The bathroom has been up and running for about a week but we were missing art work, towels, curtains, etc. So after a little accessorizing, I feel like I can finally share the bathroom reveal with you guys. I really love the way this one turned out. Jeremy requested bead board so I scoured the Internet for some inspiration pictures. Here's what inspired us (note: these are not pictures of our bathroom):
And, just a little refresher before the big reveal, here's the before (the former corner of our living room).
The washer and dryer have replaced the chaise lounge
And here she is! This is the view from the kitchen.
I love that you can't really tell it's a bathroom. I'll probably replace that plant with something a little more colorful but this works for now.
As you round the corner, you can tell it's a bathroom.
Notice those closet doors to the right of the toilet? That's where our washer and dryer now reside.
We're working on some shelving for this closet so it isn't considered complete yet. I'll be sure to share that with you once it's finished.
Directly across from the window/toilet is our sink and mirror.
And I happened to have some botanical prints on hand that complement our decor perfectly! There's nothing better than free art!
Another peek:
So that's it! I promise it looks better in person. These tiny rooms are almost impossible to photograph.
Hello! There aren't any big kitchen updates from this weekend. Well, I should restate that. There aren't any pictures from this weekend. The plumber came and finished up every last project (laundry is officially hooked up, hood is hanging above the stove, and the kick-space heater is installed). And of course, while he worked, Jeremy and I worked (painting, building a bookshelf, caulking). We're putting the finishing touches on each of our projects though so I should have some mini-reveals throughout the week which will most definitely involve pictures.
But my real reason for posting today, even though I don't have any exciting updates, is to wish a very special girl a happy birthday.
An oldie but goodie
Today is Summer's 6th birthday! I seriously can't believe we've had her for almost 6 years. It feels like yesterday we were first bringing her home.
And getting her ready for what life would be like as a Mason...
Having a dog has been one of the best things to happen to us. She makes us a little family, and we are often forced to slow down and smell the roses with her (literally!). Happy birthday, Sum! Hope your day is full of long walks, squirrels, and table scraps!
PS--Happy birthday to another special girl, my friend Amanda, one of my loyal readers!
Happy Earth Day/Good Friday/early Easter! Busy day, no? Since it's a loaded Friday, I figured I'd do a little Cheers and Boos to kick of the weekend.
Cheers to...
Our family room, dining room, and living room being put back together! No more random appliances laying around these parts. I could not be happier!!!
Spending Easter with our nieces and nephews (and the rest of my family). There is nothing cuter than these little kiddos in their Easter best. Nothing.
The garbage/recycling drawer next to our sink. It's hands-down my favorite part of our new kitchen.
Having a light work-load on the house this weekend! First easy weekend in months!
Boos to...
Moving refrigerators by ourselves. Down to the basement. Thankfully, the only appliances left to move are the stoves and those are too heavy for me.
My house currently being 53 degrees. I am being stubborn and don't want to turn the heat back on but I might crack today.
Not having Patriot's Day (a Massachusetts holiday) or Good Friday off. What gives?
That does it for this week! Thanks for reading along. Your emails, compliments, encouragement have really kept us going.
Since I have painted every possible piece of trim in this house and Jeremy has rewired every possible wire in this house, we found ourselves searching for things to do this past weekend. We were both excited to try something different. We were going to tackle tiling!
We purchased Luxor Valley tiles from Home Depot (obviously). And then we harassed the tile lady at Home Depot with questions on how to install said tile. Have you guys seen this Lowe's commercial? Because it's us.
We felt like we had a good handle on the process so on Sunday morning, I laid the adhesive backing. I started by wiping down the wall so we'd have the cleanest surface possible, and then I applied the contact paper.
I then smoothed out any air bubbles with my little paddle (I'm sure that has an official name, I just don't know it).
Then we started adding the tiles. This was smooth sailing until we realized we needed to cut the end tiles so we'd have a straight line. We don't have a wet saw and we wanted to avoid purchasing one because we don't see a lot more tile laying in our future. We remember we had bought this random little tool at the Home Show in Boston last year, and it ended up working like a charm. Score!
So the tile was looking good...but it needed a little something more. Off to Home Depot and Lowe's I went to find the perfect trim! I ended up finding it, only to discover it should have been laid before we put the tile down. They recommended I buy a little piece of wood trim but I was adamant that I didn't want to paint one more piece of trim, no matter how tiny it might be. Plus, I thought it would look weird. So I decided to proceed with the original edge (the one that should have been laid first). We pulled back the tile and jammed the edge in. And, miraculously, it worked!
