Office Makeover

No, the projects never end in this house.  I know that is what most of you are wondering.  As some of you know, I work from home.  Yes, it's "nice" to work from home sometimes, but it is also a total pain.  No, I do not sit in my pj's all day.  I learned within the first few months of working at home that I accomplish more when I get up and semi get ready for the day.  Now, if you knock on my door in the middle of the day I will likely be wearing workout clothes or sweatpants.  I can promise you, unless I have a meeting that day, I likely wont be wearing makeup.  What isn't nice about working from home is the difficulty of staying focused.  With Andrew's odd ball hours, he is often home when I'm working, which at times makes it exceptionally difficult to stay on task.  He works mostly nights, so day hours are when we are able to talk.  However, trying to have a meaningful conversation while responding to emails doesn't work too well.  My job also entails a lot of time on the phone, which can be dodgy with two dogs.  The biggest reason why working at home stinks sometimes is that my work is there; all the time.  I don't get to "leave the office".  Frankly, I miss my commute, which was my unwinding time.  In the winter, if I didn't leave the house to go workout, it would be possible for me to go a whole week without setting foot outside to do more than check the mail.  That doesn't bode well for someone prone to seasonal depression.

But, enough about that.. on to the fun stuff.  Today, while trying to avoid work, I decided my office needed a makeover.  Currently, my office is a lovely shade of deep gray blue.  I can't remember the exact color, something from Valspar.

That is only one section of my office.  My desk is on the other side of the room.  But, the whole things needs a makeover.  It is cluttered, chaotic, and dark.  I guess after sitting in the space for 40 hours a week for a year and a half, I've decided I need something a little brighter.  Recently, I have been on a kick with pink and gold.  I love pink, always have and always will.  Something about the gold makes it classy and extra girly.  I thought I would also throw in some navy for kicks and grins.  So, I started pinning some ideas.



 

My first step tonight was picking up a can of gold spray paint!  I also picked up some paint cards while I was at Lowes.  I'm thinking one of the walls will be Navy.  the other three walls, I'm going to paint a light pink.  I'm going to use the gold spray paint on a few accessories I have on my desk right now.  Stay tuned for more updates at my plans for the office makeover unfold!  

Recipe Wednesday On Monday: Coyboy Caviar

I have made this recipe a few times now, and each time it seems to disappear.  Last night, we had a few people over and I wanted to make something to snack on while we were grilling.  Cowboy caviar fits the bill.  It is easy to make, serves quite a few and isn't as bad for you as some of the creamy dips out there.

Cowboy Caviar:

1 Can  (14 oz) Whole Kernel Corn
1 Can (14 oz) Diced Tomatoes
1  Can (14 oz) Black Eyed Peas
1 Can (14 oz) Black Beans
1 Lime
1 Small White Onion
1 Green Bell Pepper
3/4 Cup Fresh Chopped Cilantro
Garlic Salt
Small Can Jalapenos (mild)
1/3 Cup Zesty Italian Dressing

1. Empty the first four ingredients ( corn, tomatoes, black eyed peas, and black beans) into a bowl.
2.  Chop up the onion and the bell pepper and add to the bowl.
3. Add in a few dashes of garlic salt, toss in the jalapenos and the cilantro; stir.
4. Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice over the mix.
5. Add in the Italian dressing.  If the mix looks dry, add in a little more Italian dressing, but you don't want it to be soupy.
6. Chill for at least 1 hour for serving.  I actually think this gets better the longer it is in the refrigerator, so if you can make it and let it chill overnight.
7. Serve with tortilla or pita chips!

Clutter and Chaos

Amidst the clutter of our bathroom renovation, it seems like the rest of our house has also turned into a bit of chaos.  To be honest, I think it was chaos before, but throw a bathroom renovation in on top of it and it seems to amplify the issue.  A word to the wise, a full renovation of any room in your house is not for the light hearted.

Having the renovation be upstairs means multiple trips through the house with drywall, cement board, and various other items required as part of the renovation.  That being said, Andrew has done a wonderful job of cleaning up after himself.  No, I'm not being facetious.  To be annoyed with the dust that comes from drywall would be like being annoyed with the dogs for shedding.

Growing up, I remember my mom telling me I left a trail of clutter everywhere I went.  At the time, I had no idea what she was talking about.  Now, I can appreciate the madness that comes when clutter seems to collects everywhere.  Keeping the kitchen clean seems to be a never ending battle.  We use our kitchen; often.  Recently, we implemented a dishes twice per week rule.  Sometimes it's three times per week if we have a lot of dishes.  My grandma always did dishes every night, which I thought was overkill whenever I stayed there and had to help with dishes.  However, I think she was on to something.  There is something to be said about waking up to a clean kitchen.  Junk mail is another pet peeve of mine.  I have a stack of mail that needs to be shredded, but I rarely get around to doing it.  Once it stacks up enough, I do go through and pull out all the pieces that can go straight into recycling.  I wish I was one of those people who dealt with the junk mail each day when it came in, but I don't.

