Just a quick bathroom renovation...NBD

You know what is a great idea when you have exactly seven days before your housewarming/meet-the-neighbors party? To gut-renovate your powder room.

Can you sense my sarcasm in that statement? Good.

All-in-all, it was a pretty smoothly done project, but we definitely encountered some obstacles that rearranged that original (and tight) timeline for the various stages and we finished the last detail the morning of the party. BUT WE GOT IT DONE! We learned some things (or rather, hubs did…he is the primary renovator while I help occasionally but mainly keep the crib midgets out of the construction zone…and have design input, of course!) and the entire project was under $800 from start to finish, not including the couple of new tools we bought for the project or the gas mileage from the DAILY (...and I mean several per day) trip(s) to either Lowe’s or Home Depot.

Demolition was a new fun time for us—we had never completely demo’d a room—taking out ALL of the old was very cleansing. Plus, sledgehammering all the things is kind of awesome when you need to get out some aggression. It was also nice to take things apart with the knowledge that none of it needed to be salvaged. There were challenges to some of the removals—baseboards being glued rather than nailed, so wall damage. And, finding an old toilet drain (we think?) while we were demo-ing the floor tile and damaging the sub-floor…oops! 

Here are the before's: 

Brown and yellow, and more brown and yellow....The tile itself was actually very well installed and had it been another color I would have kept it and worked around it--I even considered a cheaper option of painting the tile--which would have showcased the pattern. I had been reading several blogs about painting floor tile--but in the long run, the paint was not likely to last more than 2-5 years without starting to show wear and we had to take into consideration that this bathroom was going to be high traffic for our family and for guests. 

Gut complete! After we had removed everything, Hubs had to go out and buy a grinder to get the majority of the old thin-set off the concrete subfloor (It was only $40). Then, he had to patch the damaged area to get some semblance of a level floor in order to lay the new tile. The patch took almost a full 48 hours to set up enough so that we could start the floor--hence the timeline adjustment and subsequent last minute finishing. In the mean time, hubs started tiling the left side of the area and I put two coats of plain white paint. For now, the bathroom is staying white because we were under such a time crunch that it was just easier to paint the ceilings and walls all white rather than worry about a color selection. While I know changing the paint color once the toilet and vanity are in will be a challenge, time was of the essence--and anything was going to be better than the pee-colored yellow that was on the walls. 

We decided to keep it simple and crisp. A subway style ceramic tile that has gray accents with gray grout (hopefully will hide a lot of future stains unlike white grout), a dark gray vanity, brushed nickel fixtures and light wood accents.

And the finished product! YAY!

(With the exception of this picture--Hubs was out getting the toilet paper holder when I took this...I also realize that maybe I should take a picture sans toddler-stool but really, this is REAL LIFE and we have potty-training children, so there.)

There you have it--7 days of all evening (and early morning) work later, and we have a new powder room. Now, to recover the credit cards a little before the next project!

House Fixings: The Master Bedroom

As some of you may know, we moved into our forever home back in August--a 1980s built all brick split-level that is completely outfitted with the original finishes. We fell in love with the location, the amount of land, the fact that it had a well-kept pool. However, when buying it, we knew we were in for a long haul of renovations and projects over the next 5 or so years.

With the layout, we actually have a lot more living space, but it is spread out and there is not a lot of closet space. In our townhouse, we had two walk-in closets in our master. At our new place, we have 1 walk-in that is half the size of the others that we had previously. So we were in a clothing and bedroom organization dilemma. We mulled over some ideas over a couple weeks--more furniture vs built-ins vs eventually expanding the current walk-in closet into the bathroom. I kept leaning towards a built-in closet option along our one wall, while my husband was set on finding an armoire and another dresser. After he came up empty at one of the local vintage barn sales, he was more easily swayed towards the idea of the Ikea Pax system that I had in mind.

It was no easy feat--we had to rent a Uhaul tow trailer in order to fit all the boxes. Thankfully, we pre-measured and planned and figured out that neither the Outback or the Forester would be able to house the monstrosities of these 93 inch tall systems. I have got to hand it to Ikea--first of all, there is a way to plan out exactly what you want for these systems (bar, pull drawers, pants hangers, lights, etc.) on the website. THEN, once you have planned it all out, it populates a shopping list....with the areas in the warehouse where everything is located (provided you pick the right store....we boo-booed on this and chose the Baltimore store instead of College Park, so then there was frantic trying to figure it out on our phones), AND the program even gives you the approximate cost! So, basically if you use it correctly, there isn't much in terms of surprises.

