Woot! It's master bathroom makeover time!

I'm guest posting over at Olga's blog, Stardust - Decor & Style today (Friday, June 22nd). Well, it's actually still June 21st here, but Olga is in Greece, so it's already Friday where she is :-)

Click here to check out some of my DIY and room before & afters.

Did you see the Homestyler bathroom layouts that I posted last week?

 

  

Well, I'm seriously stoked because hubby FINALLY agreed to gutting & redoing our master bathroom.

Can I get a WOOT!

Did he give in to my 11 years of nagging? Nope. All it took was a real estate agent assessing our house to walk into the room and say "Oh, this all has to go." If I'd known, I would have called a real estate agent  ages years ago!

Anyway - in all honesty, it's not the worst bathroom in the world. It's a good size, but the corner tub literally takes up 1/4 of the room, and we never even use it. We also never use the bidet. Does anyone use a bidet? The only things we've done with ours is use it as a dog water fountain and for party entertainment.

Guest: "Look! It's a bidet! What's a bidet for?"
Me: "I have no idea - but let's see how high we can get the water to shoot up!"
Everyone: "Oooooooh, cooooooool!"

via schwingeninswitzerland

This is what the bathroom looked like when we moved in (minus the Hollywood light that we replaced). That green marble tile around the tub & shower is also on the floor. I mean, seriously, could a room be any greener?

So anyway, all the ugly is going and lots of pretty is coming in. YAY! I'm totally inspired by the bathroom makeover that Sarah & Tommy did on Sarah 101 last week. Coincidentally, they had a lot of green to ditch too.

via HGTV.ca

I LOVE the moonstone tiles on the floor. I went to Saltillo to check them out, but according to the lady at the store here in Ottawa, the biggest size they come in is 3" x 6". The tiles in Sarah & Tommy's bathroom are definitely bigger than that. Well, one way or another, we'll definitely be putting moonstone in the bathroom because hubby and I both love it. Well, I love it. He doesn't really care one way or the other ;-)

If we don't use moonstone on the floor, we'll go with honed carrera marble (1) with some sort of accent, possibly Matrix Multi Gray Marble Mosaic (4). Mini Sunflower Marble Mosaic in Moonstoone & Thassos (2) will be the accent tile in the shower and in the niche behind the tub (like Sarah & Tommy's "nooche"). I'm also planning to do "wainscoting" with 3" x 6" honed carrera marble (3).

♥ ♥ ♥

via DecorPad

And hubby doesn't know this yet, but I want to replace the door & window trim with carrera marble too. I totally love this look!

via Houzz, photo by Cynthia Lynn Photogrpahy

 

These are the PARA paint colours I've narrowed the choices down to. I pulled them from the colours in the moonstone. Do you have a favourite?

 

Lindsay at Little House Blog considered these three marble alternatives for her kitchen countertops. I'm thinking any one of them would work well as the vanity countertop in our bathroom. I particularly like Corian "Rain Cloud".

 

Speaking of the vanity - hubby says he's going to make it. UGH! He does good work, but he's sooooooo slow! I've never seen anyone think and analyze and plan so much!

I love, love, love the Virage faucet from Brizo. I want, want, want polished nickel Virage faucets in our bathroom, please!

 

The shower design is still in the works, but it'll be big and glass and have body jets and maybe a rain shower head. You might never get me out of it!

via Craigslist Tips and Tricks

 

I've always wanted a free-standing tub - now's my chance! I love the design on this tub from WetStyle's IMAGE-in collection. I saw their tubs at IDS12 - they're just beautiful, and the finish is so smooth and feels amazing.

There's definitely going to be a chandelier for some bling, as well as scones above the vanity and some pot lights. I'm thinking something along the lines of this chandelier, which looks a bit like water drops.

Alexandra from Bellacor

And at the non-blingy end of things, every bathroom needs a toilet. We're planning to go with a wall-mounted Toto, which will take up less space than a traditional toilet. Plus there's less surface area to clean :-) Does anyone have a wall-mounted toilet? I'm just wondering how securely they attach to the wall...

Toto Aquia from amazon.com

So that's my vision for the room. Whether or not it comes together the way I'm hoping remains to be seen. I have to narrow down some choices, do some budget calculations, and start making some concrete decisions so we can get this party started! I'm sure compromises will be made along the way, but getting hubby to agree to the new layout was a major coup :-) The power of a real estate agent and 11 decorators who ALL chose the same layout from the four I showed them. Thank you, ladies! :-)

Don't forget to enter my giveaway - Blurb is offering one lucky JAX does design reader the opportunity to create and publish your very own book! Click here for all the details.

