The Other Bathroom

This is a "before" post, and maybe a little "during" but we started on a new project.  Well, I started a project with a little help from my kiddos.  Handy Hubby took it easy on the couch while he recovered from a nasty little stomach bug.  I got a little bored on Sunday and started tearing up our upstairs hall bathroom.  This room has only ever been mentioned on the blog once before (here).

This room has been untouched since our renovation five years ago.  That said, I love this bathroom.  This is a really big original bathroom for Arlington homes.  Our layout is atypical for Arlington where most are center hall colonials which leaves a tiny space for a bathroom but they have larger bedrooms.  I also love the black and white tile despite its less than perfect condition.  The biggest problem is the large crack in the floor in front of the sink.  I put up the wallpaper in about 2003.  It lasted 10 years but the steam has finally taken its toll.

We have been talking about renovating this bathroom.  It's not in the budget for this year or probably next to gut and fully redo this bathroom.  I really want to though!  So, we're going to make some minor changes:

• Remove my beloved wallpaper {sniff} & paint the walls (color TBD)
• Change out the pedestal sink (not original) for a sink with actual storage
• Remove the medicine cabinet and hang a slightly larger mirror in its place (we will have plenty of storage elsewhere for the contents of the current cabinet)
• Maybe change out the toilet for a more water-saving model 
• Install a new light fixture
• Repair and paint the ceiling
• Hang some art

Budget = $1000

Here are the rest of the "before" pictures…

So this happened on Sunday...

Chief amazing helper.

The area over the tub was the most challenging.

The walls are going to take a lot of work to get them paint ready but I'm not overwhelmed by prospect. The area around the tub is particularly horrible.  Lots of patching and sanding are in my future.

Next up I finish taking down the wallpaper and hopefully the medicine cabinet so I can get the rest of the paper off and hang the mirror over the gaping hole that I know is behind there from the original medicine cabinet.

And here's some original beauties from when we first moved into our house!

A sample of the original wallpaper doesn't really show it's iridescence!

Lots more to come on this project.  

The Ever Evolving Gallery Wall

One of my favorite spaces in our house is the little hall between our kitchen and dining room.  This used to be a space I would walk into and through many times a day without thinking.  Ever since we put in our gallery wall, I love walking through there.  Here's how it looked when I first put it up.

Since then, I've added several pieces that I have either received or found in other parts of the house.  

I like my gallery walls to be "crowded" - not leaving the items and pictures much room to breathe.  I want the wall to stand together.  I love the mix of frames on this wall particularly, although there are a few things I'll move as I gather more favorites.

The art now includes some works by Alex (my 3 year old) including the felt piece on the bottom left and the clay ornament hanging under the Eiffel Tower.  He is not yet into art all that much (although he is so proud of what he does do), so I have to encourage him any way I can.

My friends ask me how I hang the pictures.  I generally say "Just hang them. If I end up with an extra hole or two, I hope it's covered by something before Handy Hubby gets home!"

Any gallery wall lovers or haters out there?  Picture hanging tips?  

Thrify Painting Finds a Home

I found a home for my awesome original painting that I scored a Goodwill a few weeks ago (more on that here).

Once I thought about it for 6 seconds, I realized that the obvious place was about 3 feet from where I snapped the picture above - in the dining room.

You can also get a little glimpse of my fall dining room decor.

Here's what my bar area looked like with the old picture which wasn't really working for me. This is one of those pieces that I picked at HomeGoods while looking for art which really never works because I often buy things I don't love...

I have to say that my dining room had improved since its low point a few weeks ago, but now the Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations are being switched out and this is once again our staging area!

Canvas Love

I've been eyeing those coupons for big discounts on canvas photo blow-ups for a while now. I decided to give it a try after seeing a Groupon for Canvas on Demand. I went for it since I had a bunch of great pictures from our summer vacation. Honestly though, I had no idea where I would hang it or whether it would really fit with our style. It arrived a few weeks ago and I think the picture speaks for itself...

