So Fresh And So Clean!

Finally. We have finished out guest bathroom. Of course I'm extremely partial (since I had a hand in the entire face-lift), but I think we did a bang up job.

Our before pictures are quite minimal compared to our after pictures. Probably because I hated it before and didn't want to remember exactly what it looked like.

Don't forget to scroll to the bottom to see the cost breakdown and the total we spent on this project. We kept this one extremely under budget since we initially wanted to demo the entire room and start from scratch, but changed our minds sometime along the way. (When we decided we needed to sale) ;).

So when we came to look at the house the first time, I snapped this photo. This is EXACTLY how it looked. Toilet paper on the counter, clutter and a dirty shower. Ugh. It was pretty gross. Although other than the clutter it doesn't look THAT bad here.

We knew from the get go things would have to go in this room and the first thing was the linoleum. I think we ripped it out of there around day two of moving in since it was starting to come apart by the tub and we wanted to make sure there was no molding sub-floor. Luckily, there was not. So since we weren't sure what to do with this room yet we threw on some cheap laminate that the old owners had left over from the kitchen and called it at day... for about 10-ish months.
 

And then last month sometime I decided it might be nice to take down the mirror and the terrible lighting. Of course in our house there is always a surprise and rainbow wall paper happily greeted us. You can also see in this picture that we created quite the holes where the outlets are supposed to go. (Promise we didn't just leave exposed wires out for days) Anyway, Daniel re-wired the outlets because the electricity was actually coming from the kitchen breaker instead of the bathroom breaker which makes it confusing. And since we made big holes in the crappy drywall we ended up just tearing down the mirror/light wall and just starting from scratch. (This picture also shows the first grey I tried on the walls, but it was too dark for my taste.)

Here is a before of the cabinets. Not much changed for them except they got new knobs and a new coat of shiny white paint!

Next up was the floor. While Daniel was at work last week I decided there was no time like the present and I started ripping up this rooms flooring.. again. The only plus to that was getting to practice my advanced math skills on the old laminate. Why? Because I can.

 After the laminate was ripped up I was left with this yucky sub-floor. I spent a few hours peeling up old pieces of flooring and cleaning and prepping it for the new tile to be laid.

And so it began.... The hardest part is the first piece. If you mess that up the whole thing goes downhill. So needless to say, I spent the better part of an hour making sure I had that first piece right.

Those are the only before and during photos we took unfortunately... And here are the after photos of the guest bathroom. Please excuse the lighting. I'm not a photographer ;)

No matter how I positioned the camera, whether it was natural light or the light was on.. This was the best picture I could get of the new light and mirror.

So now for the price breakdown...

Paint: $17

Primer: $20

Joint Compound: $7

Sheetrock: $8

Tile: $35

Grout: $8

Crown Molding: $20

New Outlets/Covers: $30

Cabinet Knobs: Free. We used the old ones from the kitchen cabinets.

Light Fixture: Free from MIL

Spray Paint for Frame & Light Fixture: $6

Mirror: $29

Shower Curtain: $15

Curtain: $3 (from scrap fabric)

Towel Holder: $5

New Toilet: $150 (Daniel installed it himself)

Total:  Roughly $353. 

I'm sure we are missing a few dollars here or there, but still very cheap considering we replaced the toilet. If we had kept the old one we would have come in around $200. 

So this renovation didn't require much of our money it was just finding the time to get it done. I get excited walking past this room in the hallway now. Bring on the guests!

A Quick Recap

What have we been up to? Giving our new home lots of love!

Our house has lots of things for us to put our own touch on.

So we spend at least one night a weekend at the good ole Home Depot.

It's now common to walk out with a full buggy or two and in this case below, a wheelbarrow full of home goodness.

It's also not uncommon to come home and find renovations started without me. Like the one below.

Daniel decided while I was at work to start ripping up the concrete porch. (In his defense, it needed to be done.) But it's always a nice surprise when I pull in the drive to see what he's been up to.

Then there are great finds like this one that make up for it. Daniel found this antique dresser at First Monday a few weeks back and we loved it! It's now the new home for our TV in the living room. For half off, we couldn't resist! (Excuse the paint mess, this will be a given for a while)

Just a little sneak peak at the living room colors. I'm using all the colors in this fabric. I'm in the process of making our roman shades out of this now. I have four out of five made for the living room and can't wait to do a big reveal post when we finish with the living room which I hope is in the next week. :)

So how do be stay energized with all these home renovations? Smoothies! I used to make them all the time but I fell off the wagon a while back. But I think I now have a fool proof system to having an awesome smoothie in the mornings.

On Sundays, I cut up all of our fruits lately that's been about 7 bananas, 2 cartons of strawberries (I think I'll be getting 3 this next week), 1 whole pineapple, and fresh spinach.

I wish I had a better recipe for our smoothies but I pretty much just wing it.

A handful of strawberries

one banana or handful of pineapple chunks

(Daniel doesn't eat bananas, but I prefer them)

a handful of spinach

a handful of oatmeal

I put all but the oatmeal in individual freezer bags.

I put the bags in the freezer.

This normally makes 14 smoothies, a weeks worth for both of us.

In the mornings I grab two bags out of the freezer.

I add in some milk. I'm not sure how much. I just eyeball it.

I'm sorry this recipe isn't very precise.

Anyway, I'm now a smoothie-aholic! I seriously get UPSET if I think I might not get a smoothie in the morning. The smoothies have now taken the place of coffee for me. This is probably a good thing since these pack a lot more nutrition.

So that's the short/jumbled version of what we've been up to. I hope to post about the redone living room within  the next week. It feels so nice to be close to having our first room almost done!