A Little Bit Fun, A Little Bit Function

I wouldn't say that I have a certain style, although if colorful was one...that would probably fit best. 

Buying what I like, and finding a place to put it, seem to be what works for me. Sometimes I don't even know that I want to change something...until I find just the right thing. When I was on the look out for knobs for the downstairs bathroom vanity, I happened to go into Hobby Lobby. They also happened to be having a 50% off all knobs sale. So, I grouped some together and sent a picture to Blake to see what he liked best.

Ultimately we ended up going with the second one from the top, although the first and third were big contenders.

The knobs (although they don't look like it in the photos) are crystal looking with only a hint of blue.

They are probably a little more fancy then what I would normally go with, but I really love them on the vanity now.

The problem is...I really loved the third ones down but couldn't figure out a reason to have them.

Then...my reason came.

Truth be told, this cabinet didn't really need new knobs but once they were on...there was no going back. 

They made the vanity seem a little less...I don't know...sad? Plus, I think the size helped too.

Wouldn't you know, a new shower curtain also helped out the bathroom situation.

In all honesty, finding things for our home is a long process. I typically start thinking that I want one thing and end up with something completely different. I tend to lean towards things that are vintage because it can give you a unique look....but not all vintage is good, and not all things "unique" end up working either. Take for example my chairs.

I bought the metal ones off of a local site, and the striped one I painted myself. I loved them. But...they just didn't work. No matter how much I willed myself to keep them, for the sake of loving them, I couldn't. In the end, I ended up selling the chairs and going back to our wood ones, and putting the striped chair in the kids Secret Laboratory.

Sure the chairs were cool, and very in style, they just weren't my style.

I have said it before and I will say it again, some things that are done in jest around our house end up sticking.

The wall in our dining room is off set from the other wall so it makes it hard to hang things on it. I had decided to do a gallery wall opposite the mirror in hopes that it wouldn't make it feel lopsided.

I laid out all of the frames that I had, and moved them around until I got a general shape that I liked.

All of the frames are ones that I had painted the same color as the wall, and I had planned to do the same with the horse print frame.

I figured that when the weather got warm I would paint it and fill it with a different picture.

Then night after night, as we ate dinner our kids would play "I spy." Without fail, there would normally be one of them saying, "I spy...something golden." To which someone would reply after a few guesses..."the horses?"

Unintentionally the horses have stayed. Sure, I get a couple "What is up with the horses?!" but I just shrug and normally tell the story and end with "They have grown on us. We kind of dig 'em."

Another frame got filled simply because this hook

reminded me of Tick-Tock from Return to Oz.

I figure at some point all of the frames will be filled, but I am not in a rush. Filling them is half the fun.

Luckily there are more shelves to fill and spaces to decorate, so it seems that the fun is never ending.

It happens to be especially gratifying when you start with a blank slate and it evolves into something unexpected.

As soon as we started on the bathroom I knew that I was going to put my antique bottles in there. They have moved places and been rearranged about a gazillion times, and I am sure that will continue.

If given the option of going with something normal or something a little fun, I will almost always choose fun. It is just a added bonus if it has some kind of function.

Insert our Hand hooks. Literal hands holding stuff. 

Sure, this hand is giving you a nice finger gun...

But you know what else it can do?! Hold your towel.

Winning!

Somethings that are purely for purpose can be cute too.

When it comes right down to it, changing things around happens to be my biggest hobby. It some how makes our house seem different with out really changing much.

A picture in the spare room that looked perfectly fine there,

ends up on top of the piano.

And a felt, string owl ends up in its place.

It is ever evolving. The owl may not be like that for long, but at least I got you caught up...for now. 

Master Bathroom

Thought I had abandoned ship? Nope. We are still trudging along on our house, we just took a little vacation to recharge. It was lovely.

Prior to leaving there was a big list of things to accomplish. We were working to make it happen...hence, no blogging.

Remember the master bathroom? I think I left you with it looking like this.

Well, our friends came and stayed at our house while we were gone to watch our kids. We figured, that they might like their own bathroom to use while they were here. We are considerate like that.

The brunt of the floor work normally falls on Blake. Not that he minds, I think he likes piecing things together. He started by putting down a new sub floor, and then topped it with hardibacker to make it good for the bathroom.

