Vintage Bathroom Makeover {Part 4}

 

 

Happy hump day everyone! I hope that you are having a fantastic day so far. Things are fab here! I survived the "Great Disaster Room Cleanout of 2014" and will show you the updates this week. It is amazing what 14 hours of hard labor can do for a massive mess! So that is one step closer to being really moved into the house...and I am so excited! I wanted to stop by today to show you where we are with the guest bathroom. Last time we checked-in, I showed you the floors, wainscoting and subway tile shower surround. So today, I wanted to show you the latest version since all of the "hardscape" is in and we are now just left with accessorizing. Happy days!!! As a reminder, here is the upstairs floor plan before we started the renovation and the guest bathroom is highlighted in yellow: 

 

As I have previously mentioned, one of the main reasons for our renovation was to update and enlarge our tiny bathrooms. Although the bathrooms had a fun vintage look, it was not the look we were going for. Here is what the vanity area looked like before the renovation:

 

 

And here is what the shower/toilet area looked like:

 

 

So as you can see, super dark and super tiny!!! In order to make it so that two people could get ready at the same time, we decided to make a separate vanity area and a separate shower/toilette area. Here is the floor plan for the remodeled second floor and the new bathroom is highlighted in yellow:

 

As I previously mentioned, we were going for a 1920's vintage feel with carrara marble, white subway tiles, and dark cabinets. This is the original mood board that I made for the bathroom:

 

 

And here is how she turned out! This is a view looking into the vanity area from the shower/toilet room:

 

 

We have a double vanity on the right side of the room. And on the left side, we have two floor to ceiling linen cabinets. This is a fairly tight space, but between the vanity and the two linen cabinets, we have a TON of storage!!! We also added the white wainscoting to give the room a tailored look and chose a cool grey to play off of the carrara marble counter tops.  One of my favorite features of the bathroom though is the basket weave tile "floor mat" that we added in the vanity area:

I absolutely LOVE the way that it turned out!!! To me, the floor gives a super retro vibe and is a fun surprise. And please excuse the quality of the following picture, but here is what the bathroom looks like when you enter from the hallway.

You can't tell from that picture (because I was using my IPone), but there is about an 8" space between each side of the vanity and the wall...so the vanity actually looks like a piece of furniture as opposed to a built-in cabinet. Now moving onto the shower/toilet room.  In the shower I chose white subway tile for the shower surround, a large goose neck shower head (because there are many 6'4"+ men in my family that will visit), and a hand shower that I can use to more easily bath children (once they join the picture):

In the middle of the shower, to break up some of monotony of the subway tiles, I added a framed herringbone feature. 

 I am so excited with the way it turned out! I think it is super elegant with a splash of fun. And on the back side of the shower we added a train rack to hang robes and store towels for our guests:

 

 

The train rack is so pretty!!! It makes me not want to hang a shower curtain so that I can see it all the time.  And as you can see from the picture above, I also added a little bench at the end of the tub. I thought this would be a great place to sit when bathing kiddos and also will be a nice place for them to store their bath toys. So there you have it folks! I still have a ton to do with all the accessorizing, but have made huge progress! And speaking of progress, lets check out a couple before and afters shall we?!?!?!

And one more of the shower area! So much better!!!!

 



 

 Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!!!

 

Tour of the Before & After (Part 1)

Hello world!!! We are finally back after a long hiatus due to extreme amounts or work and catching the flu. No good! But I am on the mend and the fiscal year at work is over (for all you attorneys out there, you know that means a mad dash to make sure you hit your hours requirements, which equals no life) - Oh Happy Days! So now that that's over, let's get back to the fun stuff shall we? We have officially been in the house for a month now. I seriously can't believe it! September was here an gone before I blinked my eyes. In honor of our one month anniversary, I thought I would show y'all some before and afters to see where we started and where we are now. This is coming from the advise of my darling friend Melissa, who oh so kindly pointed out that I am good about showing the "hey, here's this new idea that we're starting" but never following up with the "and here's out it turned out".  So if you're out there and reading Mo, this one's for you babe! As many of you know, our house was built in 1967 by Ben and Rose Green as their family home where they raised their five daughters and welcomed husbands and grand babies. They lovingly and meticulously maintained the house for the 40 years that they called it their home. As soon as Matt and walked into the house, we fell in love and knew that this was the home for us. However, for as carefully as Rose and Ben maintained their home, they never really updated anything and it stayed in somewhat of a 1967 time capsule. Here is what the downstairs living room, dining room and kitchen (you can see a tiny glimpse of its blue walls to the left of the fireplace) look like before with all of their wonderful 1967 wallpaper and dark wood paneling:



