Powder room is finished!

I don't really have good before pictures - this room is tiny and hard to photograph.

This is where we started when we moved in.

The fact that this sink was not centered just didn't work well with my OCD.

The previous owner took the mirror from this bathroom when she moved out. 

This is a mirror I have moved many times. Not crazy about it in there but it worked for 6 years!

Two years ago we painted (almost every wall in the house was this color), changed the mirror and light fixture and added shiplap to the back wall.

Here she is all  finished! 

I tried to get the picture so you could see the shiplap and shelves in the mirror.

So much better!

Guest bath is still in progress. 

Hopefully it will be finished soon!

Before and After

 Finally!

A before

and after!

The before picture was taken from a slightly different angle so the space looks bigger. It's roughly 90" wide.

Still looking for a new rug.

Bathroom cabinets are painted - waiting on countertops.

When Life Gives You Lemons

I have had this lemon tree for several years.

Last year it had one tiny lemon that turned black before it got any bigger than the end of your finger.

This year it produced three lemons. 

They stayed green for ever - I was starting to wonder if they were limes!

They finally started to turn yellow and we collected our harvest.

Hubby sliced one up to use in his tea.

Yesterday I decided to try a new recipe and use the other two lemons.

Well, I don't bake as much as I used to and I never was great but I could at least usually at least get a passing grade. These are the ones I could actually get out of the pan without them falling apart.

And the 'scraps'. You were supposed to dip the tops in the frosting while they were still warm but that didn't work too well for me. I just spooned it over the top, them spooned some over my scraps.

They taste pretty good but they look nothing like the 'Lemon Blossoms' in the picture on Facebook!

When I cut into the last lemon there were seeds that were already starting to sprout!

I'm going to plant them and see if I can get another tree to grow! 

Have a great weekend!

 

Might as well, and while we are at it...

Famous last words?

We say them frequently.

So, while we were having a cabinet built for under the television and the guest bathroom we also had one built for the powder room. 

Another one of those things that has bothered me from day one.

Do you see it? Yes, the sink is short and the faucet barely sticks out far enough to get your hands under it but the real problem

it's not centered!

(It's really hard to get pictures in here!)

Also, she took the mirror that was in this room when she moved out!

I had this one so I just used it until I figured out exactly what I wanted to do in here.

(side note - just about every wall in the house was this same color when we moved in)

Last year we painted and replaced the mirror and light fixture.

We finally have a cabinet in here!

And in here!

Oops. Forgot to allow for the angled wall 

Had to shorten the drawers on the left side

Still have to patch where the former wall was.

Countertops have been ordered

Assorted other goodies are hanging out in my sewing room

The new cabinet for under the tv.

(this one is not built in)

We had been using the bench from the dining table.

Now for paint!

Why not?

 The guest bathroom has been on my list since we first moved into this house.

It's miniature sized.

As you can see, the vanity is separated from the shower/potty by a wall and the space on the other side of the wall is tiny. I took the door off first thing - it didn't help much and I have wanted that wall down pretty much since day one.

The wall sits on top of four tiles. If we had four extra tiles we could replace just those and not have to do the whole floor. We have two. 

The vanity was on the short side so we decided to replace that too.

Since we were tiling the living room we decided to demo the wall so we could have new tile put while we had tile people here. (okay - 'we' didn't demo the wall - the tile guys did so they could get to the floor)

It already looks so much better but now we have to have the walls/ceiling repaired. Before we repair the walls we need to have the switch to the fan/light that was on the no longer there wall moved. Also, when I went in to clean the floor in there I found water on the floor. The hot water line was leaking so before new cabinets arrived we had to have that replaced. 

Are you keeping track? We have had tile guys, an electrician and a plumber. We still need a new vanity (being built off site) sheetrock repair and paint. That mirror has to come down because the new vanity is taller and the mirror was resting on top of the backsplash, which means the light fixture above the mirror has to also be moved up. The plan is to re-use the mirror - assuming it comes off the wall without breaking.

Living Room Progress

 Messy

I told ya it was going to get messy before it got better.

This was after they spent the whole first day sanding/grinding the finish off the stained concrete and patching cracks. This picture is pretty clean - earlier in the day both the front and back doors were open with a fan blowing out the front to help keep the dust down. 

Fortunately, it was a good weather week and we could turn the a/c off and not spread the dust through the vents. They did a pretty good job sealing the room off and limiting the dust. 

It's already looking so much better!

Mostly cleaned up, it took more than a few mops before it was really clean. 

Sorry for the crooked picture.

Now the floor under the television matches the rest of the room!

Then - hubby decided while all the furniture was out it would be a good time to paint the ceiling.

So this is how we spent our 44th anniversary!

He would paint what he could reach, then I would move the scaffolding to the next spot.

We finally started moving furniture back in.

That might have been a little premature.

More on that next time! 

The Chaos Begins

I took these pictures of the living room back at the end of January. (We don't have a separate dining room in this house so this room does double duty)  

The floors don't look too bad in pictures but there were a lot of places that needed attention,

plus, that naked spot under the tv...

This just gives you an idea of how much stuff is in this one room.

Our original plan was to have the floor refinished. It can be done, but finding someone to do it proved to be all but impossible so we finally decided to just go with tile. 

Either way, the floor was going to have to be sanded down to get the shiny finish off. 

This means everything had to come out of this room.

Everything!

Where? Everywhere! This is my sewing/craft room.

I had to get everything I thought I might need out of the room before we started emptying the living room, which included anything I thought I might need for the get-away weekend because I wasn't getting back in there before then.

Guest room

Patio

and the bonus room upstairs. 

What you can't see in this picture is that there is a shelving unit with a television behind this one.

It was too tall to put on the shelf so we had to improvise with two end tables and then the coffee table slid underneath to hold the cable box and stuff.

It's kinda like sitting on the front row at the movies except you don't have to look up! There are two beds behind where we are sitting. 

This is basically our 'living room' for the duration.

I didn't get a picture of our bedroom - there were two small tables and a DVD cabinet in there.

and we have an empty room.