So, we set off, rented the trailer, took a quick look at the system in the showroom and then went to work to load 700 lbs of boxes and pieces into the trailer and then unpack and unload them at home.

My husband is a perfectionist to a T and while his inability to complete something without it ensuring that it is completely flawless sometimes drives me a bit batty (I'm constantly the voice in his ear--"Honey, nobody is going to notice that gap in the crown molding"), he does some damn good work. With me being the primary "distracter" of 4 and 2 year old minions, he is often left to his own devices when it comes to the renovation happenings in the house. After settling on the Ikea system, hubs looked up different ways to ensure that it looked like an incorporated/built-in piece. Once we had all the supplies, we chose a paint color and got that done, as well as updated the fan and electrical outlets.

The lonely and sad wall to be transformed (and dresser to be moved)

The original outlets

After many a YouTube videos--Hubs working his learned electrical magic. He only tried to burn down the house once! :)

Fresh and white

Securing the gigantic PAX to the wall, these giants are 93 inches tall.

Framing it in. Hubs used a coping saw to integrate it to the baseboards so we didn't have to demolish baseboard to get it into place.

Coming along

Spiffy auto-lights and soft-close doors!

All 3 in place and secured!

Out with the old...

In with the new!

And add the crown molding and we have a completed room!

The other walls are a light gray, and the wall behind the bed is a dark gray. I am definitely in a gray phase #grayalthethings

When I polled the Hubs about the project--he said the most challenging part was framing it in and figuring out a molding size that would look good in the room but also fit above the Pax piece. Then getting the molding up was full of issues because no wall is really flat/straight nor a room perfectly square. As hubs says--"Caulk and paint to make it what it ain't" :) The Pax system itself went up pretty quickly once he hit a groove, but the molding probably took him the better part of 3 weekends between needing brain breaks, rest for a back injury, and the procrastination of the caulking (which is his 2nd least favorite renovation chore other than putting up crown molding). 

BUT it is done (aside from maybe new bedroom side tables and dresser, but that is for another time), he now has a spiffy new closet space and I have taken over the dresser and small walk-in closet within our bathroom. The bedroom is mostly finished....for now. We are also toying with a relaimed wood wall/side table thing. Still brainstorming on that one. 

Stay-tuned. We got silly this past week and renovated our powder room top-to-bottom in the 7 days prior to our Housewarming party...

American is great, but we have to work to keep it that way.

Today starts a hard morning for many of us who were hoping to wake up to America’s first female president. The majority of my friends and where we live are feeling many emotions: disbelief, sadness, numbness…some of us may even move through the 5 stages of grief over the coming weeks and months. The grieving process is fluid and you can regress back to the different stages of it many times. You never fully get over losing something or someone in your life—you will miss them, and while the frequency changes over time as you get used to them not being there, you still will have bad days. While moving through the stages, some days will seem like you’re feeling all of them at once, and other days much less dramatic. Denial/Isolation (and I think apathy can fit here, as well), Anger, Bargaining, Depression…I’ve felt many of these emotions in full force and it is only 6AM the morning after Election Day.

The final part of the grieving process is acceptance. And it is true—America has spoken, states and areas that were once blue voted red this election, and it is nothing short of a huge upset, at least for those of us in our coastal/city highly populated and very progressive areas. I am scared, but I need to have trust in our government, which has the system it does to ensure that our President is part of a democratic process and not a dictator. However, despite my disappointment, I have already started my process of trying to accept the results. The main reason being that I have watched the majority of the American population – this same population that showed up at the polls for Mr. Trump, disrespect and say horrible things about our current President for 8 years. And, while I am not in agreement of the results today, I will not be that American. I don’t have to like the man that has been elected, but he is our President come January, and I will respect his title.

We, as supporters of Democratic/Third/Green/Alternative parties, need to continue to go high here, folks. We pride ourselves in our acceptance of differences—of other races, customs and beliefs, of the total LGTBQ community, and of women’s and general human rights. With the help of social media, it was easy to feel like the majority that would have swayed this election the other way—because friending and unfriending gives us a false sense of power and egocentrism. The “all of my Facebook friends are voting for Hillary, so how did we get here” mindset. I’ve lived in the suburbs of DC my entire life, and in the notoriously blue state of Maryland. I don’t understand “Trump country” and those who occupy it. But, I need to. Their opinion and beliefs are still things that I need to accept and respect as we are ALL American citizens.

