The bathroom renovation roundup

A big thank you to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts on my This or That series the past few weeks. Your feedback helped a lot! At this point, almost all the decisions have been made, most of the items have been bought, and the building permit is attached to our front door. Why we need to let everyone know we’re doing a bathroom reno, I have no idea. Anyway, here’s a roundup of what’s going on in the bathroom…

Fixtures

MAAX Ambrosia F freestanding tub with air jets and chromatherapy lights. Can’t wait for a relaxing soak in this baby!

Toto Aquia wall-mounted toilet. I hope it stays firmly attached to the wall!

Two American Standard Studio sinks. We have these in our current vanity – I love the combination of linear & curvy.

Faucets

I’ve loved the Virage series from Brizo for a long time. So I’m so thrilled that Brizo very generously provided the Virage vanity, tub, and shower faucets & jets. THANK YOU BRIZO! Click here to read more about these gorgeous Virage faucets, and click here to learn more about some of Brizo’s other super-sexy faucets.

Tiles

This was by far the toughest decision to make. I had my heart set on blue moonstone floor tiles, but so many factors came into play that moved me away from moonstone and over to these Midgley & West 12” x 24” Volcano “Nero” porcelain tiles.

Bianco Carrara marble mosaic accent tile to break up the dark floor.

The winning layout, and it’s Squirt-approved too :-)

On the other hand, I knew I wanted these “Wave” tiles from Ceragres for the shower walls as soon as I saw them!

I literally anguished over the accent & niche tiles before finally settling on these pretty small blue mosaics, also from Ceragres.

 

Countertop and shower trim

This Super White quartzite is absolutely stunning. Thanks to Steph at The Granite Gurus for the inspiration! If you’re looking for an alternative to Bianca Carrara marble, this is one of Steph’s recommendations.

Vanity

Hubby is going to build a double vanity in this style. I’ll  be painting it with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Paris Grey and Old White, just like this table that I painted a few weeks ago. I’m still on the hunt for ring pulls…

Image via Houzz | Design by Artistic Designs for Living, Tineke Triggs

Lighting

Right from the start, I knew I wanted a bubble-style chandelier. Two of these Modern 4-Light Rain Tear Drops Crystal Chandeliers by Evrasvet will hang in the center of the room.

Vanity lighting

It was a tough decision, but wall sconces win! After chatting a bit with Kelly Berg at Arte Styling, I realized that hanging pendants would be overkill with the two chandeliers – like Kelly said, it could look a bit like stalactites hanging on a cave!

Images via Pinterest and Houzz {I can’t find the original sources}

Shower bench

Teak bench wins! It was a tough call, but in the end, the warmth of the wood and the versatility of a free-standing bench won out. Hubby is also going to make the bench… eventually!

Images via Houzz | Designs by The Wood Shop of Avon and Andrea Schumacher

We still haven’t settled on the vanity mirror(s), but that’s something that can be decided at the end of the reno. And the niches on the wall behind the tub are still up in the air – that decision needs to to be made soon!

Our bathroom reno plan has been in the works since June, and hubby is FINALLY just about ready to start the demo. He’s finishing up relocating heating ducts in the basement ceiling first – now that it’s getting down to 0 degrees at night, it would be really nice to have some heat in the house! Once that’s done, it’ll be full steam ahead with the bathroom. CAN’T WAIT!

When ombre fails, paint pumpkins

Please come visit me at my new blog, K&B Adventures By The Sea. My hubby and I are really living the coastal life now and building our dream home in Nova Scotia. Like, actually building it ourselves. Just the two of us. Really!

After three failed attempts at creating an ombre wall in my office, I’m rethinking that plan. I really want to do it, but I only have so much paint and time and patience. It’s way harder than I thought it would be, but I’m not quite ready to give up yet. I have another method to try, and I REALLY hope it works!

So no ombre walls to show you today, but I did paint some pumpkins.

And one of them has a sort of ombre effect…

I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Provence, Paris Grey, and French Linen. Some got a whitewash treatment with Old White, and one got waxed – then I realized that rubbing on the wax was rubbing off the paint – DOH! – so I skipped the wax on the rest of them.

I wrapped the stems with jute twine and added some shells and shell pieces from PEI to give them a coastal vibe.

So not the ombre walls I wanted to get done on the weekend, but at least painting pumpkins is crossed off the to-do list :-)

Have you ever tried to paint an ombre wall, or anything else? If you have, I’d love to hear how you did it!

Thank you Heather at Setting for Four for featuring my pumpkins on her blog :-)

Linking up to…

 

A little weekend yumminess

Are you looking at those last few pieces of turkey leftovers in your fridge and letting out a little sigh? Does the thought of eating one more turkey sandwich or another plate of turkey a la king have you admitting turkey defeat? Then you need to try out this recipe for Turkey Tortilla Soup from Laylita’s Recipes!

I’ve made it a quite a few times with chicken, but now that I’m down to the dredges of the turkey leftovers, I’m whipping up a pot of this soup for supper tonight. It’s sooooooo good, and you can adjust the heat factor by adding more or less jalapenos and cayenne pepper. And if you don’t have fresh tomatoes handy, just use a can of diced tomatoes. Dee-lish!!

And how about some healthy cookies for dessert. I don’t eat gluten-free, but I’ve been trying out some gluten-free recipes lately to try to cut back a bit on carbs. I’ve made these cookies a couple of times in the last few weeks, and they seriously rock – Grain-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites from Texanerin Baking.

The key ingredient is chick peas – crazy, eh?! Who knew those little legumes could taste so good! I use natural almond butter, and I put the cookie dough in the fridge for about 10 minutes to firm it up just a bit. Instead of rolling the dough into balls, I just drop tablespoonfuls of dough onto the cookie sheet. I get about cookies 18 cookies from a batch of dough.

A little weekend yumminess for you :-)

You know what they say about the best laid plans

Most of mine for the long weekend didn’t happen. Honestly, it’s not because I was lazy – there was so much stuff going on that I just ran out of time. And there were other things that popped up. Like my dad and mom #2 arriving for T’giving dinner with luggage. I had no idea they planned to stay overnight – good luck finding the bed under all the crap piled on top of it! More than the usual number of trips to the dog park. Much-needed thorough cleaning inside and out of our cars. And the turkey thawing catastrophe, which added yet another reason to the ever-growing list of reason’s why I shouldn’t multi-task. You may have read about it on my FB page, but if you didn’t…

Hubby bought the turkey on Friday and we put it in the fridge to thaw. It was still semi-frozen three days later, so I put it in the laundry room sink to use the thawing-in-cold water method. I turned on the water, got bored of waiting, and went to kitchen to start preparing cranberries & stuffing {can you see where this is going?!} Then I had a sudden OMFG moment and ran down hallway to laundry room. There was water coming out through the doorway, down the hallway, all over the laundry room floor, under the washer & dryer, and dripping through the floor vent directly onto the entertainment unit in basement.

Images via Funny Signs and Photobucket

I yelled for hubby to come help and started soaking up water with towels. Then I had another OMFG moment {yes, I have a LOT of those!) and ran back to kitchen where sugar & water were bubbling like crazy in a pot and onions were burning. In the end, there was no real damage, the onions were salvageable, the cranberries tasted pretty good, and the stupid turkey did thaw eventually. But I won’t be cooking a turkey again any time soon – Christmas dinner this year is pizza! Woot!

Anyway… I did get the blue table finished {pics coming soon}, I polyfil’d all the nail holes in the crown moulding in the craft room so the trim is ready to paint, I bought pumpkins that will be getting a coastal-inspired makeover, and the painting is all packaged up and ready to send to its new owner. And speaking of new owners… Toby Won Kenobi went home with his new owners on Sunday. I love this picture they took in the car…

I’m missing the little guy like crazy – our home is so quiet without him! It’s been way harder than I thought it would be to let him go, and I’ve been having a lot of “we should have kept him” moments. But if we did keep him, we wouldn’t be able to help other dogs. Like poor sweet Malcolm – he arrived at our house on Sunday, and he’s looking a little bit happier now than he did in that awful shelter photo :-)

Here’s Malcolm!

Isn’t he handsome? :-) He’s very shy and timid, so we’re going to have to work hard at making him braver. We’ve already seen positive changes in his behaviour since Sunday, so hopefully he’ll be a happy-go-lucky pup soon! All dogs should be full of life and joy and not a care in the world :-)

P.S. My This or That Wednesday series is done – thanks for all your input over the last month and a half. I’ll be showing you all our final choices soon :-)

Long weekend plans: DIY and dogs

What’s better than a long weekend? An extra-long weekend! Can I say I’m just a littl ebut excited about having the next five days off? :-) WOOT! And it’s a good thing too, ‘cause I have a lot of projects on the agenda!

For starters, I’ll be starting my next PARA Paints Blog Crew project. I’m turning a small room in the basement into a craft/painting room. Hubby has installed the ceiling and crown moulding, and now it’s ready to paint. I was originally going to do something bright and funky and graphic, but now I’m leaning towards trying something different and doing an ombre effect. Like this:

Image via P.S. - I made this…

Now I just need to decide on a colour palette. I’d love to do navy, but it’s a small room with a low ceiling and no window, so I may have to go with something lighter. I really love the colour I used on my little chair, P5168-51 Time Will Sell. I might use a series of colours from that colour chip.

I’ve picked the ceiling & trim colour for the room – white! I know, pretty exciting, eh? ;-) It’s P5216-14D Climb the Mast. It looks a bit pink in the picture, but it’s not at all. It’s a yellow-based white, so it’s slightly creamy.

So that’s project #1. I’m also planning to paint a bookcase and desk to go in the room. I’ve had the Mulholland china pattern by Kelly Wearstler in my head for a while now…

…to do a little something like this:

Image via Timmy the Weiner Dog {blog no longer exists}

I think I’ve figured out how I’m going to do it – now I just need to get it done! That’s project #2.

Project #3 is easy – upholstering seat cushions for the four stools that hubby built for the kitchen . I bought this fabric from Tonic Living – it’s called Make Waves in the Latte colourway. I love the pattern, and the colours tie the kitchen and family room wall colour.s together.

FYI, the ladies at Tonic Living are super-nice and their service is super-fast – my fabric arrived two days after I ordered it :-)

I’ve been transforming a couple more pieces of furniture with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. The first is a side table that I gave a driftwood look to. It still needs a few touch-ups and a new pull for the door. Here’s a peek:

And this little table is taking forever – the stupid spindles are a lot more time-consuming to paint than I thought. It’s almost ready for its debut, but for now, here’s a little preview…

Besides these DIY projects, we have a lot of dog stuff going on this weekend. Jackson & Toby are going to a photo shoot on Saturday morning, and then Toby is meeting potential adopters in the afternoon.

They seem like a great couple, and they have a home that’s right on Lake Erie, so Toby Won Kenobi {that’s my nickname for him} will be able to do lots of swimming and playing on the beach. I want them to adopt me too!

I’m really going to miss Toby when he leaves for his new home – we’ve been fostering him for almost two months and he’s become a part of our family. But this will probably help with the transistion – we have a new foster dog arriving on Sunday. His name is Malcolm. When I saw this picture of him on the Catahoula Rescue Ontario Facebook page, my heart broke and I just had to help him.

Have you ever seen such a dejected dog?! Poor guy! He was scheduled to be euthanized the following day, and I just couldn’t let that happen. I told Gloria who runs Catahoula Rescue Ontario that I would foster him if she could pull him from the shelter. Luckily, we were able to rescue him just in time. I’m really looking forward to meeting him so I can finally see what he looks like – he didn’t face the camera for either of his shelter pictures. Assuming there are no glitches with the transport or issues at the border, he’ll arrive in Ottawa Saturday night and Gloria will bring him to our house on Sunday. I’ll post better pictures then :-) By the way, if there’s anything you want to know about Catahoulas or if you’d like to adopt or foster a dog, you can find all the info on the new blog. I designed it with lots of help from Heather and Tanya – thanks girls!

We’ll be having our Thanksgiving dinner on Monday with my dad and mom #2. If there’s time, I want to do a little crafting with them and paint some pumpkins for Hallowe’en…

Image via Landee See Landee Do

And finally, I need to put the finishing touches on this painting and mail it to its new owner. It’s my first official sale – thank you Janet :-)

Of course, just because I plan to do all these things doesn’t mean that I actually WILL do all these things! Come on by next week and I’ll let you know what I manage to get done!

Oh, and one more thing – I’m just $65 away from my goal of raising $500 for the Growing Our Pits For Tits campaign! Thank you Chuck, Diane, Lana, Stephanie, Vanessa, Sarah, Suzanne, Lisa, Janet, Kate, and Pam & Oded for your support! If you’d like to make a donation towards breast cancer research and awareness, click here to go to my donation page.

What are your plans for the long weekend?

Happy Thanksgiving & Happy Columbus Day!