Master Bath Changes

I am on a kick with the master bath right now.  I just feel the need to make some changes, so that’s just what I am doing.  Last I showed you I had taken down the wallpaper border and left the room looking like this…

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No more border! Yahoo!  Next up I thought it might be nice to put some fresh paint on the walls.  I just can’t get enough painting apparently.  Before I started there were a few things I needed to do to prep the room.  Here is the sink area in the bath…

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See the counter splash guard?  Well, I hate it.  There is one on each side, yay! I decided they had to go, but first here’s a close up…

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They were both semi-peeling away from the wall already, so removing them was pretty simple.  I just took my spackling knife and pried the piece away from the wall.  I had to cut some of the caulk as I went, but it pretty much just popped right out.

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As you can see some of the drywall peeled up, nothing a little spackle can’t take care of, amiright?  So I got right to spackling…

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I use Dap DryDex spackle from Lowes, it goes on pink and dries white.  That way you know when it is okay to start sanding.

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I think it looks better already!a999999

From there I spackled all of the holes in the walls from the previous owners art.  Then I sanded everything down really well.  I also re-painted all of the trim in a white semi-gloss.

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Now this room is all ready for a good coat of paint on the walls.

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If you check out the picture above, you can see that this room is two different shades of teal.  I am pretty pumped to change the color and make it all one solid color.  I’ll let you know how it goes!

Change In Plans

I decided this weekend would be a good time to re-paint the guest bath.  So I headed to homegoods and target to find a new shower curtain to start.  I wanted to get a new shower curtain first, so I could pull a color from pattern for the paint.  I ended up having success and headed to Lowes to get a color that would match.  I made it home and showed Justin all of my finds.  Next thing I knew he was talking about removing the medicine cabinet before I painted because we really hate it.  I agreed and let him pull it out of the wall.

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Here she is, so we can all say our last goodbyes.

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Justin immediately started removing the cabinet when I said yes.  I figure I would start painting the other half of the bathroom while he patches the whole in the wall where the cabinet was.

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I also requested that we take down the exisitng towel bar and move it to the other wall.  I wanted to move the bar because where it currently was located I wasn’t able to hang a full towel.  I figured if we moved it to the opposite wall I could hang some kind of art above the toilet.  So the towel bar came down too.

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I thought we were done from there and I could begin painting. Well, I was wrong and Justin had another idea, he wanted to remove the mirror.  I did hate the mirror and I thought that would also be an easy fix so we took that down too.

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Once the mirror was down we could see all the gross grime that was left in the crevices where it was.

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Grrrross. Justin then said, while were at it we might as well remove the vanity since its old and we don’t love it either.  You can probably guess that I agreed and we started removing that as well.

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We started by removing the doors first.

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Justin then shut off the water and we started removing the plumbing below the vanity.

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I was lucky enough to get the job of removing the pipes and letting the old water and hair fall on me, not to mention the fabulous smell that comes with it.

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From there we removed the vanity top and the sink, turns out the sink was plastic, who woulda thought! Once the vanity top was off we saw this…

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A big hole in the drywall, not a good thing the discover.  We were now worried that there was no dry wall behind the vanity at all.  There was no turning back at this point so we trucked on.

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It took some prying and shimmying, but we got the whole vanity out and we were happy to find drywall!  Turns out it was just a small hole on the left side. Phew!

At this point we decided we had no choice but to remove the tile as well since there was no tile under the vanity and the new vanity we were imagining was a free standing one.

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So we started prying tiles out to find that the previous owners of this home tiled right over the original linoleum. Woo hoo one more thing to remove!

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We removed the tile by using a mason chisel and hammer.  We tapped the chisel under the tile, more like slammed the chisel under the tile and then pried them up.

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This job was not quick, we pried them up in pieces until every tile was gone.

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Also this job is kinda dangerous.  Justin and I were bleeding on our hands and arms and I even was bleeding from my forehead.  Little shards of ceramic tile pop up when you chisel them out. Fun stuff! From here we called it a night considering it was 8pm.

Bright and early I went to town removing the rest of the tile while Justin was prepping the wall to repair the hole from the medicine cabinet.  This time I was prepared though!

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Yes, Justin got me a safety mask and yes I am wearing the same shirt.

Justin also removed the toilet so I could get the tiles that were under the edges of it.  So once I finished removing the tile and ripping up the remaining linoleum it looked like this…

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Do you notice anything on the floor in this photo? Possibly a crack in the foundation?

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Oh hi crack! At this point we were thinking this project just got really expensive, so we called Justin’s dad.  Turns out it is perfectly normal for the foundation to settle and to get cracks in some areas. Man were we relieved!

While I finished up Justin had already installed the drywall to fill the hole in the wall.

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Finally making some progress!

From there Justin’s dad told us we should probably pour down some cement underlayment, so we are sure the floor is level when we lay the new tile.  So off I went to Lowes and picked up a bag of this…

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Once I got home Justin mixed up a batch of the cement and started pouring it in.

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At this point we need to wait for the underlayment to settle and dry for 24 hours and then we can start laying tile and working on other projects in the room! Man this project got big fast!

Screening the patio! woo hoo

I woke up at 7:30am yesterday, in my opinion that is not late.  To Kent and Justin, I slept in.  I woke up to them already hard at work prepping our patio to install screens! Yay!

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Charlie was project manager for the day.

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They began with tearing out any siding that was under the covered patio.

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Within minutes, bam! No more siding, only tyvek.  I know you’re on the edge of your seat, you need to know what happened next….

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Well, from there Justin stood like this for a while, while Kent screwed the metal framing for the screen into place.  They made their way around the patio measuring out the right size framing for each wall of the patio.  Next thing I knew it looked like this…

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Yes, that is a dog door.  Much needed in this home.  Once all the metal frame was cut and in place, they began installing the screen.  This is apparently the tedious part of the project.  Some hours later this is where they were at…

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Oh yea! That is a screened in corner. Here’s some more screen for ya..

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Plus some more glorious screen.

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Once the screen was all in place, they went on to install outdoor drywall where they took down the siding.  Which looks like this…

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Kent is apparently a master of all trades.  If you need something done in your home, chances are Kent knows how to do it.  I can clean or paint all day long, ask me to install a screen patio or some drywall and you’re outta luck.

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There he is spackling away!

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Here’s some more.

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This post makes this job seem like a piece of cake, but this was an all day project.  Kent and Justin worked their butts off and I am very grateful for their hard work.  This patio now looks amazing and I am so excited to have the extra enclosed living space.

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I am so thrilled that we can now leave our french doors open and not have to worry about little critters and bugs getting into our house.

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There are still a few things to tackle before the patio is complete:

  1. Texture the drywall.
  2. Paint the finished drywall and surrounding posts a comparable color to the siding.
  3. Tile and grout the patio floor.
  4. Find outdoor furniture with table large enough to eat at.
  5. Enjoy our new living area!