So next up, we had to lay the grout. I looked at the size of our grout bag and the area of our surface and decided we should only mix up 1/3 of the grout (terrible call). Math isn't really my thing (actually, I was freakishly good at Algebra and Calculus, I guess multiplications and fractions aren't my thing. And neither is the metric system.) Anyway, the mixture came out way too soupy. I ended up adding more powder so we would get the desired consistency. But we came up really short in the end, and Jeremy had to whip up a second batch of grout. Oops! I told you math wasn't my thing.
But we persisted. Jeremy was the grouter and I was the wiper. You have to move QUICKLY before the grout dries/sets so it's a little stressful. I had a bucket that I had to keep cleaning out down in the utility sink so that slowed down a bit. Here's an action shot
I promptly scheduled a hair appointment for tonight once I saw this picture.
And here's close up which is a little more true to color, I think:
In the upcoming weeks we'll be hanging the hood and placing the stove in front of the tile so it won't be as noticeable (I hope). If not, I think it would be easy enough to take down. And we're pretty experienced with tile removal these days...
All in all, this was a pretty painless process. My tips for anyone who plans to attempt this themselves would be to figure out edging before you tile and make sure you have a math person figure out how much grout you'll need. If you take care of those things, it should be a piece of cake!
Ready for the big reveal? Well, don't get too excited because this is still in the middle of the kitchen.
Annoying, right? For the stove, we decided to go big. We have a 36-inch Viking sitting down in our garage just waiting to move upstairs into the kitchen. However, the cooktop on it is gas and we don't have a gasline on our street. We are having a propane tank installed in the next couple of weeks but we decided it was better to keep the electric stove upstairs for now so we could use it. We are officially sick of take out and frozen meals. [Sidenote: See those fresh vegetables on the stove? I was able to chop these on my KITCHEN COUNTER, add a little EVOO and salt and pepper, and throw them on the grill for few minutes. Heaven!] So, this is my long-winded way of telling you that I can't give you a final reveal. But, I'll show you a few sneak peeks.
First up, our new granite and sinks!
We went with a double bowl, cast iron Kohler sink. It was definitely a splurge but I am so glad we did it. After 6 weeks of using the utility sink in the corner of my basement, I feel like I've died and gone to heaven. This baby is legit! The one problem is that you can see any tiny crumb on the white sink but the upside to that is I'll be highly motivated to keep it clean. I won the faucet in an Ebay auction. Ebay is the way to go for faucets...I saved at least $100 by buying this online as opposed to Home Depot or Lowe's.
We also added a little bar sink on the beverage center. It's also cast iron Kohler. It will be great to have this little sink when we're hosting holidays and parties. See this faucet? I bought it at Lowe's and it was $50 more expensive than the main faucet. I told you Lowe's was a rip off!
Ready for the beverage center reveal? I've already given you some teasers...but here she is!
Ignore the "styling." Jeremy threw a few random things in the shelves and I haven't taken them down yet.
Quite an upgrade from its previous resident (the pantry)
And here's a look at our peninsula:
And here's the view from the family room into the kitchen:
Just a quick reminder of what this same view used to look like:
Remember how I hinted we might be picking up a new table if Craigslist pulled through? I'm happy to report it did! Now we need a rug and some bar stools for the peninsula and this little corner of the kitchen will be complete. We're making some serious progress people!
So that's all I can show you today. I'll be back tomorrow with our tile reveal.
The good news is the granite wasn't delayed! We have counters and, more importantly, a kitchen sink!! The bad news is I can't post pictures until tomorrow. Sorry for the delay! Living in utter chaos has finally caught up with me. I cracked my laptop screen over the weekend on my work computer and my anti-virus has expired on my home computer. Technology at its finest.
Just know that Jeremy and I were busy all weekend. We've been working on the backsplash and a built-in bookshelf in the living room. Fun pictures/tutorials to follow!
Two posts in one day! I'm living on the edge. I just had to pop back in to say how creeped out I am by big brother. I listen to Pandora pretty regularly. I never gave much thought to the 'commercials' that occasionally pop up until one day we were listening to our plumber's Pandora station. His commercials were all about plumbing materials! Mine are usually about the MBA Program at Babson (??) or Living Social. Well, today, my commercials are strictly for the Home Depot and allergies.
I feel like I should go draw my curtains (or clean out my cookies).
I'm back! Sorry for my silence the past few days. We are playing the waiting game. The granite comes tomorrow so not much can be done until that is installed. Not to worry, there have been multiple trips to Lowe's and Home Depot. And I continue to paint a little every night. And Jeremy's been using his compressor (he has too many toys) to install the base boards. So there has definitely been some progress in these parts, just nothing that's been blog-worthy.