Powder Room Bling: Part 6 - REVEAL

The powder is finally done. Well, for now. I could still use a new rug and maybe a few more accessories but for now I am considering it finished and checked off the to do list.

After stenciling the ceiling and installing crown molding, I hung a few more pieces of art.

The piece on the back wall (over the toilet) is an architectural drawing of the Washington Monument which I bought at the National Building Museum a while back. Incidentally, my dad and I took a Segway tour of D.C. last week and saw the crack in the Washington Monument from the earthquake in August (more about that here). Amazing. Hopefully they can figure out how to fix it quickly so it can be reopened to the public.

I picked up this pen and ink print at a yard sale more than a year ago. The frame is my favorite standard off-the-shelf frame from Michael's which I have used in several instances around the house and for gifts. 

I found this print of the Capitol a few weeks ago at an estate sale. It was marked $15 but I paid $5 since it was the last day of the estate sale and the young woman working the sale clearly could have cared less what she sold things for. The frame needs a little clean-up but it's not in bad condition by any means. I really like the linen mat.

It feels good to be checking some things off the list. 

Handy Hubby is working on a few things including a new bookshelf for Elizabeth's room after last week's disappointment. We sold the other one in only a few hours and made a small profit. Not enough for anyone to quit their day jobs unfortunately!  The good thing is that this one seems to be moving pretty quickly and I think we'll have a new one in only a week or two, especially if my father-in-law comes to visit for Halloween so Handy Hubby has an extra set of hands to order around.

On a final note, we took the kids to get pumpkins yesterday. Always a highlight of fall for me! 

Any weekend projects in your neck of the woods? Fun fall activities?

Liking to: A Bowl Full of Lemons , Thrifty Decor Chick

A can of spray paint walks into a bar...

Spray is the golden child of the home decor blogging world. You see it everywhere, on everything, in ever color, for any purpose.I really try not to go nuts with the spray paint. I have spray painted a lamp for Elizabeth's room and that's pretty much it. I have a few more small spray paint projects in the works but I still kind of prefer traditional paint brushes. Weird, I know.

Admittedly, it has its purpose. I bought this painting at REfind probably close to a year ago.

When I go there, I have a method. I walk around the whole store and take in everything that Carey is doing - seasonal stuff, new furniture, etc. Then I go back to the stuff that caught my eye initially. I came back to this painting about 4 times before I finally picked it up. It was about $25 if I recall but I just liked it. Of course I adore yellow and my house is filled with blue and green so I knew I could find a place for it. I originally pegged it for the basement guest room but it never really worked in there.

Then I started working on the laundry room and decided to give it a go in there. I decided that the frame was not working at all and it needed to be changed. I opted for the old spray paint.

So much more modern and updated and really cheerful for the laundry room.

I know you probably think it's ugly but I do really like it. Tell me what you think...really.

What are you spray painting this week?

An Apple a Day

When my mom emptied my grandmother's apartment after she died last summer, she found a painting that I did in high school when I went through an oil painting phase.  She brought it down to me but I wasn't sure what I would do with it.

When I was leaving the house the other day, I noticed this empty area near our side door and stairs to the basement.

 Seems like the perfect place for a little painting done by me.

And here's a close-up in case you are interested in critiquing.

 I really wish I had time to do some artwork again.

About the Artist: My Mom!

If you are a regular HOUSEography reader, you may have noticed a couple of wonderful portraits of my kids, Elizabeth and Alex, in some of my posts about our family room (particularly the corner bookshelf post here and yesterday's dresser post here).  The artist is my mom, Emmy Wilson!  She drew both of those with pastels for us.  She gave us the picture of Elizabeth about 3 years ago and the picture of Alex just this spring.  I love the frames because Elizabeth's is more frilly and girl-y and Alex's is more masculine.  I am sure they will become family heirlooms.

Here are some up close pictures (sorry about the glare on the glass):

She also did a wonderful watercolor painting of Jim and I on graduation day at St. Lawrence University which hangs in the hallway between our kitchen and dining room.  Every time I walk by it, I think about that exciting but bittersweet day!