While he was working on the that, I was working on our shower. There was previously a glass door attached to the walls. That came down but then we were left with gross walls to clean. Out came my Krud Kutter.

I had thought of a couple thing to do to the tile in the shower like: paint the tile, refurbish the grout, and completely retile the inside. In the end I cleaned the tile...and that is it. We still are undecided on what to do. It is not the nicest looking tile and it is cracked in some spots, but at least it is clean.

After prepping the floor we were stalled due to weather. We wanted to cut the tiles for the floor, but it kept snowing. Thankfully, one weekend it was clear so we got to cutting. About midway through cutting it started to rain, but Blake was a trooper and kept on going.

I had my typical task of measuring and marking the tiles, and Blake cut them on the wet saw outside.

With the floor all laid out, you would think that we would get to the thinset pretty quick. Not the case. We wanted to wait till the weekend instead of trying to squeeze it in one night after work.

Not wanting to waist the time during the days I decided to paint the walls. We decided to try and use some of the paint that we already had on hand which left us with only a few options. Light grey, dark grey or light blue. Our bedroom is light grey with blue curtains so we decided that the blue would work best.

I started painting above the shower.

(The toilet in the shower made for a handy stepping stool.)

When that wall was done I stepped back and looked. I wasn't convinced that it was going to be the best option. The bathroom is small and I thought that having blue on all the walls may make it seem small and cramped, even with the lighter color. As with any small dilemma I went to my favorite problem solving site...Pinterest.

Painting the ceiling seemed to be what I was leaning towards. The only problem was, how our bathroom was laid out was going to make the transition difficult. Also, there was going to be the added expense of beadboard or trim around the top that we didn't want to have to deal with.

A little discouraged, I continued to look until I came across this picture.

Sure, it looks like a lime green circus tent. Sure, it was a little crazy. But it spoke to me. It said something along the lines of "Good luck trying to convince Blake that this is a good idea!"

Well wouldn't you know...this picture came along and viola! it was just right.

Blake gave me the go ahead to, get down with my mad taping self.

I am going to get this out of the way, because I feel like it is the elephant in the room. I like to paint. I don't like taping, but I don't hate it either. But measuring? Calculations? Not my thing. Blake is the numbers guy in our operation. I am the "lets figure out the easiest way possible for this" gal.

My solution to not having to measure out about a gazillion marks?

A taco box.

I would like to say that I am kidding. 

It's true.

All the lines in our bathroom are taco box width.

One more thing: this bathroom took forever to finish painting. By the end, I just wanted to be done.

When I had finally did all of the coats of the paint, the most rewarding thing was removing the tape.

Then my victory was quickly squashed by the gaping holes in the walls.

We left the holes because we hadn't yet done the thinset or the grout on our tile. Fixing sheetrock is a dusty job, so we saved it to the end. Saving it till the end, just meant that I couldn't put away my brushes quite yet.

Finally with the weekend here, we got to finishing our tile. We laid the thinset down and spaced our tiles using spacers.

After 24 hours we grouted.

With the tile down Blake got to rewiring and patching the sheetrock. With great concentration, he moved the light switch and plug down so that they would sit just slightly above the vanity.

Then it was time to move everything in. This time we opted to buy a vanity from Home Depot. The vanity that we got came with a mirror, which was a great deal for us. The vanity light is also from Home Depot.

With all home improvement projects there always seem to be some kind of hiccup. The vanity has been ours. The day before we were supposed to leave on our cruise I noticed a puddle underneath our vanity. The wall pipe had been leaking. We turned off the water and moved the vanity out. Blake tried a new pipe but it still leaked. We have another idea so we are hoping that we can get the sink working by this weekend.

It seems like with every problem, there is always a silver lining...like the universe trying to make it up to you.

My silver lining came in the form of a $3 purchase at DI.

The overhead light in our bathroom is old but still tolerable. We had no plans to change it anytime soon.

Imagine my surprise, that when I walked into the DI there sitting on the shelf is a light cover. There was nothing fancy about it, except that it matches the light cover that is in our hallway. The one that our kids have lovingly referred to as the sun.

Sure it is nothing to write home about, but I am going to take it as a cosmic win.

I forgive you Universe for making our vanity leak.

And...since I know you are dying for them! Who isn't?!

Before:

After: