It's in the details

Our house is from the '80's - throughout this renovation we have discovered things that we don't really want, things that I would have never thought about. These little details are definitely one of the perks of building brand new, everything is new. One such thing we have run into is the outlets/covers. We have the lovely off white/almond/looks dirty outlets and covers. Some of the rooms hide it well, since there is an off white motif any way. But, other rooms, these ugly almond covers stick out and just look drab.

Here's a picture of my daughters room with the regular outlet.

The white trim added such a clean look and the outlet just looks off, it looks dirty and outdated. My solution, via pinterest:

It adds so much to the room. Instead of your eye catching on what you think is dirty and old, you look at a cute little detail of the room. The best part - its so easy. A little modge podge, an exacto knife, and drying time. I did the two light switches in my daughter's room with some left over craft paper I used on a friends wedding invitations. The light pink has sparkle white dots. Unfortunately, in doing these outlets I realized the other outlets stood out more. I didn't really want to do them all in this contrasting pink polka dots. So for the other outlets, I used left over fabric from her curtains.

Here is the final coat with modge podge.

This is the end product. It's so adorable and subtle! I sort of wish I just did the whole room in the paisley, but the polka dot is adorable too. I will say, I prefer using fabric vs. scrap booking paper. The edges glue down easier, it lays flatter and just looks more professional. About 5 minutes of prep, a couple hours of drying and here you have it!

I don't know that I want every outlet cover in the house to be fancy, but since the cost of replacing all the outlets and covers is staggering, its a great way to add some beauty in the rooms that really could use an extra little touch.

Bathroom facelift

A while ago I posted about painting our master bathroom yellow and the dramatic change it made for us. To remind you, here is a picture of what we started with when we moved in. Not awful, but nothing nice. A few things you can't see are the metallic linoleum, the oak and gold light, oak and gold towel bars and toilet paper holder, and the non-flushing, corroded toilet.

For me to use this bathroom at all, we decided early on to get somewhere to put our towels, upgrade the hardware, and paint. The paint cost us $12 for two samples of Sherwin Williams Banana Cream, the shelves were $20 each, from target. Our hardware on the vanity I took off a desk I had refinished years ago and we were getting rid of. The toilet paper roll and towel bar were free from my parents left over. We did have to buy 1 18 inch towel bar to match and that was $31 from doorcorner.com. We went with Dynasty hardware's Sonoma collection in brushed nickel. I would definitely recommend this over what you can get at Home Depot or Lowes.

The light switch plate was $10. The curtain we had from our old house and matched the shelves perfectly. This took the bathroom from my least favorite place in the house to a room I liked a lot. It was bright, more modern, and felt more of our style. We planned on this getting us by for years and we were both okay with that.

This past week I decided to take the bathroom reno one step further and paint the mirror/medicine cabinet and stain the vanity. We hadn't talked about further changing the bathroom or had any plans off doing anything. I was brushing my teeth looking into our oak and gold medicine cabinet and realized that if I were already going to be using primer and white paint (deck painting), I might as well just touch this up. Once I painted that, I realized it wouldn't be too hard to fix the vanity also.

I looked at a few blogs to do the vanity, but wish I had just gone straight here: http://www.monicawantsit.com/2012/02/staining-oak-cabinets-espresso-color.html

The reason, was that the other blogs did not specify that you DO NOT WIPE the stain, you let it sit. After much anxiety about it not coming out how I wanted, once I read this, it was a game changer. Here is what I started with and what I end up with.

One coat:

Because I wiped the stain, 2 coats got me this streaky mess:

3 coats looked about the same giving me a very depressed feeling. Then I read to not wipe and got this:

Gorgeous!! Honestly, I was so proud and excited at how this came out. I was happy to have these two new changes get us through more years in this bathroom. But, seeing how excited I was about the vanity my husband surprised me for our anniversary with a new counter and light. Which turned into a new faucet, counter, light and toilet!!! It was obvious with the new counter we couldn't put our gold chipped faucet back on, then once we were that far, I just said forget it, lets do the toilet and call this project done (minus floors and shower door).

Yay! Full bathroom reno!!! I keep reading how the return on bathroom work is high and I think we nailed it with this. Either way, we love it and that is all that matters!!!

Ta da!!

This project wasn't without its headaches and I will post on the troubles installing the new sink/counter/etc :)

Cheap upgrade!

When we bought the house it was full of furniture and stuff. Knowing it was a second home and the previous owner was in a wheelchair. We decided to ask what would come with the house. When we could negotiate "everything" we went for it. 

First off, the furniture was from 1987. Which may get you thinking, uh outdated. I saw- SOLID wood!! Where can you find this anymore? All it takes is some love.

Check out these kitchen chairs:

Completely solid wood and the shape resembled our expensive, nice distressed chairs. A little can of spray paint:

Sand the edges and boom distressed.

A little poly and boom. Matches the rest of our furniture. Looks modern, clean. Cost: $5 at most.