Flowers Make Me Happy

After enduring long, cold, snowy months here I am ridiculously happy to have pretty flowers again. This is on the front porch:

Out by the garage:

I love this one that sits by our back steps.

This old igloo was my PaPa's that he used all the time.

This next one is a gardenia plant that John's mom sent me for mother's day.

I can't wait until it blooms!

This old tool box was John's Papaw's. I took the lid off of it and put flower pots in it. It's sitting on top of the piano so it can get plenty of sunlight.

So to sum up - spring is here, I love flowers, and I am happy.

The end.

The Official "After" Bathroom Post

Here's the pink bathroom one more time

(because I know everyone really wanted to see it again):

And here it is now:

This cabinet does need a little more painting and some knobs,

but I didn't want to put off the post any more. I had our "worker man" build this for us. We took out the medicine cabinet and this bathroom desperately needed somewhere to put stuff. I was nervous about how it would look in the small space, but I'm super happy we did it. Those baskets are from Hobby Lobby (half off baby) and they don't currently hold much other than hair bows for the girls.

I kept our old shower curtain thinking I'd shop around for a new one (I LOVE this one from Anthropologie but $148 is a little high for me! And check out this bath mat! Only $38 so maybe that will happen one day. In the meantime a bathmat towel works just fine for our poor student feet.)

I'm so excited about the fixture set I got on clearance at Home Depot for only $100. It's Delta, it's awesome, and it's normally almost $300. It feels amazing!

Loving the oil rubbed bronze! And the refinished tub is beautiful! You can not buy a bathtub like this anymore I've been told. It saved a lot of money to just refinish instead of replace too. In a picture later in the post you can see the lines of the tub's side. Lovely!

Here you can see the built in shelves. This was a very smart move, I think. It makes the bathroom feel more expensive and custom. And more storage! We lost a little room in the hall closet but it's worth it. The shelves are from the floor up to the ceiling.

We did tile all the way up to the ceiling instead of only part way up like the pink tile was.

We put some of the accent tile on the floor too. I love it! (A note on the tile - you do not have to spend big bucks on tile. You can, and if I had the money I would, but this tile tile only cost 1/4 of what we originally picked out and it looks great. I think adding a touch of accent tile goes a long way and with a bathroom this size wasn't a big cost anyway. I'm no tile snob! All of the tile was purchased at Lowe's by the way.)

One last look from the doorway. I haven't decided what, if anything, I'm doing for a window treatment. It gets a little busy since the shower curtain is right there so I'm leaning towards nothing. I still have the bamboo shade from before so we'll see. Also, the paint color is nomadic desert by Sherwin Williams (had it color matched at Lowe's with Behr paint). We started using that color for our flip house and I haven't found another I like better as far as this color family goes.

We've been in heaven with this new space. After living with the pink for so long, this is just incredible. It's still not huge, but it feels waaaay bigger. LOVE!

The End.

The Drain Blaster

Since it was Friday night, John and I decided it was high time we do something fun and entertaining. Also, our kitchen sink was very, very clogged. Our handy man wasn't able to fix it. John was hoping he could do it himself. His optimism is endearing.

Behold, The Drain Blaster.....

This was after using maximum strength draino and a sink auger. I also endured having a plunger used in the sink by the handy man earlier today. The floor has flooded, grossness is everywhere. Sigh.....

Getting Closer to Having a Bathroom

This whole bathroom thing has been long and painful. Mostly because of where the bathroom is and how whenever work is being done I have no access to my bedroom and all of upstairs is crowded and messy. The little ones like to play in their rooms a lot during the day so it's been a challenge. Anyway....Here's some progress pictures:

tile that still needs a good cleaning

some of the grout and all of the caulking has to be done after the bathtub is refinished

here are the built in shelves that aren't all the way set in or painted yet

Can you feel just how small this bathroom is? We've just been happy to have 2 1/2 bathrooms in this house. Most houses around us seem to have only 1 or 1 1/2 bathrooms.

Having a toilet in the hallway closet is a new trend we're trying to start. Don't be jealous!

The beginnings of tile

Everything's still very messy, but we have progress! I'm not sure if you can tell from this picture, but we're making built in shelves where there was just a wall. We'll end up losing a little of the hall closet space but I think it will be worth it.

I'm excited that I found tile for a really great price that still looks great. It does in my opinion anyway! (and it is my bathroom and my blog so I guess I get the final say!)

There's a closeup of the accent tile.

Hello, you beautiful little piece of my oil rubbed bronze handle. I love you already.

I told you it was still messy. Work resumes at 10:00 tomorrow morning.

Dusty Brown is the Color Now

Here's the progress from the first day. The pink tile turned out to be very stubborn. Whoever picked it out so many years ago must have wanted it to stay forever because they put it down with a couple inches of cement. Everything thing hanging on just about every wall in the house either fell off or was crooked because of all the banging and pounding. Wow.

Interesting to see what's behind the walls. I was hoping to find something cool so we could be on that show called "If Walls Could Talk" on HGTV. Maybe next time.

The tub refinishing man just came a little bit ago to start the tub.

But then he left because our contractor told me wrong. Apparently, you should do everything else in the bathroom first and then have the tub refinished.

Major bummer since now the tub people are a couple weeks out in their scheduling. Hopefully someone will cancel or another company can come sooner. This tub is the only one in the house. We have the (smallest ever) shower in the yellow bathroom but the three younger ones can't use it. At least it's not summertime so they won't be sweaty and gross. Lots of sponge baths may be in their future.

These things are never easy, are they?

I Love Pink

....but not so much that I want it all over our bathroom.

Pink is finally on its way out!!!

Here's a picture of the bathroom before we bought our house:

And then here are a few pictures I took this morning after taking everything out and the demolition was about to begin.

When we first looked at our house, I thought the tub just needed a good cleaning. Wrong. It needed much more. I'll look a little closer next time we're house hunting! I don't think the picture shows how bad the tub is. Lucky you.

It's been a long (almost) two years to wait for this day. My house is currently covered in dust from all the work, but it's going to be so worth it! By this weekend (hopefully), we'll be doing a happy dance. (Okay, I admit it - I'm already doing a dance now!)

It Came Back

Last week we were teased with temperatures in the 40s and 50s a few times. Glorious. It was short lived though and once again the snow and wind are at it again outside my window. This old house could really use new windows that keep that cold out!

The kids use our adirondack chairs and their sled to make a snow fort.

And below is a picture of John David in a snowball fight.

As much as that boy loves the snow, he has finally said he's ready for winter to be over. I think everyone else around here would agree!

The Thieving Squirrel

The kids and I couldn't figure out why our bird feeder kept ending up tipped over and usually emptied out. I blamed it on rowdy birds and a cheap feeder.

Then a couple of days ago I looked out and saw this:

I called the little ones over to see this funny squirrel!


He was a clever critter and entertained us for quite some time.

When hanging upside down got old, he climbed down to the teeter totter and ate some he had spilled out.

And then he went up the tree again.

Sneaky squirrel.