As I have said before, this was nice and 1960's cute, but unfortunately not our style. For a temporary fix when we moved in, all of the woodwork was painted white and the walls were given a neutral tan color...and the dining room turned into this:

  

Big improvement! But now let's fast forward to today and check out what she looks like after we gutted the room, pushed the front wall out five feet, added wainscoting, crown molding, new paint, new windows, a new chandelier, recessed lights, installed reclaimed hardwood floors to the extension and refinished all the floors a dark walnut color:



I personally love it! As a disclaimer, I took all these photos with my IPhone, so the paint color is a bit off.  The tan walls do not read quite as dark in person. After a month, my big excitement is that this room is 100% box free.  However, we have a lot left on the ole "To Do" list:

New furniture

New rug

Purchase and install plantation shutters

Add artwork and accessorize

 

With respect to the furniture and rugs, these were hand-me-downs from Matt's parents.  Although they are in great shape and super nice, they don't really match the style and color scheme that we are going for in the room.  Now let's head through to the left of the dining room and move into the kitchen! Here is what she looked like when we bought the house:

 

Although I though that the kitchen was absolutely adorable and super 60's kitsch, the cabinets were not very practical, the white tile counter top was impossible to keep clean and the faux brick linoleum floors were past their prime.  So here is the kitchen now after the remodel:

Although we kept the same footprint, we completely gutted the kitchen and added all new wood floors, two-toned cabinets, appliances, sink, faucet, hood vent, travertine back splash, granite counter top, a breakfast bar behind the stove with built-in storage, two-tone dental crown molding, paint, recessed lights throughout, and french doors in the breakfast room. Whoooo, that's a lot!  And we are super thrilled with the results. We decided to keep the same footprint in the kitchen because it is an extremely wide space, with lots of count top/workspace, so there is plenty of room for multiple people to prep, cook and hang out...and bonus, we didn't have to move any walls (and a massive fireplace that is on the other side of the left wall). Score!  And here's the before shot of the breakfast room:

And here is the after:

My favorite part of this space is definitely the french doors. They let in so much natural light into the kitchen and once the back patio is finished (which you can see through the doors), we will be able to open these doors and move easily back and forth between the indoor and outdoor spaces. The "To Do" list is not too big in the kitchen/breakfast room, but it's still there:

 

Bar stools for the breakfast bar

Small table and chairs

Artwork and accessories

Dummy handle for the left french door

Add missing molding piece to the left of the last piece of travertine above the stove

 

And here is another view of the kitchen from the back corner of the breakfast room looking out towards the living room and the dining room to help orient you to the house:

Now we'll head out of the kitchen and into the living room.  Here is a view of the old living room from the kitchen looking back towards the front door and the old stairs. This picture was taken after all of the woodwork was painted white and the walls were painted a light tan:

And here is the same view today:

This part of the house went through the biggest change layout wise. We pushed the front of the house out five feet, which allowed us to add an entrance into the house from the garage, move the location of the stairs (which completely opened up the space...for reference, the left side of the staircase used to be where the house ended), and close off the doorway leading into an old hallway outside of the old master bedroom.  Here is another view of the living room before the remodel looking from the opposite side of the house back towards the front door and dining room: 

And here is the after:

 



It's amazing how moving the stairs made the whole space so much more airy and open! The pictures don't really do it justice, but trust me when I say it is a huge improvement!  In addition to moving the walls, we refinished the fireplace with dry stack limestone, removed the hearth from the fireplace so that it is now flush with the ground, added cabinets and storage to the right of the fireplace where the wood storage used to be, a new chandelier, recessed lights throughout, crown molding and baseboards throughout, refinished the wood floors, an all new staircase (and staircase accessories), and new front door and side lights.  As you can see, we kept with the same color scheme of dark molding/trim and neutral walls.  You can't tell from the pictures, but the wall paint is Ralph Lauren Suede, so it gives a nice subtle texture to the otherwise simple walls.  Now for the next-to-last view of the living room (have I lost you yet?).  Here is what you saw before when you walked into the front door and looked out towards the sun room/back yard:

And here is what you see now:

 

Our La Cantina Doors! We love these things!!! These things are great because (as I showed you here) they fold on themselves to the left so that the wall disappears and we are able to completely open inside of our house to the outdoors. You can also see that we removed the old sun room and added a large patio. The plan is to have outdoor lounge furniture in that space (couch, chairs, etc.). That way, once we open the doors, we will more than double the length of our living room with the combination of outdoor and indoor living.  We think that it is so cool and it is going to be AWESOME for parties!

