master bath transformation

Well this project is all but done, but I am so excited about it, I felt like I had to share! 

I really disliked this bathroom from the start.  It used to look like this:

Peachy-Tan is not a pretty color.  This is the color my skin turns when I burn and then it turns into a tan.  It's just pink enough for me to not be a huge fan.  In February I up and painted the walls grayish brown. 

A definite improvement, but not wonderful. So I did some research, and despite everything my mother and others said about painting tile, you can.   So I went to Home Depot and bought some primer that is specifically designed to adhere to extra smooth surfaces. It's called 1, 2, 3 primer.  It worked really well!

Above is my friend Emily helping me paint the tile.  On the right is after the one coat of primer.  You might be able to see that it's covered, but you can still see some peachy-tan is peeking through.  Which is really perfect, because I still had an enamel layer to paint on.

While we were painting I pulled off this horrid stuff.  It's vinyl shoe-molding.  It was probably nice when they put it up, but it's very yellowed and dirty. The issue with this being up is that they glued and caulked it on.  So the glue and caulk were partially left on when I pulled all this off.  

You can sort of see where I didn't paint all the way to the bottom.  I also opted to try painting the tiled in hardware (tp holder and towel bar).  I worked wonderfully.  While it's drying this paint levels itself out, which is wonderful!  It dries very glossy and beautiful. It looks just like enamel tiles with white grout.  There is ONE single spot (that I've noticed) that has some little drips. :( but everywhere else it looks great.  Jeff even told us he forgot that it was pink before. Win.  

 We used this groutable tile and white grout.  After reading reviews and seeing pictures from the website about this Traffic Master vinyl tile we decided to grout it, so it would look more like actual tile. We also used the piping method.  It was really hard at first, not sure if the grout was a little too dry or the bag not right or it was just lack of experience, but I eventually let Daniel do all the grouting.

I didn't let him have all the "fun" jobs though.  I marked the tiles for cutting.  Which was pretty cool actually.  I used some math skills that I thought would never get used. Hooray! It's not perfect, but it will work. The hardest cuts were around the toilet and in the doorway.  Daniel did the actual cutting with a exacto knife and a heat gun.  when heated this tile cuts like butter.

 

Whole floor and a closeup.  (for reference, the tiles are 2 square feet)  It's an oddly small, yet spacious bathroom.  It was remodeled (the only one in the house to be before we moved in) to be used by the handicapped.

This is what the top of the walls looked like before we added the crown molding.  The blue tape marks where the studs are.  You can't see it in this picture, but some places in the ceiling really need sanding down and retaping over seams, but we didn't want to tackle that so as best we could we covered it up with Large crown molding. 

I thought I had a picture of it with the molding but I don't, so I'll update it really soon with the picture. So make sure you check back!!

Love,

Sarah

Cabinet Liners

So this post is pretty simple, but I think it's a cute detail so I thought I would share.  

Because our cabinets are 50 years old and when we cleaned them there was so much dirt (etc.) trapped in the stain we decided it would give us peace of mind about using all of our dishes if we put liners inside the cabinets and drawers. 

Well of course, that got me thinking about finding something cute to put there.  I realize I haven't shared all of the kitchen with you yet, but I will soon, just one more detail to finish! ;-) 

For the colors in the kitchen I tried a fairly retro combination: cherry red and baby blue.  The cabinets (you can read about those here) are a light grey and the counter tops (more on those here) are dark grey.  You don't know it yet, but the kitchen floors are white with grey grout.  So I felt like with all that grey I could play with some bright colors!  My original intention was to put red accent tiles on the floor, but we decided that would be visually overwhelming.  I still really wanted my red accents, so these liners were the perfect solution!  

The liner themselves are made out of what is called oil cloth.  It is a laminated canvas or cotton.  The laminated part means that there is a plastic/vinyl type "seal" on the top, but it is also thicker than contact paper, which means it is far more durable.   This stuff is also very easy to clean, just wipe it down! Once I had settled on oil cloth I had to find a cute one with a red and white print.  I settled on Fabric.com's red and white polka dots!  They are so cute and fit perfectly with my sort of "retro" theme.  I ordered 8 yards and simple measured and cut to fit.  I have tons left over.  I am glad I over estimated though, I would rather have too much than too little! 

I might even make a cute tablecloth out of the extra. (The one below I found on Oilclothaddict.com, via pinterest.) I would love to put elastic around the edges so that it's easy to take outside and clean off!  

Ok, enough about that, this is how I did it: Measure. Cut.  Trim.  Spray Adhesive (outside).  Stick in Place.  Adjust.  Smooth.  Next Piece.   

It's a pretty simple process, however it was made slightly more complex because I had to take everything out of the cabinets.  The silver lining in that is that it gave me the opportunity to move things around in the kitchen while I had everything out.   

As you can see, I didn't get all the wrinkles out and some of the pieces will have to be trimmed still.  And to be honest, I still have about 1/3 of the cabinets/drawers left to finish.  Let's face it, blogs aren't always a perfect as they seem.  I am trying to give a true (but typically cleaner than usual) representation of our life at the Foster house.  It's not perfect, but neither are we.  PTL. 

Do you love it as much as I do? Do you hate it? Do you have any experience with Oilcloth?  Don't you love it!!?  It's an impressive fabric, and becoming a favorite. :)

Until next time,

Sarah