Happy Birthday Mom!

It's my mom's birthday today! Avalyn and I gave her a call and left her a voicemail. Avalyn even said "Happy Birthday Grandma, I love you!" When my mom called back Avalyn wasn't as talkative... Well, about that anyway.. she had her own things to discuss I guess. While I talked to my mom she told me about a rug she saw at Sears that looked like it would fit in with our bathroom and it was on sale.

Well, needless to say Matt and I went to Sears and looked at rugs. While I didn't see the one she was talking about, I did find one that I fell in love with.

We have one like it in our half bath, too. That one is red, green, cream, and yellow. It's held up against kids and pets for five years, so these should do okay, too. I hope.

 Here it is against the shower curtain.

 What do you think? I like them!

 The bathroom is slowly coming together!

Did you see my new toothbrush/random stuff holder? Let me zoom in...

 My grandma made it over twenty years ago and gave it to me as a graduation present this fall. She even signed and dated it. What a pro. I didn't know what to do with it until now, but I think it fits right in!

I also organized the closet while I was in there. I used an idea I found on pinterest for storing sheets in their pillow cases. It works and looks a lot less messy!

 Our laundry shoot that no one except for me knows how to find. Seriously the easiest thing in the world and no one uses it. Or if they do, it's to throw rubber duckies down to the basement... Avalyn... ;)

Anyone else find the perfect bathroom rug? Or have a laundry shoot that is only used for evil instead of good?

Quick Update!

My mom is here so I'm going to update with a quick shot of my clean bathroom!

Much better, eh?

In the meantime, Mom is enjoying her grandkids. 

 And Avalyn is enjoying riding in Mommy's sleigh. Circa 1984. ;)

Probably no more updates this week. I want to hang out with my mom! Nope, I'm not lame. I just love my mama!

Done Painting!

That's right, I am done painting the bathroom. I am so pooped. Who knew painting while pregnant would be so tiring? Not me. At least the painting part is done. Woot!

Here are some "I'm done painting" photos.

Clearly I haven't removed the painting tape. Nor have I cleaned up. I'll get to it. After my back stops hurting. ;)

I love the color! I'm just so crazy excited!

My mom is coming up for the week tomorrow so I'm glad to be finished painting before she get here. Now I just have to clean the house before tomorrow. Possible? Probably not. :p

Painting Fun (not really)

I'm not the biggest fan of painting, but I do it because I'm the only one who will. Unless it's rolling. Matt will randomly appear on occasion to roll the walls. I managed to get one major wall, and two mini walls painted in the bathroom and I have to say: I love the color!

What do you think? I'm in love! This is a bit lighter than in real life. My human eye sees a color that is a bit more teal. I blame the CFL bulbs.

 Clearly the white temporary curtain I made will not be staying. It makes everything ugly. Good job making things gross, white curtain. Although, I do appreciate you not letting people look into the bathroom. Here's what I'm thinking to replace it with: A bamboo shade. Pretty no? Ignore the bad photoshop job.

That dark brown color is what I want to stain the mirrors and vanity as well. And no worries, that wooden dowel, shower curtain rod will not be staying. I want to get a crome colored one that is curved for a little extra elbow room in the shower. Did I say that already? Probably. I repeat myself a lot lately.

Our beautiful nasty-gross hotel room in Texas had a curved curtain rod and I loved it. Seriously, that was the only good thing about the room. The brown water when I turned on the shower at first was probably the worst part. Ew. Anyway, what do you think so far? Please ignore the ugly floor. Eventually it will go. For now it stays. That's what rugs are for right? Right?!

Bathroom Progress

Well, I managed to prime everything again! What a pain. *Sigh* But Matt isn't following through with caulking the rest of the bathroom. Boo! Good thing he isn't on call anymore so he has no excuse not to finish up tonight! This means I'm behind my timeline (surprise, surprise), but not by too much!

In the mean time I managed to paint some of the trim (like five percent of it) just to see if I liked it. And I do! I am in love with it! It's called Shooting Star by Olympic.  It's got a bluish tint to it, so it will complement the bathroom well. We got it in a semi-gloss and low VOC. I also tested the blue paint I got for the rest of the walls. I'm in love with that, too! It's called Alpine Valley (also Olympic), and we got that in satin, no VOC.

