!

My turn!!!  I'm so excited- see my face?

Landing like a champ!

Tim and I running to congrat each other

We're alive!!

Tim's face says it all :)

Yay!

Kelly was the perfect tandem partner!  He let me steer and do lots of turns (although I was no where near strong enough to do then myself!).  He came highly recommended to me, and I'll be recommending and requesting him in the future!

Weekend Update

After an awesome afternoon of skydiving, Tim conquered another challenge: he installed a garbage disposal all by himself, and insisted we go out for Mexican food to celebrate his two big victories...and here's the video that ensued after:

The rest of the weekend was nice and restful, full of food, friends and an exciting Sounder's game.  We got to do things we rarely have time for- like actually hit the Ballard Farmer's Market (our fav!).  We normally get a produce delivery, but decided to grab some cash and my favorite portable tote bag and spend the morning at the market!  We brought home quite the haul- chard, yellow green beans, basil, necterines, blueberries, strawberries, sweet onions, green onion, green pepper, can tons of carrots with tops for the bunnies!

We grabbed some hotdogs/veggie dogs from Dante's Inferno and then some of our favorite cake from Simple Desserts 

I normally never take photos at Sounder's games, but I wanted to try out my new Nikon D3000 from the wonderful Tim, and I'm very impressed!  As Tim says, it makes real life look more magical ;)

Tonight, I'm enjoying some dairy free cookie dough ice cream.

8/29 Playlist

• Blind Melon- Skinned
• Jay-Z- I'm a Hustler
• Sea Wolf- Wicked Blood
• Eric Clapton- Alberta
• Huey Lewis and the News- It's Alright
• The Beatles- Let it Be
• Weezer- My Name is Jonas
• James Taylor- Fire and Rain
• Glee- Smile
• The Beatles- Yer Blues
• Blind Melon- Deserted
• Kate Voegele- I Get It

The Middle: Not Just a Funny Show

Has anyone besides my mom and I watched The Middle?  It's hilarious!  Tim and I rarely watch things in "real time" on TV, and it's not anywhere online, so we rarely get to watch it.  But it's freaking hilarious.

Update:  I just realized that DUH, I can watch episodes on ABC.  Seriously, if it's not on Hulu or MTV, I don't even realize it's online...which is weird because we always run to CBS if we miss How I Met Your Mother (which they post instantly, so we can still watch it the same night!). 

But anyways, this post has absolutely nothing to do with The Middle, or TV.  It's actually about painting, something I never ever do.  Just kidding!  I'm painting constantly, and this time, I was on a mission to unify our home- create a nice flow between rooms.

Before the big switch, our condo's color palette looked like this:

While I just loved the teal hallway and yellow kitchen, I wanted things to flow better, and I wanted our condo to have a basic color palette that could work from room to room.  All of our accessorizes were already in that color palette that I loved- blues, greens, with the occasional pop of deep plum and yellow.  So why not make the walls a color that really made them all pop, just like what I did with the greige in the living room.

Pop!

Because I was so in love with the yellow kitchen, but didn't want a yellow hallway and bathroom,  I immediately started looking at the only other color I always loved with white cabinets in a kitchen- light blue/gray.  So that's where we went while looking for a color that would work in all 3-4 spaces.

Gentle Tide by Glidden won!  We color matched it to Olympic No-VOC paint in satin, and I started in with painting the hallway and kitchen.  Well...after two coats in the hallway, I realized that the paint didn't quite match the swatch we had purchased already.  It might be hard to make out online, but it was very obvious in person- see how much lighter the middle of the wall is compared to the outside?  We wanted the lighter, more silvery color.

It's a lot easier to see the difference without the light from outside reflecting off of it:

So, after a few days of grumbling to myself about how much work it was to paint the hallway edges twice, I finally decided to go back to the store and ask them to make it lighter for me.  It was definitely lighter, but still not quite what I wanted.  But I just decided to stick to it because I still liked the new color and it was definitely pretty close to Gentle Tide. 

So after weeks of slowly painting patches and patches, I finally finished painting the kitchen, hallway, and both bathrooms.  Whew!

Here's our home's new color palette after the big switch.  Looks a lot more serene, doesn't it?

Speaking of TV...I realized that my paint tools look an awful lot like Dexter's kill tools:

Kinda creepy huh?