We need to educate each other, and not continue to divide. We can all get along if we try to understand and empathize where we all come from in our values. Hard stops for me will continue to be anything HATEFUL towards any of the populations that occupy our wonderful and already great country. That shit is just not tolerated in this house and shouldn’t be in yours either. However, because of my chosen profession and my interracial marriage—It is a part of my entire being to try to understand where others come from and why they are the way they are. In 9 years of nursing, I have treated all races, backgrounds, and social classes. In these experiences, I have come to understand that you are a direct product of your surroundings and what you know. I do not know what is like to be black, brown, Hispanic, poor, rich, a man, a Muslim, a Jew, etc. I only have some insight, but I can never fully understand. I only know the privilege I have had as a white middle-class citizen. There are people in this country who fight every day to put food on the table, who have no credit, who have to fight for work, for education, for respect, and for health. There are people who have felt left behind during Obama’s presidency and feel that our elected president is the change that America needs. And guys, it is a large part of that map that is red—and we should all try to understand each other.

So, move through your grief and come to acceptance. Your children and families deserve to see a graceful example and you need to lead within your households as you wish to be lead in your country. Be fair, be pragmatic, have love in your heart, accept the differences, and educate. And lastly, move forward. Continue to fight for equality and for those less fortunate than yourself. 

A Day of Reflection

It’s been a long time, ya’ll.

With this blog, after my last post, I got stuck. Some of it writer’s block, and some that I had issues that I wanted to write about but unsure of how to approach them. I’m unsure of where I want to go with this blog—I have a list of topics I want to approach. We shall see if I get there. It’s going to be a mix—some tongue-in-cheek, some serious, and some fun.

For today, since it is September 11th, fifteen years after that day of infamy, I feel that we all need to reexamine our place in our country. This is a day where many of us can answer (and also never forget) exactly where we were and what we were doing when we learned of the terrorist attacks that were in process. One thing I remember about that day, too, is when the announcement was made over the school intercom, I didn’t know what they were talking about when they said that the World Trade Center had been attacked. I did know the nickname given to those buildings, but I certainly didn’t understand the GRAVITY of this attack and I don’t know if any of us really could anticipate where this would take our country. By the time a lot of us got to a television, one tower had already collapsed, and then we witnessed the other one do the same. Glass, steel, first responders, workers, bystanders--so many lives in one instant. Everyone one of us effected.

The thought that I feel that many Americans had that day: We are not as invincible as we had grown accustomed and even taught to think. A battle had been initiated on our own soil—it questioned our security and our infrastructure. We are a huge, but young country, and we still have a lot to learn. In the weeks and months after the attacks, as we mourned the lives lost, cleaned up the rubble and started to rebuild, the patriotism suddenly bubbled over and could be felt all over the world. And now, 15 years later, we continue to struggle. Would we be here if we hadn’t been attacked and thrusted into a war? Hard to say. Everything that has a weak or crumbling foundation eventually falls. I’m not saying that we will fall as a country, but I do see where we have room to improve in order to band together to be a stronger nation—and one that is respected by other nations.

I feel we are in a bit of an impasse. I’m not saying we won’t get through what we are going through as country--but over the past 8 years with our current president, I have continued to observe an appalling disrespect over race and gender. Over 50 years ago, African American citizens were given the right to vote and have a say in our country, and almost 100 years for women. Yet, the divide still exists. While we are not in the same state we were during the Jim Crow Laws time, it is still amazing to me that we continue to have an issue with race and respect in our supposedly “progressive” country. And, in truth, I will never fully understand the race divide. I can’t possibly--because I am a white, middle class, and suburban raised citizen. My upbringing places me with an automatic set of blinders that while I constantly fight to take off, I never fully can. I have married a wonderful man of Indian descent, with a Muslim last name. We have two beautiful mix-raced children, who I fear will constantly be forced to identify with one or the other race, rather than embracing their true multi-cultural backgrounds and families. People still stare. People still GLARE. I did not notice until my husband pointed out that people do, indeed, give our family disapproving looks. Some people disrespect our President, not based on his politics, but solely that he is a black man. And the statistics do not lie—the jail sentence of white co-ed who raped an unconscious woman is a glaringly revolting example of the divide that our country still continues to feed. We are all citizens of this great country, but unfortunately, we are still not all treated as equals.

So, this 9/11, I ask you to not only reflect on the lives lost, the war we still continue to fight (and especially those who are fighting while we are back at home), and your thankfulness to be alive. I invite you to look outside your comfortable place, embrace those that are different from yourself, and request that you look for ways to do and be better, and to also stand-up for those who deserve better. Recognize your own views and opinions, but also recognize that you don’t have the only right answers to our America’s problems.

We are all humans. We all are made up of the same insides. We are capable of reasoning, love, empathy, an understanding. Dig deep and open your eyes. We can do better.

We need to be better.