I bought the blue paint months ago so it needed to be stirred up again!

Avalyn decided to help. This meant pull all the towels out of the closet onto the floor, put on her cowgirl hat and boots, and "paint" the wall.

I didn't realize my shadow was in the picture, but can you see the difference between the new paint on the trim and the old paint above? Like? I do!

And here it is with the blue above it. Yey! I can't wait for this to be done!

The best part about this project is: I can do whatever I want! We rented for so long so deciding what paint to use without asking permission is amazing. It's also nice to know that once I paint I will be around to enjoy it! Believe me, I will enjoy it. 

It's amazing how many rooms in this house are blue. Keith chose dark blue, Avalyn's room is blue, I'm painting our bedroom blue next week, and the bathroom is blue. I never knew I liked it so much! Anyone else crazy for blue without realizing it? 

I screwed up

Remember the bathroom project I've blogged about once and then ignored? Yeah, I sort of forgot, too. It's time to get back to work on that sucka!

In case you forgot, here are the before shots:

 And here is the shower curtain that is my inspiration. Note: I got this from Bed Bath and Beyond. Matt and I went there again tonight and saw a "bed in a bag" set that looked just like it. Then there was another in purple called "Gwen" how funny is that? Only funny to me? Okay.

Here it is now. After my screw up. *Sign*

 Matt and I got the chair rail and wood up, and I primed everything, but there is a GIANT mistake. See it?

 Let me give you a closer look...

Yeah, totally messed up the caulking job. It was something that Matt was supposed to do, but after four months of waiting for him to do it, I gave it a shot. Bad idea. Bad, bad idea!

Well, this meant going to Lowe's and getting some caulk remover (we bought no VOC stuff that is considered a green product so it wouldn't harm our little Grasshopper - I still ventilated the crap out of that room, though), and we got some mineral spirits (shuddering at the bad memories of working in a screen print shop) to clean up some paint on the floor.

While I fixed my mistake, Matt got to caulking what he could. He did the chair rail I missed, the door frame and the lattice (which we bought to make a board and batten look). This is how it's supposed to look when it's caulked. Nice right? Should have just waited. Oy.

 It took about an hour to scrape up the caulk mess but look what I'm left with.

 Here's a closer look. Yep... I've got to re-prime everything. Boo!

 And the caulk remover pealed up a few old layers of paint (looks like the bathroom was green (or similar) at some point. So, after a few hours I added some Spackle to even her back out. Nice look, huh?

Tomorrow I'll have to sand everything down again and prime it. Probably while Avalyn naps. Wednesday I'll do the first coat of white on the board and batten and trim. If I can I will do the second coat Thursday. Friday I will paint the walls. Saturday and Sunday will be my back up days if I can't get to work on any other day. Then I will be done for a little while! Yey!

Here's what I'd like it to look like when we're done. It's not well photoshopped, but hopefully it will give you an idea. Eventually we'll tile the floor, but the linoleum will be fine for now.

As you can see, I will have to stain the mirror frames and the vanity but that will have to wait until the baby is older. I don't think staining while pregnant is allowed. The artwork is a cute little cow print I found at Amazon. I love it. Not sure if its really bathroom art, but what is? Drawings of toilets? No thanks. Oh, and the shelf is from Pottery Barn, but I will probably just make something. I only used it because the picture was the right angle for me to photoshop in!

So, here's the to do list:
- Sand and Prime everything (again)
- Paint the board and batten
- Paint the walls
- Make/buy a shelf
- Find artwork for the walls
- Get a new shower curtain rod (preferably a nickle one that is curved so we have more arm room in there)
- Make a new curtain (seriously the one we have up belonged to the old owners, it was from Keith's room)
- Buy new shower/tub fixtures (ours suck)
- Stain the woodwork a darker color
- Tile the floor
- Buy a new vanity top (that one is for Matt. He hates the cream colored one that's there now - I don't mind it but hey, why not?)

So, that's it! Anyone else mess up a project that set them back A LOT? I hope it isn't just me, not that I'm wishing for this to happen to anyone else... *Sigh* Back to work!