Next time we go to my parents' house in upstate New York, I'll take more pictures of her work and blog about it. 

Is it Art or a...

About 5 years ago, my wonderful friend Sara got me a great wall calendar by Linnea Designs for Christmas.  I love how you think of it as art before thinking of it as a calendar AND you can change it every month for a seasonal look.  Ever since then I have bought one for myself.

Image via Linnea Designs

This year though, I waited too long and they were sold out!!  I've learned my lesson though so I'll order early again this year (like maybe today).

But, I found a great replacement with the Abacus Gallery calendar thanks to a tip from my neighbor Meghan.  Although I think I like the Linnea Designs version a bit better, this is certainly a beautiful calendar which has a great New England theme (I'm originally from upstate New York).  

Image via Abacus Gallery

We hang ours in a simple black frame in the eating area of our kitchen just below the clock (a fantastic Target find!).  It would also be great if you had a dedicated office or in a mudroom.  

Functional art!

Display of Marital Bliss

Jim and I are very fortunate to have wonderful marriage role models - both our parents and grandparents.  As a testament to these wonderful relationships, I created a display of their wedding pictures in our upstairs hallway.  I included our own wedding picture in the middle (previously in our living room but displaced by baby pictures), and their 6 pictures all around (our parents at the top and bottom and grandparents on the sides). 

The varying formality and color tones make the display interesting but the consistent frames make it less haphazard.  I love to look at these pictures every time I walk up the stairs (about 20 times per day), and it's a great reminder of loyalty and love. 

Changing Parts of our Existing House During Renovation

Because we've lived in our house for 6.5 years, we are fully aware of the short-comings of our existing house which cannot be changed by simply adding a big box on the back. First, our dining room is just a couple of feet too short. With furniture on 3 walls (buffet, china cabinet, and liquor cabinet), it is difficult to center our table where it should be. Second, our closets on the second floor are ridiculously small. The closet in our bedroom is so small that you cannot get a hanger in the closet in the regular way so we had to put bars two bars for my husband going perpendicular to the doorway on one side and shelves for sweaters and t-shirts on the other. I think it's a rather ingenious solution (it was my idea after all!) but it's still a ridiculously small closet.

Finally, our upstairs floors have never been refinished since we moved in. In fact, we only ripped the carpet out a year or so ago, since it was practically new when we moved in. (Note: If I could do it again, I would have ripped out ALL the carpet before we moved in and had all of the floors refinished then - lesson learned!). Finally, our upstairs hall bathroom needs a new floor and possibly a vanity.

So, when we entered into this renovation adventure, our intent was to change all of these things. Since we needed to get the floors refinished upstairs, it made sense to adjust the closets at this point since there will be floor exposed and changed. Most of the patching will be in the new closets, but still it makes the most sense to do the floors all at once (yet another reason to move out!). Fixing the closets for long-term use is also important. We have one daughter (and we don't know the sex of baby-to-be), so we KNOW she'll likely have a lot of clothes that will need to be hung out.

As I said in a previous post about moving our stairs, a major bonus of this project is that our oddly L-shaped tiny bedroom (about 8 x 11) will become a real bedroom about 11x12 in the end, so there will be significant floor patching in that room which will warrant floor refinishing.

As for the upstairs bathroom, during our interviews with contractors, several said it may be impossible to just replace the floor because the old tile can be very brittle and the tile walls could be cracked in the process. If that happened, then that would mean gutting the bathroom. Since this is a totally separate project which would not affect anything else in the house, we decided to put this off. Our bathroom is totally usable and not in horrible condition by any means (although it needs new paint or re-wallpapering) so it can definitely be put off for a later date. If anyone has successfully replaced a tile floor but not the walls on a 70 year old house, I would love to hear about it!

So, we are moving forward with most of the changes that we want to make. The hall bathroom can wait but since it won't detract from the house as it is, we'll just wait.

As you consider your addition, look closely at the parts of your existing house which you would like to change and consider including those in the project. In our case, the additional cost was minimal but the long-term benefits are huge.