Bathroom Plan

Hey!  I promised I would give you the low down on the bathroom, and I am happy to say it is actually happening!  Unlike the rest of the house {which I still plan to post about at some point in time!}, I am going to try to blog about this one as it comes.  We will see how much I am home during the process, how much it goes as planned, and what the general timeline turns out to be to help determine.  But I think it is possible!

As a refresher, here are some of our "current" bathroom plans {I have decorated the guest bath slightly and we have junked up the master, but nothing else has changed}

Guest Bathroom - Soon to be DEMOLISHED!

Master Bathroom - Can't wait for the end!

The PLAN

You guys -- this part of the remodel is going to be tough.  After redoing the rest of the house, we want to be D-O-N-E done.  So in this effort, and the effort of saving money, we have a few "musts":

1. Keep bathtub and tile in the bath. {The tub is in great shape and we have a work-around for the tile that is also not-to-bad-but-not-gonna-work-for-high-maintenance-Kelcie}
2. Toilets have to be fixed to work for Kelcie {a.k.a. they are too tall, scratched and always look dirty, are WALL MOUNTED, and just generally really annoy me}.  Some of this is logistics that I will just have to explain on another day!
3. Vanities must go - they go up to my short-statured hips.  So that's definitely a problem. 
4. Walls have to be fixed from the peeling paint due to too-much-humidity, not-enough-ventaliation 

Peeling paint due to humidity, while this looks like traditional water damage in the picture, there have been no leaks. 

5. Flooring {obviously}

6. Lighting {currently terrible}

Here are our "wants":

1. Pedestal toilets {who, other than us, has to add this to a want list?!}
2. Storage, especially in master
3. Remove soffit and fluorescent lighting over the vanities. 

Mirror is awesome {to be kept for another project} - lighting, not so much

4. Change tile color

It is really speckled in person!

So basically, do everything except for the tub.  Yay!

Timeline

Here it is {today, at this moment - maybe not tomorrow}:

Week 1: 

• Start tearing out soffit/lighting
• Start tearing out tile behind toilet only very carefully so we can reuse the border pieces around the edge of the tub we are replacing {Weekend}
• Complete tile in tub area
  

  

  Keep everything to the left, get rid of everything to the right and reuse the edge pieces

Week 2: 

• Tear out sinks and vanities {Weekend}
• Scrape walls {or other solution as suggested by our "Sheet Rock Guy" who does amazing work... and one of the only things we actually contract out!}
• Tear down "half-wall" in guest bathroom

Master Bath: Not exact but close enough!

Week 3:

• Paint tile around tub {yes: PAINT! Can't wait to see how this works!} {1 evening to paint, 2 days drying, per tub}
• Lay Flooring {weekend}

Guest Bath: Not entirely exact {like that gigantic toilet} but you get the gist!

Week 4:

• Remove toilets, reroute plumbing to floor, put in new toilets {1 day-ish, the other piece we contract out}
• Have walls textured by our Sheet Rock Guy {several days - hello brother, may we borrow your shower?}
• Paint ceilings {weekend}

Week 5:

• Paint walls
• Put in vanities, sinks, cabinets, etc. {3-ish hours per vanity/sink}
• Make pretty

The Good News

I don't have to do dishes in the bathroom during this leg of the remodel. 

The End. 

Not really, next I will explain how IKEA fits into this {spoiler alert: the options are limited on what it could possibly be} and give you an update on our vision for the bathrooms with colors, feel, etc.  

The Big Kitchen Remodel {and reading the end of the book before the beginning}

Here is to reading the end of the book before the beginning...

Preface: We have tutorials coming on most of this kitchen {as we did about 85% of it ourselves in some way shape or form}.  However, I keep posting "sneak peeks" due to no other way about it and I can't wait to share with everyone anyway.  So without further ado...

Get ready for a LOT of pictures!

We bought the house because of this which proved to be a huge undertaking.

DIY House Remodel - Lay Your Own Wood {or bamboo} Floor - Tips and Tricks and General Instructions

If this is new to you and you want to see all of the other steps we took: prep work and supplies and Elastilon.   Hope you find them helpful as well!

This post may seem scattered, because we learned things as we went - and this post will probably look the same way.  However, we hope you can learn from other people's mistakes experiences. It will mix your general instructions with our tips - because ultimately we winged it {as much as a control freak can "wing" anything}.  Here goes nothin'! *Sorry for all of the words and less pictures, these are more brain tricks and tips and unfortunately, we couldn't snap pictures from inside there!