Every once in a while, I get a wild hair and think I'm going to organize the house.  Generally it follows a long morning of pinning all sorts of cool organizational ideas on Pinterest. When it comes to implementing the organizational ideas, I'm not as productive.  The thought of organizing the whole house seems daunting.  I try to tell myself I'm going to start in one room and focus only on that room.  That only works until I have to move something to a different room and I get sidetracked.  I used to wonder growing up why the whole house seemed to get turned upside down when we were cleaning; now I know.

Which room seems to collect the most clutter in your house?  I would say it is the kitchen in our house.  It has become the catch all.  Do you have any de-cluttering tips you live by?  Does anyone else find it difficult to keep up with the clutter?   

Here are a few of the ideas I have collected for entry way organization in hopes of helping with our kitchen clutter. 

Bathroom Storage Dilema

Most of the big stuff is purchased for the bathroom renovation project.  However, there are a few things I'm stuck on and can't make up my mind.  The first one being the mirror for the bathroom.  I have thought seriously about repainting the mirror that we took out of the bathroom.  Yes, I realize I just painted it black not more than 6 months ago.  I have thought about painting it white, and I have also thought about painting it a dark shade of gray.  The walls will be a light gray, so it would need to be something darker so it would pop a bit.

I have also thought about using one of the other two mirrors we have in the house that are currently not in use.  It seems silly to go out and buy a new mirror when we have two sitting around collecting dust.  They quite literally have been sitting in the same spot for the almost two years we have lived in this house.  In the name of saving money, I think I should find a purpose for them with this project.  The mirror in the half bath on the main floor is white, so I have even considered taking that upstairs to the master bath and using one of the other mirrors down in the half bath.  So many options!

 Mirror from the master bath pre-renovation 

White framed mirror from the half bath on the main floor

The other dilemma I'm working through is storage in the bathroom.  We previously had your typical wooden cabinet hanging on the wall: 

Exhibit A to the left of this photo 

I may actually swap out this cabinet and put it in the guest bathroom.  The cabinet in the guest bathroom has seen better days.  I'm determined to find a use for this cabinet.  However, I'm not sure that use is in our master bathroom.  I would really like to do something different.  And it is with the term "different" that I generally get myself into trouble.  This thought started an hour long Pinterest search today.  I need something that isn't just pretty, but also functional.  We don't have a closet in that bathroom, so there are things we store in the cabinet that don't necessarily need to be on display to the whole world.  Ok, I know we don't have a ton of traffic using that bathroom so it really isn't a big deal.  But, it's a big deal in my mind.

These shelves are super cute, but I'm not sure what I would do about the stuff that I don't want on display. My initial thought was to put it in baskets, but baskets collect dust and dog hair.

I do love the idea of building into the wall, but that would require removing even more drywall than we already have. It also doesn't solve the issue of things being on display.

Again, a lovely storage option, but not for things that aren't intended to be displayed.

This seems to be the only viable storage option that keeps stuff under wraps, but also is back to the typical bathroom cabinet look The thing I do enjoy about this is the mirrored doors.This has turned out to be quite the dilemma, and one I'm going to need to make up my mind on shortly.  It is almost time for me to paint the bathroom, and I need to know if I'm taking out the anchors and screws that were previously holding the mirror and the cabinet.  Anyone have any awesome ideas I'm not thinking of?

Bathroom Reno Update

So, we are about two weeks into the bathroom renovation, and I feel like it has been an all consuming part of life the last few weeks.  Once the walls were torn apart in the shower area, we realized we would need to call in the experts to re-do the plumbing.  We are grateful for a huge favor, and now have the plumbing updated so we can continue with the next steps in the project.

There are a couple of things that make me happy about this photo.  The first being the partial wall we were able to take out. 

Before:

After:

Although the wall was only twelve inches, taking it out made a huge difference!  Also by taking it out, we were able to increase the size of the shower from 48 inches to a full 60 inch shower.  I was quite tempted to put in a soaking tub since standard tub length is 5 ft, but we already had plans in motion to do just a shower stall, so that is what we stuck with. 

The other thing I love about this photo is the idea that we will be getting two shower heads in the shower.  I have never actually been in a shower with two shower heads, but it sounds like a fantastic thing.  Getting the second shower head took some doing.  The long wall of the shower along with the wall opposite where all the plumbing is located are both exterior walls.  Plumbing in exterior walls in the midwest is frowned upon.  Something about freezing pipes...

Anyway, the solution was to come up with a way to drain the line from the second shower head.  Initially, we thought we would need to have a tub spout coming out somewhere to drain the line.  We weren't keen on the idea of a random tub spout sticking out.  The solution?  A body spray located on the wall with the main plumbing will serve to drain the line of the second shower head any time it runs.  I can't wait to test it all out. 

Now that the rough ins for the plumbing are taken care of, we have moved on to hanging Durock to prepare the walls for tile.  The new subfloor is also down in the bathroom, and we will lay Durock down on the floor as well to prevent moisture issues and prepare the floor for tile.  Initially, I wanted to have the project completed by the end of April.  However, I have been told putting down tile isn't something to be rushed.  So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed the project can be done by my birthday the end of May.  That would officially mark the one year anniversary of when we started having leaking shower issues.  It seems only fitting that is when we would have the issue fully resolved.

Vacation or A Working Shower?

Vacation or a working shower is the question we were asking ourselves a couple of weeks ago.  Since last fall we have been planning to take a vacation this year for our anniversary.  However, when it came time to bite the bullet and put down the deposit for the vacation, we had second thoughts.  I pointed out that we hadn't been able to use the shower in our master bathroom in almost a year due to leaking, and we agreed that should take priority. 

Initially, the thought was we might be able to do both but would have to tone down the original vacation plan.  That's still what I'm going for, but we will see how that turns out.  Never enough bills in the wallet to do it all!

Several weeks ago, on a Friday night, we found ourselves roaming the aisles of Lowes.  We were there to price out what the master bath remodel might cost us.  Somewhere between light fixtures and toilets, we realized it wasn't going to be cheap.  Don't worry, we didn't go into it with false expectations that it was going to be done in $1,500.  We are talking about a total gut job after all.  We knew the subfloor was going to need work after the water leaking fiasco last spring.  As anticipated, once everything was torn out and we got to the subfloor, there was some pretty substantial water damage around the toilet area. 

Night one was demo, complete with the discovery of striped wallpaper. 

Then we tore out the leaking tub, which was a major ordeal.  It was one whole piece, which had to be cut apart to get it out the door.  May I suggest wearing some kind of mask to keep from inhaling the dust from cutting apart the fiberglass shower if you ever find yourself taking on this type of project.  We didn't do this... bad idea. 

Once all that was out, this is what Andrew found when he started breaking up the beautiful hunter green tile in the bathroom...

That's right, that is some lovely linoleum.  I'm sure it went quite well with the wallpaper we found behind the cabinet on the wall.  Once we got all the tile up, we discovered this lovely mess...

That, friends, is a massively water damaged subfloor.  Needless to say, we will be cutting that out.  In the midst of this, we had to start picking out what would go into the new bathroom.  Everyone thinks it sounds like fun picking out finishings for a bathroom... it's stressful.  I wanted to pick something we were both going to be happy with for years down the line.  I don't want to get in the habit of tearing apart the bathroom every few years.  First, we picked out tile, so we headed off to The Tile Shop one Saturday afternoon.  Here is what we came up with

The marble tile will be the shower walls and will be tiled all the way up to the ceiling.  It will be broken up by a mosaic strip running around the shower slightly above eye level.

The gray tile will be the floor tile.  The actual floor tiles are slightly larger than the one shown in the picture above.  The one I have pulled out will actually be put on the wall rather than having a baseboard.  The wooden baseboard that was in the bathroom before was totally shot from water over the years. 

Once the tile was decided on, we still had to decide on a shower base, shower doors, vanity, toilet, light fixture, fixtures for the shower, etc.  Man, does this stuff add up quickly.  Suddenly, you find yourself standing in the toilet aisle at Lowes wondering, "do I need a toilet that can flush a bucket of golf balls"?  No joke, this is a selling point on one of the toilets we looked at.  Do you want an elongated or rounded bowl?  Do you want regular height or chair height?  So many questions. 

When it came to picking the vanity, I had it narrowed down between a few different options.  I wanted to go with gray, I thought.  When I took the tile to the store to hold up next to the vanity, I wasn't sold.

 This was the gray vanity at Home Depot I had my eye on.  I thought it looked a little too matchy for my liking.

The white vanity was much better with the tile, so that is what we went with.  The top still needs to be purchased, but it is picked out.  It will be a marble top to match the tile for the shower.  We have the light fixture as well as the shower faucet and shower head.  However, we still need to buy the toilet, some more cement board for the floor of the bathroom as well as a different shower base and the shower doors.  I just decided on a paint color, so I also need to pick that up.  Every time I try to pick out gray paint, I'm reminded why I hate doing it.  Gray either pulls blue, green or brown.  It is hard to find a gray that doesn't pull any of those colors.  I wanted something that wasn't too dark either since the floor is a little darker.  The bathroom is a small space, so I don't want to weigh it down too much with dark colors.  I'm excited to see everything as it comes together!  I will be sure to post regular updates for everyone.