Signs of Spring!

What is this in the field?

Oh! It's Mrs. Duck from the creek.

A daffodil ready to bloom.

And crocus in bloom.

Happy Spring!

Master Bathroom Reveal

OK, I told you when we had a sunny day I'd take photos. I kept my word. Welcome to my Master Bathroom...

 

This is the view from my bedroom into the bath. Please ignore those two stink bugs on the floor! Now that the weather is warmer, they are popping up everywhere. Yuck. 

This room was a new addition to our house, built on over where the old porch was built. The previous owner told me a story about when he and his wife first moved into the house over 50 years ago...she was out on the back porch cleaning the windows when the whole thing fell in on her! Can you imagine? At the time he had bought the house it had been vacant for a couple of years (like when we bought it) and was in disrepair...but they moved in to their first house and fixed it up and lived here for almost 50 years!

Anyway, I knew that I wanted a bigger bath with room for a clawfoot tub (had one in my last house), separate shower and toilet. This is what I came up with. It was all done by DH and me, with the exception of some of the plumbing and electric. I must also tell you that as everything in our house, most everything was bought at discount. I scour sites and the big box stores for deals and make things work for a fraction of the price.

I painted the walls my favorite Martha Stewart Araucana Blue. I  love this paint because it changes colors as the light changes -- sometimes it looks blue, while other times it looks green. It was Valspar MS313 when they still carried her colors. I think they can still mix it. The sinks are Pegasus from HD and faucets are these from Overstock. The mirrors are from IKEA. Not my first pick, but they work for now until I get the money for these medicine cabinets.  The angel above the sinks is from The Wooden Hen, one of my favorite craftswomen. I love her creations, but they had a fire a while back so I'm not sure if she's still making items.

Other items here include a Baldwin Brass towel bar I got on clearance at HD, towels from T.J. Maxx, and see that wooden box on the wall? I got that at the Salvation Army store. I knew exactly what it was when I saw it. Can you believe it is from David T. Smith? I think that I paid $4.00 for it and it had a tag on it from an interior decorator that is cost $90.00! (Just ignore that hole right by the can light...still fixing where DH cut the holes a little too big!)

Door to toilet.

 

On the opposite side of the room we have the toilet room. It's nice to have this when you have kids that don't know how to knock before entering! The floors in the bath are 18 x 18 travertine from HD, Kohler toliet (no longer made).

Inside are photos of my little ones with bare bottoms. :)

Bedside the toilet is the shower.The floor is travertine and walls are marble with a green/blue rock insert. The marble is a pinkish-brown-gray mix. I'm not sure I would go with this again. I'd probably go with white marble or white subway tiles in a running bond. But at the time, the price was right. The fixtures are from Kohler that I bought from the HD Expo when they were going out of business 5 years ago.

 And the shower curtain that I made myself, based on this inspiration.

Here's the full shot. The top piece is made from white heavy cotton decorator fabric I bought at JoAnn's on sale from the clearance bin. The patterned fabric is Heather Bailey Nicey Jane.  I needed a curtain a little longer than normal, so it made sense to make it myself. It total it cost about $30.00. The branch hook on the wall is from Tag -- a Marshall's purchase for $3.99! The blinds were also another bargain at Lowe's for $16.99 each in the clearance section.

Next is my pride and joy. My clawfoot tub.

This has been sitting in my backyard for over 5 years, after I bought it in Chicago before we moved. I finally got it refinished through Miracle Method in January. I also had to find matching feet, which is not an easy feat! Not all feet are the same and vary from tub to tub. So after a lot of research, I found the right ones on eBay. I had the pillow and rack from my last tub, but all the fixtures are new and also from eBay. It was a job to find all the pieces that needed to work together, but I think it looks beautiful. So nice to take a bath in this deep tub.

And last, my cabinet that holds all my bathroom supplies. This was found in our garage, but it must have been part of the original china cabinet in the house. It was really dirty and had red plastic where the windows had been. I had originally intended to paint it, but I kind of liked it after I had stripped off many layers of old paint. I still have yet to fix the right hand door (it needs some TLC) and add some chicken wire or screen to the door openings along with a barn board top. What do you think? Should I leave it with the paint or paint it?

I hope you enjoyed my tour. Please ask questions if you have any! 

Where I've been for the past 3 months...

...mostly at home, doing projects. Hockey Start also began for all 3 boys. And Mark was traveling a bunch for work to Austin, San Francisco and Boston.

First on the project list was doing Coaches' gifts for all the coaches on my sons' football team. I didn't have a huge amount of money to work with and 6 coaches to buy for, so I had to get creative. I got hooded sweatshirts on sale at Kohl's and also bought a matching t-shirt that I cut up for the freezer paper stencil I did on each.

Here's how they came out:

I wanted them to look a little distressed, so I stenciled in a rough font and then sewed around it a couple times randomly. I also used a football button for the apostrophe.

 I also added an iron-on on the inside for identification.

I added the bulldog from the shirt I bought to the back of the head coach's shirt.

I hope that they liked them. We gave them their shirts at the banquet, but that was chaos. It was a lot of work. Each stencil was cut out by hand, stenciled, ironed on, and sewn on x 6! If you are interested in the freezer paper stenciling technique, check out this link where I learned.

We also got to finishing our Master Bath. It was mostly done with the exception of installing my clawfoot tub. The tub had been sitting in my back yard for the past 5 years where it had sat since buying it in Chicago before we moved back. I got it refinished in January for my Christmas gift. It took a while to get all the pieces together! I had to find feet to fit (not an easy task, but I found them on eBay after a lot of research) and a faucet (eBay again - from England), adapters so that it would fit the holes on my tub (another eBay find) and the fittings and drain.(eBay again!).
After getting everything together, we found out that the pipes where plumbed in at the wrong space. So we had to pull up 6 travertine tiles and subfloor to move them. After moving the pipes and replacing the tiles, we were ready to move on. It took a while to get that all done, and now I am happy to say it is all done! I will share photos soon when we have a sunny day...
I also made a new shower curtain for my shower. I based the design on this dishtowel I found on Etsy.

The fabrics are all from Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane fabric. Like I said, I'll share more photos when we get a sunny day!

I also made a few things for my Etsy shoppe. Here they are

I enjoy making these things, but it gets hard to make them when they don't sell. I just keep making things that I would like to have in my own house. And it gives me creative outlet!

And the last thing that I have been doing is getting myself back in shape. I've lost almost 10 lbs. since the beginning of December. I got EA Sports Active 2 for XBox. I'll tell you, it kicked my butt for the first couple of weeks! I could hardly walk. But after keeping at it, I actually enjoy it. It's easy because you can do it even when the weather is crappy (which is most of the time here during the winter), it keeps track of your calories burned (I've burned over 5500 calories) and you can miss days and go back and make them up. I had a bunch of that back in January and February because I got a sinus/ear infection. Good times -- not! I'm also eating better and keeping track of what I eat online.

I promise to share more of my renovations when it gets sunny and I can take better photos!


Have a great day :)