Patterns and Execution

Tip #1: Turn the last board in the row around so the groove is up next to the groove {length wise}, mark where the cut should go to make it shorter {should light up with the board you lay immediately prior to this step - make sure to leave room for the gap!}, and cut there.  Instead of measuring, marking, etc. we found this method to end up in an extremely low error rate and made the process go much faster.  The majority of the time, if there was a "miscut", we were usually making it too long instead of too short which meant we could correct the error. Yardsticks really help when you made an ut-oh cut. {If you would like pictures or further explanation of this, just let us know in the comments, after much searching for a picture, we couldn't find one.  But we could definitely stage the situation for you if you would like!}

Feel {Great} Friday & Monthly Goals - November 2014

Just like last month, I want to keep myself accountable.  Well, here is where we stand after October:

Not bad {in my world}!  I would say finishing 3.5 of 5 projects {and for the record, my car did spend 2 weeks in the garage} and finishing 4 Project Elephant items is a success! 

{Never too late for a} Weekend Review

Here is the crazy weekend as it was!

I took a few days off of work so I had some extra time in my weekend {very gratefully}.  So this update is a little bit past due, but it was technically still my weekend!

Thursday and Friday {day}

I started on this:

DIY House Remodel - Lay Your Own Wood {or bamboo} Floor - Our friend Elastilon

To make sure everyone is on the same page:

• Yes, we decided to lay our own flooring.
• No, we didn't regret it {for any longer than you usually regret any manual labor}.
• Yes, people thought we were crazy.
• Prepwork takes a looooong time {much longer than my very scheduled brain could comprehend}

We left off somewhere around here:

 So far we have:

• Taken out staples and removed glue residue from the subfloor.
• Removed baseboards.
• Swept, and swept, and swept some more.  
• Laid the moisture barrier.
• Had Dad simultaneously doing other seemingly important tasks {in Kelcie's mind, they were very urgent, hindsight says they probably weren't quite as urgent as originally thought}

So now we are ready to lay some wood {or bamboo} floors - right?

Not for us! 

DIY House Remodel - Lay Your Own Wood {or bamboo} Floor - Prepwork

Here is your slight background story.  But if you are just here for how we approached this humongous and screaming project, feel free to skip a paragraph or two.

We got married at the end of May 2014.  It was beautiful, wonderful, and absolutely perfect for both of us.  We had spend an entire 5 months preparing (we got engaged on Christmas Eve of 2013) and saving money by doing most everything ourselves.  In April before we got married, we decided it would be a good idea to buy a house.  This house was in various stages of disrepair or antiquity.  So while we Andrew did some demolition before the wedding, we Kelcie said absolutely no work on the house during the month of May.  

Monthly Goals - October 2014

In an effort to keep myself accountable and realistic about our house and life goals, I am going to attempt to document my  our goals each month.  I want to really see how much progress I made and see if I am being honest with myself.  I am also going to have a little Project Elephant {as inspired by Abbie at M is for Mama's Project Elephant} that will be nice to bite a bit off of each project each month, but if necessary can be pushed - but progress on that is important!

This month we have the following happening: our new nephew will be arriving {sorry Maggie, September birthday is no longer an option!}, there will be a new puppy to the pack {my parents' new puppy, don't get excited}, Aubrie's birthday, two days of JA, and plenty of OSU Cowboys football. It is a packed and extremely monumental month.

Can't you just see it?!

So I mentioned that there were two main areas that we actually bought the house for. But first, we want to know if you can envision it.

The Living Room

Goose had to make a cameo appearance.  {He was actually waiting for Lizzie to pop around that corner - they loved playing chase when the house was empty!}

The house "as is"

So... we bought a house.  

Here is a picture from Day 1:

As you can tell, Andrew was really excited.  It was in the middle of April, it was actually cold, and those shrubs were beyond dead.  It was a great day.

Let's start at the VERY beginning

{because it's a very good place to start...}

At one point in our lives, not that long ago, we decided it was a fantastic idea to buy a house while being 6 weeks away from our wedding date.  We proceeded to purchase said house and then completely tear it apart - while also DIY-ing practically our entire wedding.  

We wanted a way to document this process and make it available to answer quite a few questions that everyone else had for us along the way.   We considered making an album and holding everyone hostage to come see it (this is still a HIGH possibility) and then we considered doing an online album share of some kind.  However, at the time of this post, we are not on social media (once again, OH the horror!).  But it has been a longtime dream of ours mine to start a blog.  Not for the "I think people care what I have to say" sort of thing, but for the "I would maybe like to know what I was thinking back then" sort of way.  

So here's to you - and to keeping you in OUR loop!