And here we are to the last view of the living room looking back towards the kitchen and the backyard. Like all the other rooms, the living room/back yard have quite the "To Do" list:

New furniture and rugs

TV for above the fireplace

Some sort of decorative cabinet to hide said TV

Mantel for fireplace

Clean and refinish inside of the fireplace

Artwork and accessories

Cabinet and drawer pulls for the built-in

Finish the wine room

Furniture for the patio

Add pergola above back living space

Plants for the back yard

 

So now let's move onto the master bedroom. The footprint of the master bedroom did not change much, other than moving the entrance and removing the old closet.  Here is what the master bedroom looked like after getting its coat of tan wall color and white wood work:

 



Although we didn't change the foot print, we did quite a bit of work in the master bedroom.  Here is what she looks like today:

So here, we added new crown molding and baseboards, removed the chair rail, refinished the floors, added recessed lights and a new fan, painted the walls a soft teal color with our favorite Ralph Lauren Suede paint (the color isn't reading right in this picture, but you can see how it really looks a few pictures down), and installed new windows (although you can't see them behind my super DIY temporary curtains made from a king bed sheet and a significant amount of painter's tape...but they have been up for two weeks now, so I think I did good! Just keeping it real folks!).  Now here is a view of the master bedroom before the renovations looking from the back of the room towards the front of the house. 

 

That used to be our master closet. Although it looks large in the picture...in reality it was tiny! So as I mentioned before, Matt used that closet and used all the other closet throughout the house. Fair trade! And one of my favorite things about this picture is the small round face plate on the wall.  That was actually an original 4-prong phone jack from 1967! I had no idea what it was and my mom had to fill me in. It's crazy, because we don't even have phone jacks in the house now! How the times have changed! Here is the same view of the master bedroom today:

The paint in this picture reads a lot more true than the previous one. Here you can see that we also added double doors into the master bedroom and you can see the master bathroom in the background.  We went with the same dark trim and woodwork in our bedroom as well.  I love the combination of the dark trim with the soft blue walls.  It is very relaxing.  Here is out "To Do" list for the master bedroom:
 

Purchase and hang plantation shutters (shocking!)

Change out switch plates and plugs from builders white to oil rubbed bronze

Finish unpacking boxes

Hang artwork and accessorize

 

Now onto the master bathroom.  This is probably the biggest transformation of the entire house and most definitely one of my favorites!!!  Here is our master bathroom before the renovation (please excuse the poor picture quality) - first we have the master vanity (taken from the hallway looking into the bathroom with the master bedroom on the right):

And here is the view of the master bathroom from the master bedroom with the vanity to the immediate right:

The bathtub/shower was behind the wall.  This space was TINY!!! I could stand straddling the shower and touch both the exterior wall and the shower wall.  There was no room for two people to get ready in the morning, so Matt used this bathroom and I used its twin upstairs to get ready.  You can't see from this picture, but there was a 6 foot wide hallway to the left of the bathroom and a 10' by 10' "study" (but really, more like a glorified closet) on the other side of the wall from the toilette.  The first thing I thought when we saw the house was that the hallway and 10' x 10' study were not usable space for us, so we blew out all the walls and created a large/proper master bathroom and walk-in closet.  Here is the master bathroom today:

 

I'm telling you, when I walk into this place all I turn into George Costanza and constantly exclaim "Xanadu!!!" It is such a complete 180 from what we had before! Once we moved the walls, we added a two person shower with double shower heads, body sprays and a rain shower; a claw foot tub; large 18"x18" travertine tiles on the floors, travertine tile "wainscoting"; a large double vanity with granite counter top; a new large window, a massive custom mirror (which you will see in the next few pictures); crown molding throughout and new paint. Oh it makes me giddy!!! I don't have a good picture of how the vanity looks today, so here is an older one (before the mirror frames were painted) to give you an idea:

 

