Renovating my Life.

During renovations you sure do notice all the other things in your house that need fixing or a face lift. Suddenly, the hall paint is looking pretty dingy and the carpeting...oh my, the carpeting...it will have to do for now with a cleaning after all this over.  We moved into this house with the existing carpeting and we're lucky it's a  neutral gray colour but it is worn and dirty and has really given us all it can give (add it to the list!).

Also, when we moved in almost every room had border wallpaper.  Some rooms had more than one border design!  We slowly moved through each room stripping wallpaper and border and choosing a more palatable palette. It's funny, now we are at the point in time that we are upgrading our own upgrades. What I once loved is ready for a change. The whole family knows the impending painting projects as they are greeted by tiny paint chips slipped into door frames or taped to the walls in different rooms.  My mind is always one step ahead of the work in progress when it comes to wall paint.  (I suppose that could be annoying to others!!)

For now though, I must concentrate on the bathroom colours.  I'm thinking we'll go pretty neutral but I do find neutral sometimes trickier - all of the sudden a once perfect paint chip looks greenish on the wall.  I also don't want it to look too boring or wishy washy.   One thing I have learned is that it's so important to buy the sample can and try it before you paint.  I like to put two coats onto a board that I can move around the room and view it at different times of the day.  Room lighting is so important and the amount of natural light can really change the look of a paint.  I also live by "it's only paint".  After sampling go for your gut.  It's usually right and if it's wrong you usually know pretty quickly so it's not a really costly mistake.  (Not like tile choices and locations of faucets...oh my I've had enough of these decisions lately!!)

Here's our bathroom at the end of last week.  You can see my two sample colour boards above the vanity. (inukshuk CC-460) and (pale oak OC-20) Unfortunately neither of these seem exactly right.  I'm looking at a couple of other colours now - one with a bit more grey and even one with a tinge of blue.  Hopefully I'll be able to get to the paint store tonight so I can have the samples ready for tomorrow.  We should be able to start priming the walls tomorrow night.

We're really happy with everything.  The shower looks amazing.  As I write this the plumber is hooking up the faucets and the toilet.  We might even have a working bathroom in the very near future! 

Hello September!

I'm not sure what happened to the end of summer.  It somehow just flew by.  I'm not sad though as I always do love September and the fall weather.  September has always felt like the beginning of the new year and I always love that feeling.  This year there is also the promise of completed renovations.

In August I have grown used to the daily banging and scraping noises coming from our bathroom upstairs.  I can now tune out the two top squeeky stairs that I hear everytime the contractors go up and down the stairs.  I have accepted the fact that our house is encased in a thick coat of dust even right after vacuuming.

We've made such progress though and we're really happy with the changes.

We've gone from a completely blank room to new flooring.

We've chosen large 24 x24" porcelain tile with a neutral stone look.

Our shower went from this...

...to this.  You can also catch a glimpse of our new vanity.

The shower was completely tiled this week and the countertop was installed.  I'll take pictures this weekend to show next week.  Hopefully by the end of the coming week it will be very close to a finished bathroom.  I'm so excited!  With school starting this week and four of us trying to get ready in the morning we will be thankful to have the extra space.

I also have some very exciting news.  A pair of my earrings are featured in the Fall 2012 edition of  DIY Weddings.  It's available now to order in print and will be available to download later this month.

I'm very excited and can't wait to see the feature!