Last night, however, I finally tackled the eat-in kitchen drum light. Since I put the pendent lighting together so seamlessly, I was in charge of the drum light. Eek! I despise putting things together, and I avoid stores like Ikea for that very reason. And lighting? Forget it, it's totally intimidating. I don't do well with wires. Jeremy gave me a dose of tough love and told me to suck it up and get 'er done. So I did. And guess what? It wasn't too bad despite the horrible directions.
It took me less than hour to put everything together. Next up, we had to hang the darn thing. It was a two man operation to hook up the power and hang the light from the ceiling but we did it in record time (maybe 10 minutes). This was our final electrical project and it had definitely been our smoothest to date. We're getting good! I ran downstairs to turn the circuit breaker back on, the final step. As soon as I flipped the switch I heard a loud pop. And just like that, our light went black. So much for our first smooth project.
I had installed 4 75-watt bulbs as instructed. We were afraid that it was too much power and that we zapped our $300 light. After some investigating we determined we had actually zapped the light switch (a much less expensive mistake, thank God!). We swapped in a new switch and voila: we had light!
Bruins in the background because God forbid we have a sports-free night.
And here it is relative to the table. We're getting a new table (maybe today if Craigslist pulls through) but this gives you an idea of how it looks.
I spy Summer.
So that's the story of our drum light. Of all of the projects I've worked on in the past six weeks, this is the one I'm proudest of. It wasn't physically challenging but I had to get over my own inhibitions and I actually surprised myself by being able to complete without any help or tears. A small victory!
Hello! I hope the weekend treated you well. We worked on odds and ends all weekend. The floors were installed and stained Friday and Saturday so our work in the kitchen was pretty minimal. Instead, we built the soffit down in the garage which I can now cross off my bucket list...just kidding. This was the most boring, useless project to date but it's all a part of the process. This darn thing took almost all of Saturday to complete. It was framed out but Jeremy had to add strapping so we could attach the sheet rock, then we needed add textured paint and joint compound so it would match the existing ceiling. My fingers are crossed that I never have to work on a soffit again!
I also went out to the granite warehouse to select our stone. It was overwhelming how many choices there are. Luckily I knew the name of stone I was searching for (Giallo Ornamental) so it only took a few minutes.
There she is! We need 3 slabs, if you can believe it.
With the cabinets and floors in, we can start putting things back together a bit. We put the refrigerators in their respective spots:
So shiny and new!
Notice those hardwood floors?
And finally, we completed the electric work. We installed all of the under cabinet lighting and added our peninsula pendants
We have one final electrical project to complete: the table chandelier. We're waiting for a replacement light which should arrive on Thursday. I couldn't figure out how it went together yesterday until I determined we were missing a few important pieces. It's always something...
The most exciting news is I'm sitting at my kitchen table writing this post! That's right! We've moved the table back to the eat-in kitchen. I had grown used to it in its new spot and loved climbing over it to get to the couch but I think it will be more functional in its new home. We even ate dinner at the table last night. Exciting stuff!
TGIF, no? This week has really dragged, probably because we worked 4-5 hours on the bathroom/kitchen every night after work. I'm psyched that we won't be able to get into the kitchen this weekend while the new floors are installed. I need a break. But luckily there are a few things keeping me going! Such as...
Cheers to
The new cabinets! I am officially in love.
Another little teaser. And, my painting clothes. Pretty, right?
The 80 degree forecast for Monday!!!
My beach sticker for Summer 2011 arriving in the mail. Can't wait for baggo, blls (bud light limes), and bonfires on the beach.
Boos to
The Red Sox. Let's get it together boys. Hopefully they can pull off a win at today's opener. Jer, the lucky devil, is going to the game.
Wind storms. We've lost so many branches and trees this winter/spring.
Yard work. We have our work cut out for us. See above.
Hope everyone enjoys the warmer weather this weekend!
I think I have decided to be a tease. I was going to post some pictures of our cabinets with the doors and crown molding (swoon!) but then I decided if I wait a week I can show you the whole shebang which will obviously be more of a 'move that bus' moment. If everything goes according to plan (which I'm sure it won't--not to be negative, I've just learned my lesson), everything will be completed April 16th! That is 9 DAYS AWAY, PEOPLE! Sorry to shout but I am so excited.
The cabinets will be finished up today, hardwood floors go in tomorrow and Saturday, granite comes next Friday, April 15th, and then the plumber comes back on April 16th to hook up the bathroom, laundry, and appliances. A few days ago, my dad joked that we should host Easter this year...and we almost could! But I'll let my sister do the honors.
After the guys left, Jeremy and I painted the bathroom last night. Surprise, surprise! It seems all I do is paint these days. We love the way it's shaping up. We high fived the minute we saw it. Brian really knocked it out of the park on his trim work. Ok, fine. I'll show you a little sneak peek of the bathroom.
