What Were We Thinking?

The morning after we painted our master bath, a pretty blue, I was lying in bed staring at the room thinking how much I loved the fresh new color but hating the counter top.  I really wanted a new one and still had enough in the budget to buy the one I saw at Lowe's, but we were very hesitant to pry up the old one for fear of damaging the solid wooden cabinet beneath it.  If we split the wood we would be opening up a can of very expensive worms not in the budget, the credit card would take a huge hit. We were very happy with our vanity, not the color, but all the large drawers and cabinets; we did not want to replace it so we tossed it back and forth for quite a long time. If we left the counter top on all we had to do was frame out the mirror, add a new light fixture, two new faucets and some new accessories and be done with the project and move onto painting our bedroom.  Guess which way we went?  You are so right, you know me so well, we decided on a new counter!  Little did we know with that decision we would be opening up a whole new can of rather large worms and a much larger, longer project.

With some very careful prying from the inside of the cabinets and the removal of some screws and clips my hubby was able to get the top off with a minimum of difficulty and just a tiny bit of damage not visible from the outside of the cabinet.  Whew!!! With the top off it was time to go shopping for the counter top I was in love with at Lowe's. Now for the not so funny part; we measured and measured to make sure we purchased the right length of counter top needed for our space, being oh so careful.  Once we got it home we knew it was too long but it could easily be cut down to the right length once we decided what size we wanted.  The previous counter was a little over long for the end of the cabinet so we cut this one about an inch shorter which would fit perfectly.  I kept looking at the counter thinking something was wrong so I took the cut off section upstairs to check the fit, it was way too wide for the cabinet, and it hung out into the doorway by five inches!!! Yikes!!! We were totally in big trouble here, my husband had just cut the counter which meant it could not be returned and it was too short to use as my studio work counter, what were we going to do!?!  What a mess, time to think out of the box! Luckily for us our neighbor has a huge workshop in his garage with every kind of saw you could think of.  We ran over to his house to ask him what he thought we could do.  The counter had a beautiful molded in curvy backsplash which we all determined would have to go, my heart sank.  If we cut it off the counter would fit but we would have to come up with some kind of surface to protect the drywall. Here is where things got really dicey, dangerous and more work.  The counter top was hauled up and down the stairs several times for fitting and cutting to make sure it fit and the sink openings were in the correct place.

Notice anything missing from this photo???...... If you have a keen eye for observation you will notice a beautiful new counter, new holes for the sink, which I had them move a bit to give me more space near the plugs for curling and flat irons, and NO mirror.  This would be the dangerous part; while the guys were fitting the counter to the cabinet, the mirror, which was suppose to be glued to the wall, came crashing down on the new counter top! I screamed and both guys made a grab for the huge 4’x 8’ piece of glass before it hit the floor! Wow!  They caught it and removed it from the bathroom before it could break all over the place. If it had come down in the middle of the night there would have been glass all over the bathroom and bedroom since there is no door between the rooms, we truly got lucky.  I secretly wanted it down but not that way and with so much drama, now we had a really clean slate to work with.  I was going to have to get really creative with the budget to include a new backsplash and two new mirrors.

Thanks for letting me share more of our master bath makeover; stay tuned for the resolution to our newest project challenge.

See you soon.

Laurette

Master Bath Makeover

What were we thinking?!?

Two weeks ago my hubby and I had the opportunity to go away on vacation or stay home and spend the time and money doing a master bath and bedroom makeover.  If you are a regular reader you know which one we chose to do, the makeover!!!  I really wanted to do a blog post each day as we went along on our project but found I was totally wiped out at the end of the day with little to no brain power left with which to write a post, alas I am just finally getting to it now.  The only question I have is whether to break this into several smaller posts or just one big one with lots of photos??? Hmm…. There were so many funny stories as we went along with our project, some not to be missed; I think I just answered my own question, a couple of shorter posts first then the reveal.

Before I begin let me set up the intention of our makeover, we were originally only going to paint our bedroom and bathroom to change the color from an ugly builder pink/beige to a spa like blue for the bathroom and a golden/sandy beige color for the bedroom.  I also wanted to frame out the huge 4’x 8’ glass mirror hanging over our vanity and change out the ugly builder grade ten bulb bar light, and replace the cheap faucets.  Quick and easy right….NOT!!! I digress here; let me get back to some before photos of the bathroom so you can get some background for all the future posts.

These are the photos of our master bath before we did any work, pretty basic with some cheap fixtures installed by the investor who did the flip before we purchased it.  The home was move in ready but with NO WOW factor when you walked into the room.  If you know me at all you know I have to have color, bling and some kind of design going on in every room in my home, no builder basic anything. Yikes! I have no idea how I lived with it like that for three years!

Time to strip down the bathroom, scrub the heck out of the walls, baseboards and doors, tape it and begin cutting around everything which was not leaving the room.  At this point everything was nice and simple just a basic cleaning and paint job….right?

Up went the paint, the first coat covered pretty well but there were some bare spots so late in the day we added a second coat for absolutely full coverage which would last a long time and take a ton of moisture from the shower.  In these photos the color looks kind of dark but the color is the same icy blue used in my studio, guestroom and new office, love that color, which is Oak Bay by Ace Hardware.  I would paint the whole house in that color if my husband would let me, hehe!

Here we are no tape, beautiful light blue walls, bright white doors and trim and the awful white Formica counter tops; which almost kept me from buying the house because I hated them so much, they were in two of the three bathrooms, yuck!!!  At this point this is where things got interesting, scary and funny all at the same time.  Can you guess what I was thinking when I saw them with the pretty blue walls?  I bet you can but you will just have to stay tuned to find out where our project took a turn and ran right off the tracks into almost a full renovation.

Thanks for letting me share the beginning of our master bath makeover with you; I hope you will stay with us as we progress through all the unexpected twist and turns of this project.

See you soon.

Laurette