I love the gooseneck faucets and handles! And the detail in the sinks is super cool. But the best part is that we have enough room for Matt and I to both get ready in the bathroom at the same time. It is wonderful!!! And here is how the mirrors look today (mess and all from getting ready this morning, also with a little Elvis-Matt in the background..Hey Hey!):

 

And here is our lovely "To Do" list for the master bathroom:

 

Hang second vanity light

Hang chandelier above the claw foot tub

Finish the trim around the mirrors and remove painter's tape

Install hooks or towel bar to hang towels (so they're not on the shower)

Paint hand mirror oil rubbed bronze

Floor mat for the tub

Hang artwork and accessorize



And last but not least on our downstairs tour is the master closet. I showed you my "Master Plan" for the closet here.  This little beauty is also one of my favorite changes in the house because all of Matt's and all of my clothes fit into one closet! Woohoo!!! This is the first time that has ever happened and this is the first time in six years that all of my clothes have lived in a single closet.  It makes getting ready in the morning SOOOOOOOO much easier! Now I warn you, the closet is still in the unpacking and organizing phase, so it is a bit of a mess. But hey, this is where we are after one month and hopefully by month two, I can show you a beautifully organized closet. So for now, here is the left side of the closet:

The left wall of the closet holds Matt's clothes and a mirrored accessories cabinet (that behind the two mirrored doors on the far left). The accessories cabinet is only about 3 inches deep because we had to steel some room from this closet for the wine closet, which is on the other side. In the middle we have an island with a bench on the end.  And the back wall is one giant built-in.  My boots and flats are on the left, a chest of drawers in the middle with cubbies above, and my heels are to the right, which you can see in this picture of the right side of the closet:

 



 

This side of the closet houses my clothes. You can see the rest of the vanity and to my right are more shelves that hold all of Matt's shoes and accessories. I love this closet! It makes me giddy every time I walk in! Yippy, closets are so fun!!! And now for the final "To Do" list for today:

 

Hang chandelier above island

Finish unpacking boxes and organize/purge clothes

Add pulls to the chest of drawers, accessories closet doors and hampers in island

Make a covered cushion for the seat on the island

Install butcher block counter top on island

Finish off the inside of the accessories closet to hang/organize accessories (more to come on this fun project)

 

Phew, that is a lot of information for one day! If you stuck around till the end, congratulations and thank you! I will try to post the before and afters for upstairs tomorrow. But before I go, one think that I mentioned on the very first post of the blog was that our goal with this remodel was to update the home to bring it into the 21st century, but to ensure that we honored Rose and Ben's dream and keep the spirit of their home alive. This was something that was extremely important to us throughout the year-long remodeling process. I feel like we accomplished our goal and very much hope that Rose and Ben are smiling down and are happy with the results too.

 

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope that you have a wonderful day!!!

 

 

Now That We Are Moved In, It's Time To Organize!!!

 

I still cannot believe that we are finally moved into the house!!! I keep pinching myself to make sure that it is not a dream. However, when I realize that it is in fact true and that all those millions hundreds of boxes stacked around our house are really there, I start to feel like I am in a bit of nightmare.  EEK!!!

 

 

But hey, let's keep it real, I would WAY rather be dealing with "Revenge of the Boxes" than still waiting to get into the house. So whose complaining...NOT THIS GAL! We basically spent all day Saturday moving the remainder of our belongings from the apartment to the casa so that we could have everything in one place (and because Sunday was our last day) and started the long unpacking process on Sunday. We decided to adopt the "snowball method" (thanks to my brother's advise) and get one room unpacked at a time, starting with the most important - the master bathroom and closet.  Matt tackled his clothes in the closet while I started unpacking and organizing all the stuff that was "supposed" to fit in the master vanity. I say "supposed to fit" because we I have WAY more bathroom stuff than any one human could possibly ever need in a lifetime would fit in our vanity.  As evidence, here are all the "Master Bath" boxes that we had in storage (you can't tell from this picture, but the poor tub is full of boxes too):

 

 

 And here is all the stuff that came over from the apartment:

 

Seriously, it is a bit ridiculous! Oh well, onward and upward.  So first things first, I had to come up with a plan of attack. Here is a diagram of our master vanity and the drawer layout:

 

 

As you can see, Matt and I each have six 3" deep drawers, two 8" deep drawers and under-sink storage.  I also have a 1.25" deep drawer over the knee space.  So we have lots of drawer storage and a good amount of storage space under the sink:

However, we do not have a linen closet in our master bathroom. Back in January, I showed you how I organized the bathroom in the apartment and the linen closet played a staring roll in my organization plan. Basically, I stored all of my bathroom products (divided into seven categories) in separate bins inside the closet:

 



Although this plan works flawlessly if you have a handy linen closet near by, it is an epic fail when you try to fit everything under your sink!

