Category: home improvement

Please enjoy this Deco-green delight that I get to wash my face in now:

Some detail shots of tile (and proof I can paint a straight line):

Just a reminder, this is where we were after last year–a new shower door and tile to the ceiling, but decade-old builder’s-grade everything else

Honestly, if I’d realized how much work this was going to be I might have thought twice (and now I understand my dad’s hesitancy and jokes of, “I’ll loan you my tools!” when I was planning it). But it’s SO NICE now. The new vanity (from Costco! holds so much, I love the lines of the toilet, and I feel so damn accomplished, even if Dad was the mastermind behind all of it.

I have more to say about the concept of “remodeling as a woman” but I’ll save it for tomorrow–time to go shower in my NEW BATHROOM!

We got tile on the wall over the weekend (and I think I just about killed my dad with trips up and down the stairs to the tile saw, good lord is tile labor-intensive). Tonight I grout and Wednesday we get the plumbing put back and THEN, with the exception of a light fixture, I have a new bathroom!

Of course, now that I see the end of the project, I think I might want to paint one wall? I was at Home Depot getting touch up paint to match the white walls last night and just happened to grab some paint swatches. I think I’ll enjoy having a new bathroom for a bit and then see what I think–maybe a green wall would be too much, since this is the bathroom right next to the tiger wallpaper. Or maybe it would be just right and I would feel like Phryne Fisher in her malachite bathroom?

We’re roughly one-thirds done with the main bathroom redo, which involves tearing everything out, putting in a new waterproof underlayment, tiling a new floor,  putting in a new vanity and toilet,  and adding a tile half wall and backsplash–plus installing waterproof vinyl baseboard and lights and medicine cabinet.

I wouldn’t even have been able to do the demo without my dad’s help (and tools) and he was invaluable for tile. I was so impressed with his tile skills I put a sample on my Instagram stories:

And got this reply from an Instagram friend who’s a commercial interior designer!

We’re taking a couple days off and will make more progress over the weekend. I’ll have a big reveal when it’s all done, never fear.

We’re doing the second half of the bathroom remodel soon and I’m also looking at a new couch and wallpaper for the living room, and maybe making a skirted tablecloth out of the old curtain I sewed (someone would really like a skirted tablecloth).

I think it all comes down to this–I think I’m going to be remote for another winter (if not forever) and I want the space to feel different (and work better) than it did last year. Some upgrades to hell, as it were.

It’s that time again… time to do spring yard work and put the winter bedding away. This weekend was full of staining, weeding, edging, screen porch research, singing “Up On The Roof,” and laundry. Plus, look how PLEASED someone is by the tribute of a new quilt:

Up on the roooooooooof!

I had my dad show me how to set tile because I was fed UP with a shower curtain in the master bath. And if you give a mouse a glass shower door, then she’ll want to tile from the top of the tub enclosure to the ceiling to look a little more custom (and then she’ll probably want to put in a tile floor and add tile to the wall behind the toilet, too).

But phase one–the shower tile!–is done and it looks great. And it looks even MORE great because I did about half of it with my own two hands (under Dad’s expert instruction, of course).

I had a feeling I would like tiling and I do: it’s kind of like piecing a quilt top, just with cement instead of sewing. Thanks for showing me how, Dad!

I don’t have a before shot of the latest house project I roped my dad into, but (like everything he touches) it’s about 1000% nicer than it was.

The house has an insulated but unfinished basement. Getting it finished is still a ways off, but the windows down there were truly scary–the insulation had just been cut out around them. The exposed fiberglass was kinda falling down, trapping dust and spider carcasses, and it just looked janky and dirty, despite being new.

So my dad figured out a way to put trim around the two windows down there and finish them off nicely:

They’re even caulked and everything! Plus he washed the windows. Twice.

Next up is getting a big rug and some IKEA cutting tables down here to make the space usable for projects. With those nice windows, I’ll be happy to spend time down here. Thanks, Dad!

I’ve been mentioning “bathroom remodel” here a little bit in passing but spared you the month’s worth of back and forth after I realized my plans to upgrade the master bathroom just weren’t going to work (short version: most things would have been a compromise for budget, so I’m just going to wait).

But that doesn’t mean my dad escaped being put to hard labor, oh no–I decided that the hall bathroom could get a new floor and some cosmetic improvements on my budget, so that started yesterday:

I’ll be staining the builder’s grade vanity dark (using this Pinterest tutorial of a thousand Pins) and bought a new countertop to replace the bad fake-granite formica that was there.

Lest you think I’m a badass who can rip out floors,  my role is similar to Toby’s here: inspect and be very interested, but hide under the bed during the actual work (not literally, but I didn’t plan to take time off to help Dad, which I now regret).   

And the only reason I can make any of this fit my “budget” is because I am forcing my dad to do hard labor for free. So thanks, Dad. Toby thinks all your work is top-notch and I do too.