Long Time No See :)

I have not blogged in forever! Someone was just asking me about it and I confessed that the reason is that Facebook has pretty much taken up my online social time. It's been fun to reconnect with friends and see their photos and what they are all up to!

So what's new here...we're on snowday #3 due to our October snowfall. We were blessed with about 2 feet of powder here in Parker and are getting ready for our first trip to ride our skis! The kids had a boring fall break, as I came down with the flu :( But I'm on the mend and grateful for it.

In other news, the kids are back at swimming. This is MBJ's first time on a swim team. He is really liking it so far. Life is busy with my being back in school and juggling the house and kiddos schedule. But it's a good kind of hectic, my favorite!

I'll try to post more often, though most of the people who would even read this are probably on FB and know what's going on already :)

Office Before/After

Wowzas I haven't blogged in forever. Since January we have been really wrapped up in home improvements and then came spring break. And admittedly, Facebook has taken up much of my online time since I finally got a page set up. And that has been very cool finding so many friends on there.

Okay, the office. Here we have some before pics. It was all brown, brown stained moulding, brown/beige paint and carpet, and since we own reddish/brown office furniture, it made me ill. Ugly room. We have a fireplace in here and it had no mantle, it just looked unfinished. The tile that was there was old and chipping.

So Marty ripped out the tile, the carpeting, and took down the dated moulding. Buh bye.

I knew once I first saw the fireplace wall that I was going to tile the entire thing. I have watched too much HGTV :) But it turned out awesome. We chose a slate 3x6 tile, the hearth floor tile is a matching slate. Before we tiled I repainted the built ins and chose a warm honeyish color for the walls. I thought it complemented the tile and soon to be installed bamboo flooring nicely. Marty put the bamboo in after everything else was complete and viola. Believe it or not this room makeover took less than a week, and Marty worked during the days thru it all. LOVE this room now!!

Hmmm

I should have posted these in reverse order. Oh well :)

And the fireplace.

As we finished the bathroom we thought, life would just be too peaceful to relax now. So we decided to reface our fireplace, one side of it. Now this picture is of the OFFICE side of the FP, but we replaced the other side, the family room side. I forgot to take a before pic of that side. So today I snapped a shot of the other side, it was a traditional black/brass like this side. The tiles were chipping, and are on this side. So we hacked off the old beige tiles and got to it.

Sparing you all of the in progress pics, which there aren't any...this tile job was smooth sailing and done in an evening. We repainted the trim around the glass with a hammered silver finish, which was not totally dry yet.

And voila! The carpet will stay as is for now, b/c it is all getting ripped out and we are putting wood flooring down in the future. Stay tuned for what the OTHER side of the fireplace looks like down the road as well!! :D

And here is just my son being his usual sweet, charming self today.

And to pull it all together...

When Marty was at work one day, while the whole bathroom was still being finished up, I decided it was time to paint the bedroom. It was very cool to surprise him when he got home! At this point we have repainted almost every room in the house. The ENTIRE thing was beige, ceiling to floor, in almost every room. And it was OLD paint, very grimy, so no...we aren't crazy, we just new moving in here, that it would all need to get done ASAP. The curtains do not make their appearance in these photos b/c they were not up yet. They are a goldish sheer panel.

Our new bathroom!!!

Well alrighty then! The bathroom is finished! Except for the cabinet/counter/sinks/mirror/light situation, but we'll make that a simple weekend project in a monthe or two. ;) After the tiling was done we had to paint the walls, we did the ceiling before we laid tile.

New shower heads.

There was a little grout in the shower pan from a touch up, I hadn't cleaned it out yet, I was ready to take the pics for once and for all :)

We put up a new shower door as well. The old one was not salvagable.

New toitie room AND new toitie! Well deserved we think.

Here is a close up of our mosaics.

In progress...

During Lizzie's visit, primarily when the kids, Lizzie, and I spent a day at the science museum, Marty demo'ed the bathroom. He ripped out all the carpet, took out the trim, ripped down the walls with tile on them, sealed the subfloor where it needed it, etc. He replaced the missing drywall and put down backerboard where it needed to go. All of that took a week or two, as he did it in his off work hours. And THEN, we started tiling. We did the shower first.

I had chosen the accent tile before anything else. We had a few other options that were nice, but the floor tile sealed our choice when we found it. The tub/shower tile was chosen simply b/c it complemented the others well enough.

We found the floor tile at a tile store nearby and it was clearanced out, and we REALLY loved it, so it was the obvious choice. The slate mosaic tile accented so well, we were happy how it came together. Look! No more funky carpet in the toitie room!!!

Do you think we overdid the accents? I think it really pulled it all together across the entire bathroom. We purchased a new faucet for our tub. A bit more updated :)

Bathroom Before...

Okay, this is how we have been spending our free time over the last month! Here is what our bathroom looked like BEFORE our makeover. Here you can see our funky carpet that went throughout the bath, it was as old as the house and I was not going to continue living with someone else's mildewy bathroom carpeting. Ew.

And below is our garden tub, which was fine, aside from the 80's plastic crystal knobs, and the cracking tile surrouding the tub. That is not really visible in the pics, but trust me, the crumbling grout and cracked tiles are there.

Toitie room with carpet. Yes, carpet. We won't discuss the stains we had to seal on the subfloor surrounding the toitie.

And finally the shower. Also complete with crack, crumbling grout, and mildewy yuck that was many moons old. The carpet surrounding the shower pan was heeeeeeeeeeeinous.

Shhhh Sleepy

So we are still not done with the bathroom, but we are getting there. We have to grout the tub surround, then seal all of the grout, get the new toitie fully installed, and finish painting. I am sore and ready to be all done. But I know when we finish, I will move to the next room. I am a glutton for punishment, but it really needs to be finished.

I saw Mrs. Cohen, my HS History teacher, on facebook. She asked me if I ever turned out to be a medical illustrator. Art and Science were my fave subjects and where I excelled (not history Mrs. Cohen :) I couldn't believe she remembered that. I told BM that since I put down the sketchbook and paintbrush all these years, I was expressing my artistic side in our homes. Much to his dismay. He is a patient, kind husband. Props to you baby.

So soon I will post pictures of our newly tiled/painted bathroom. Happy almost end of January.

BUSSSYYYYYY

Wow, I haven't written in almost a month! Time do fly. We had a really great holiday season. I was sure we were going to be homesick and lonely, but Sue came to visit with us for awhile right before Christmas, and then Lizzie was here not but a few days later! We had a great time having family here and I will get some pics up soon. Lizzie just went home yesterday, so we haven't done any of that yet.

We did, however, repaint our entire front room/entry, upstairs hall. We also gutted our entire master bath. Did I tell you there was carpet in there? That is just wrong. It was very old and very gross. We have chosen new tile for our floor, shower, and tub surround. We are getting all new fixtures, toilet, etc. We also chose our new bedroom wall color.

The house is really coming together. We like our new colors and tiles a lot...nothing like making your house your home. After this I only have to paint the other bathrooms and the office. The new flooring will go in last...we will put bamboo flooring in the entire house (aside from the basement which already has laminate). I have wood in the kitchen now but I think we will put tile in later, I like tile in those high abuse areas.