So, that meant I needed to head back to the drawing board to come up with a new organization plan for our master vanity. It was a bit cramped in the bathroom with all the boxes, so for Phase #1, I created a staging area in the master bedroom to give me room to see everything:

I first moved all the organized bins from the apartment to the staging area. Then I unpacked all the boxes from storage and added the new products to their respective category:

Now that I could see what I had, Matt and I ran over to Container Store to pick-up some much needed supplies and came back with quite the haul! 

 

Now that I had my supplies and my bathroom products separated into more easily manageable categories, it was time for Phase 2: Go through each pile and figure out what will be kept and what would be trashed /recycled (because nothing is worth donating).  I decided to start with my makeup, because who doesn't love playing with makeup???

As I have mentioned before, I have a serious hording problem with throwing things away, and makeup is no exception!  I had a Caboodle (the same one that I have had since 5th grade...no hoarding problems here I promise!!!), a travel bag (the same one that I took to summer camp for the first time in 3rd grade...okay, so maybe a little problem), a 12"x12"x12" metal basket, a ziplock bag, and two makeup bags full of makeup, as well as my airbrush kit. 



That my friends is a serious amount of makeup!!! As I went through everything, I again separated the makeup into categories: (1) eye shadow, (2) blush/bronzer, (3) foundation/powder; (4) eye liner; (5) lips; and (6) brows:

I also made a trash pile of products that I don't use anymore, that were super old, or that were basically empty (all those mascara tubes that I kept because they had a tiny bit left at the time and now are a dried up mess, yummy)...which turned out to be the biggest pile by far:

Evidently I have kept some of this make-up for over a decade and found some serious gems:

Can I get a "What! What!" for blue glitter eyeliner, blue eyeshadow and hot pink lipstick! They are so money and take me back to the sorority days!  Holla!!!  I planned to store all of my makeup in the center 1.25" drawer because it was the largest drawer (approximately 19" deep by 17" wide):

 

 

 

Unfortunately, the drawer is only 1.25" deep...and all the super cool containers at the Container Store that could work for drawer storage were too deep (the smallest ones that we found were 2" deep).  As I was wandering the aisles looking for inspiration, I came across the drawer liner section of the store and found this soft, thick, white liner that was a bit tacky on each side (not tacky in the sence that residue would get on you, but tacky in the sence that it would stick to the drawer without tape): 

Here

Since I was planning on storing my makeup brushes in the drawer, I knew I needed a liner to protect the inside of the drawer.  And that is when the lightbulb went off!  Instead of trying to use baskets and dividers to store my makeup in the drawer, why not just lay it all out??? Once we got home, I measured the drawer space and cut the liner to size.  Then I started laying out my makeup and brushes in the drawer, starting with the makeup that I use most often (my daily work makeup kit):

I then continued sorting through my "keep" makeup pile and pulled out the other products that I use fairly regularly when I want to mix things up or am going out.  I kept the products organized by category (e.g., eye shadow and color pots, eye liner, blushes/bronzers, lipstick, etc.), fit everything together like a puzzle, and ended up with this:

And I absolutely LOVE it!!!  I have all of my "go to" makeup displayed in an easy to identify manner and because the liner is a bit tacky, everything stays in place when I open and shut the drawer.  This is also good, because it will force me to adopt the "one-in-one-out" method and only buy the makeup that I really need.  I then put all the duplicate makeup I have in a travel case and stored it, along with my airbrush makeup kit (which I use daily, but which didn't fit in the shallow drawer) in one of my 8" deep drawers. 

 

I am so excited that I have jumped my first organization hurdle and love how my makeup drawer turned out!  No digging and unloading when I need to find the products I need, I just simply have to open the drawer and TADAH, everything is at my fingertips!  This little project gives me confidence that I just might be able to accomplish my goal of an organized house with a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place!  As the late great Neil Armstrong said:

 

Here

Now it's time to keep this ball rolling and to tackle the rest of my bathroom products! But in the meantime, let's take one more look at the "Before and After" shall we?

 

 

 Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope that you enjoyed it and have a wonderful week!!!