Powder Room: Done!

Can I tell you how hard it is to take pictures of a powder room? Holy frijoles! Anyway, here's our new room! Ahhhh, so much better than the before. Shall we?

  

Oh dear no!

Okay now... oh dear no!

Unfortunately I didn't take more pictures of the tiny red room, but that's probably because I couldn't stand to be in it any longer. It felt so claustrophobic and so '90s being in there. And the house was built in 2004.

::face palm::

But enough of that, let's look at more of the new...

I also drew on the wall with a Sharpie. It's been floating around Pinterest for a while now, thanks to this post on Vintage Revivals. I loved the idea, but wasn't a huge fan of her pattern. So I spent an afternoon sketching patterns and emailing/texting friends for opinions and moral support. And above was the winner. And I am in looooooove. So far everyone who's seen it loves it too. Including all the mothers in my life, which is wild because it's none of their styles!

Here's the shelves I built thanks to this tutorial. Unfortunately I didn't have any wood around to be reclaimed, so I had to buy a piece and stain it. PS- Did you know that stain + polyurethane exists now?! I was shocked and so happy to be hanging these shelves even faster. Throw up some essentials and bric-a-brac and boom: done!

Also, I'm dying over this owl. We've spent the past month clearing out my mother-in-law's house in preparation of a yard sale we had last weekend. And boy did we find some treasures. And some trash. And some things none of us knew why she had. But this guy, I just love. I don't think I'll even get him fixed!

And here's my mediocre photography skills + tiny bathroom =

The worst view of the whole shebang. I started to not add this, but I am also in love with the light fixture. I got it on sale at Lowe's... I think $42? I can't remember now it's been so long. And boy was it a pain to install (thanks builders!). Also, I wish I could have found a bigger mirror, but it was not meant to be. And it needs to be re-hung. Ben put it up and we miscommunicated about where it should go, so it's an inch too far to the left and it drives me crazy. Every time I mentioned it, he would say it doesn't bother him. Um, yes, that's because you don't sit down in there every day. I do, that's why I notice it. I admit, I giggled when the light bulb came on for him about that. 

So there's the latest done room in our house! <3

Powder Room Progress! Sort of!

After a little bit of "life lesson learning", and some help from a friend, the new light fixture is up and on! I wish I could put into words how frustrating it was to hang this damn thing. First, there's no junction box (thanks builder!), then I can't get a junction box in (thanks pipe), and I can't get it in the other way (thanks freakishly strong staple in a stupid location!), and then I couldn't get it to hang straight (WTF manufacturer?!). So I had kinda of MacGyver'd the thing up there and asked a friend, who's an electrician, to come over and make sure the house isn't going to burn to the ground. Success! It wiggles a little when you touch it, so we will not be touching it. Ever. Thank you 10-year light bulbs!

Pretty, no? And I got it on sale, huzzah! And now to the really hard part: paint color. If you've read about previous paint endeavors, you know it takes me quite a bit of samples to decide. But I only have three this time... because I'm agonizing about what to do after I paint. So paint first...

Gravity / Bay Waves / Polar Star / (Just ignore that last guy)

So here's the agonizing parts to deal with: One, what do I do with the ceiling? The previous owners had painted the entire room red, including the ceiling. So do I paint it white like the rest of the house, or paint the whole room one color? I'm leaning towards painting it all one color since the ceiling is so low over the toilet (this is under the stairs). 

Two, what to do after I've painted? Here's some ideas I'm kicking around:

Contact paper polka dots
(via Apartment Therapy)

Sharpie triangles
(via Design*Sponge)

Washi tape to add a pattern
(via Everything Emily)

This is wallpaper, but drawing a similar pattern with Sharpie
(via NamaRococo.com)

Sooo, you can see my dilemma. What color, then what to do, then what color to do that in?! Thoughts?

New house pics... excuse the mess!

Seriously, excuse the mess. I took these a day or two after we moved in and unfortunately we didn't get a chance to take before pictures before we moved in. 

Living Room

Kitchen

Powder Room

I'm shaking my head at whoever painted the fan.

 Laundry Room (!)

Master Bedroom

Closet

Master Bathroom

 Guest Bedroom

Upstairs Bath

Bonus Room

Whit's Room

The Front

The Garage

The Backyard

All in all, I like it, it just needs some work to make it ours. And I'm not sure how much work I'm willing to put into it if it's not even close to our forever home. We haven't been in it a month and we've already done some big changes. So more pics soon!

Okaaay...

So I haven't blogged in a very long time. Kinda went back and forth if I was even going to keep it up anymore. Honestly, I don't have time between Whit, work and now I'm in a play that opened last weekend. Oh... and HOUSE HUNTING! Yeah that's right. Were we looking to move? Maybe, but not for another couple of years. Did we have our house on the market? Um, nope!

About a month ago a realtor we know in the area emailed Ben asking if we were thinking of selling (we had talked to him before about selling when we thought we were moving out of state) and that he had some people interested in our area, but couldn't afford the $500,000 places available right now. So Ben threw out a number he thought was high and without batting an eye the buyers said "Sure, can we see the place?". A week later I was taking a nap, Ben wakes me and says, "Hey, the Saints are on. And I sold the house." Whaaaa?!

So the past month has been spent looking for a house to move into, inspections, appraisals, mortgage meetings, yadda yadda yadda. We no joke picked out a house in one day, which makes me a little nervous. But since we didn't have a lot of time and this will still not be our forever home, I'll be okay, eventually. I'm really heartbroken about moving out of Franklin and into Spring Hill. I LOVE our neighborhood. It's old, it's pretty, and we're a mile walk from everything. Our new house is in a subdivision. Wah wah wah.

Today I'm off work trying to pack/clean/purge/tackle the garage. Dreaming what I want to change in the new place already and bemoaning how hard it is for me when it's a newer house. Our current home is a 1950's ranch so when in a pickle I just ask if it would go with the character of the house. The new place is less than 10 years old, I have no idea what goes with that! All I know is most of the carpet will be going before we move in and a few of the rooms MUST be painted. Can't wait to show pics of this place soon. Hopefully we close the 28th and move in by Halloween.