A before:
And an after (pardon the poor quality...it's an iPhone photo):
It looks even better now that we've painted the door and the chair rail. The whole time I was painting I couldn't stop thinking about how this used to be the living room! This is such a better use of the space. We changed the entire 'feel' of the house. Maybe tomorrow I can show you how we changed the floor plan. Exciting stuff!
My apologies for disappearing yesterday. I promised wood floors and didn't deliver, but so did Henry, the floor guy. Henry got sick and didn't show up and so he made me look like the bad guy! If there's one thing I've learned in this whole process it's this: be flexible. So many things have gone wrong (like live wires being buried in our brand new walls), and we've had to problem-solve, think on feet, or change our plans countless times. I remember when I was planning my wedding people would tell me "something will go wrong on your wedding day"--and it did! I was 20 minutes late to the church because I had forgotten a crochet hook to button my dress. Oops! And, sure enough, things have gone wrong with the kitchen too.
Jeremy tried to find a replacement floor company but in the end we decided it was best to stick with Henry. So instead of losing 3-4 days, we called our cabinet installer to see if he'd be willing to put the cabinets in before the floors went down. Kitchen cabinets and floors are a little like the chicken and the egg, depending on who you ask, you'll get a different answer on which comes first. The floors guys prefer to put the floors down first, the counter guys prefer to put the counters down first. We honestly didn't care one way or the other...we just wanted something done. So yesterday half of our cabinets were installed!
Here are a few shots of the beauties:
And here's the other view:
I'm thinking these will look even better tonight when all of the cabinets and their doors, microwave, dishwasher, and wine fridge are installed.
And remember how I said we've had a lot things go wrong? Well, the minute I walked into the kitchen last night I could tell the sink base looked too small. We have a double-basin cast iron sink like this one:
The sink is 33 inches wide and when I measured the sink base it was 30 inches. My heart sank. The sink was a custom order so we couldn't easily exchange it. Either we didn't carefully check our measurements when we ordered the sink or KraftMaid had sent us the wrong sink base. We checked against the kitchen plans which contain all of the measurements. Phew! We had ordered a 33 inch base so it was looking like KraftMaid's mistake. But then we remembered we actually have two sink bases (the other is part of the wet bar in the beverage center). Sure enough, the other sink base is 30 inches. So it turns out our cabinet installer accidentally grabbed the wrong sink base. Thankfully, it should be a relatively quick fix.
The sink base is on the right. The one with all of the holes drilled through the back.
I'll be back tomorrow with lots of exciting pictures (if everything goes according to plan which we now know isn't a guarantee...). The cabinets should be complete and our friend Brian is here hanging all of that trim I painted over the weekend. Wahoo!
And, I know this is a kitchen/home blog, but I just had to give a birthday shout out to my grandmother (who definitely does not read this little blog). Today is her 93rd birthday! Crazy, huh? Imagine what her parents' kitchen looked like when she was born? I'm guessing they didn't have a wine fridge. Happy birthday, Maggie!
Hello! It was another busy weekend at Casa Mason. This weekend was dedicated to painting. We painted walls, doors, trim, ceilings. You name it, we probably slapped a coat of paint on it. If you had asked me year ago what my least favorite home project was, I would have answered: "painting." However, now that I have some more renovation experience, I have to say, it isn't that bad.
We had some help...
Thanks, Tricia and Gene! We owe you.
And we listened to Pandora, my iPod, the radio, the Red Sox lose three games, CBS Sunday Morning.
And, since we don't have kitchen floors I was able to set up a little assembly line which made the process a little less painful.
And while I painted trim (and then painted some more trim), Jeremy finished up the electric work! He installed the recessed cans into the ceiling, put the covers on the switches and outlets, and set up our bathrooom lighting.
We had one major catastrophe. Our sheetrock guy (who I've grown to hate) buried the undercabinet lighting wires in our brand new walls. We ended up having to cut holes in these pristine, painted walls to fish the wires out. We had to patch up the holes and you're definitely going to be able to see these patches (grrrrrr!). Please do me a favor and pretend you don't notice them when you visit, OK? Thanks.
Here are the lights and surround speakers in all of their glory:
This is a big week. This morning the wood floors are being installed! We had to clear everything out of the kitchen last night. With the painting in the bathroom complete, we could move the washer and dryer from their current location to their new home.
Not the most exciting picture, sorry!
I can't begin to tell you how nice it is to be putting things back together. But fear not, we're still living in utter chaos.
We're getting closer! I'll be back tomorrow with a few shots of our new floors.