OMG my voice! And my first dumpster dive

A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by Jonathon Narvey for the blog Build Direct. We talked about how taking care of the small design details in your home can make a big difference. If you want to be totally freaked out, click here to listen to my weird voice.

Kelly’s first dumpster dive

This is a vintage walnut dresser that I bought a couple of months ago from Tribute Decor:

This is what I picked out of somebody’s garbage yesterday:

And he had a friend (I think this one is a she):

Are you kidding me?! It’s the same furniture, right down to the drawer pulls!

Yes, those are Christmas lights hanging from the eaves trough. And yes, that’s moss between the driveway pavers.
Don’t judge me :-) And no, the dressers didn’t come home in the smart cars!

My garbage finds are kind of beat up and need lots of TLC, but these babies were 100% free – and you can’t really go wrong with free. I’ll have to replace a couple of pulls and fix some drawers (I mean, hubby will be fixing some drawers). And I think the wood is beyond refinishing, so I’ll probably be painting this vintage twosome. Maybe I’ll do something like this dresser by Beth at Make Me Pretty Again. She gave it a cobalt blue milk paint treatment. Love!

This ombre dresser by Jordan at Little Yellow Barn is cool.

I’m diggin’ this black & white dresser by Linda at It All Started With Paint.

I don’t know the source for this pretty stencilled dresser that I pinned,  but it was obviously done by someone with lots of talent and creativity and a really steady hand :-)

Here’s a fun & colourful twist on the Union Jack by Sheridan at The Southern Eclectic.

I haven’t decided what way to go with these two pieces yet, but I know I’ll be using PARA paint because this is going to be my first PARA Paints Blog Crew project :-)

I have just a few colours to choose from…. the Architecture Kit literally just arrived!

And speaking of blog crew projects, I’ve got a really big one that I’ve started planning. I’ll give you the details soon – it has a little something to do with my latest obsession, Homestyler. And it may or may not involve a bathroom…

Have you found any treasures in the trash? Did you dive right in, or did you sneak back in the dark so nobody would see you? :-)

Happy weekend!

Addicted to Homestyler

Before getting to today's post, I want to thank everyone who stopped in at JAX over the last couple of days to check out my RAST hack. I think it's my most popular blog post ever! And two extra thank yous to Kristi at Addicted 2 Decorating for featuring Mr. RAST on her blog, and Olga at Stardust - Decor & Style for asking me to guest post about Mr. RAST and some of my other projects. I love how bloggers support each other :-) Of course, you know what this means - all the fame and glory has gone right Mr. RAST's head...

I'm too sexy for my zinc, too sexy for my zinc, too sexy I think...

Oh man, what a ham!

OK, now onto today's business... my name is Kelly and I'm addicted to Homestyler. I don't want to be a bad influence or anything, but you really should go over and check it out so you can be addicted too. It's more fun being addicted together, don't you think?

Let's be unbelievably adorable Labahoula puppies addicted to Homestyler together!

So what's Homestyler, you might ask? Well, it's a super-cool and easy-to-use free online program that lets you design room layouts. My favourite part is that with the click of a button, your 2D layout turns into a 3D view of the room that you can spin around and look at from eight angles. SO COOL! And it's so easy to use, which is perfect for someone like me with the attention span of a flea. I just don't have the patience to read user guides. I figured out the basics just by playing around. A click here, a drag there, and that's all there is to it!

Here's the 2D view of a bathroom layout that I created:

 

I selected a square room and adjusted the dimensions. Then I added doors, a window, vanity, tub, shower, toilet, mirrors, art, lighting, and accessories by dragging and dropping them from the menu into the layout. I rotated and resized some of them. I also selected a tile floor, tile for two walls, and a paint colour for two walls. And it didn't take long - probably less than half an hour.

And here's my favourite part - with the click of a button, my 2D layout is magically transformed into 3D!

 

Ta-Da!

It's not 100% perfect - you're limited to the available furnishings, accessories, paint colours, etc. And did you notice that the vase of flowers is hovering above the countertop? Either they're magic flowers or it's a little glitch ;-) But if you're like me and have trouble visualizing a room without seeing it right in front of you, Homestyler is just what you need :-)