Making Our Rental Feel Like Home: Bedroom & Bath

I won't lie to you, friends, I very seriously miss my GIGANTIC old bedroom, huge closet, attached master bath, and wood floors. I loved that I had room for a chair, bed, dressers, desks, nightstands... all the things. However, what I've quickly realized since we moved is that we don't really need all of those things. In many ways it is much easier to keep the bathroom cleaned without it, I have less places to stack items I don't need in the bedroom, and cleaning is much faster with less floor to mop or vacuum. 

Our new room is probably just over half the size of our old one. Here's a small angle of what the master looked like when we first toured:

50 Shades of Gray... Door Edition

It has been a long time since I have posted... starting school two weeks early has been super hard on my life! It has felt like being a new teacher all over again. Plus the extra teams and work I have taken on... its put some house projects on the wayside a bit. But! I am finallllyyy able to reveal to you my beautiful doors!

Remember what they looked like before? The one on the left was the old, dated, and ugly door. The door on the right was the new and improved wonderful version!

I love the detail and character it adds to the house. Plus there is no wood grain that clashes with the flooring. Thank goodness. That is so ugly.

Now here are the two new doors together on the secondary bedrooms! Storage is still limited in our style of home so we utilize over the door hooks quite often but even so they are so much better. Plus the new handles really coordinate quite a bit better with the other fixtures that are in the house. Mmmm.... pretttyyyy.

Let's not forget the bathroom door! That one received a wonderful and beautimous update as well...

Clearly there's still some mild fixes to do and a couple of adjustments as the hinges get worked and the house settles a bit between the seasons. I am hoping to get those fine tuning details done before the holidays when we start having visitors come and stay with us. At least now they know that when they close the door it won't fall off the hinges in the middle of the night.

We like to make sure that guests are as comfortable as possible around here. hehe.

Remember my bedroom door where all this excitement first began?

Well here is a long distance shot from the hallway. Ahhhhh. I love it. Sometimes I stand next to it and say sweet things. I'm sure everyone does that to their doorways right? Oh! And I added a new handle to the front entry door too. I couldn't replace that door because I'd have to special order it, the door is in good shape, so at this point I'm not looking to spend the extra cash on it yet.

One final BEFORE shot of the ugly old 80s doors... for nostalgia's sake.

And the new! Yayyy! We love them! Pretty sure that's one of the features in the hosue my sister and I get the most compliments on. It's fun to add some extra color and appeal to the doors since the rest of my tones are pretty neutral. Art and doors are what pop around here!

What do you think of the new doors? 

Total cost:

• slab doors from Lowe's: $32x4=$128.00
• ORB handles from Lowe's (Gatehouse brand, not good for keyed locks though): $10.97x5=$54.85

Guest Post: Bathroom Decor Made Easy

I love redoing bathrooms and making them fabulous. Check out some ideas from guest blogger Sue Jason: 

Hi my name is Sue Jason and I am a blogger at My-bathrooms blog. I have a passion for sharing ideas which include home improvement and decor.

Bathroom Decor Made Easy

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Bathroom décor can be tricky. The room is used by everyone in the house, several times a day, and the décor can soon fade. Complicated arrangements tend not to last very long either as busy bathers brush past on their way to the loo, the bedroom or even to the basin to get that soap out of their eyes! What follows is a list of quick and easy bathroom décor ideas.

Spring Clean It!

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First of all, give the bathroom a good scrub, getting all those dark and gloomy corners that you usually skip! Just removing every vestige of dust and soap residue can make a huge difference to the look of your bathroom. If the big scrub does not really achieve much, except to highlight the peeling wallpaper and cracked and chipped paintwork, then you may well have to invest in a pot of paint or two and get to work!

Repurpose Unwanted Goods

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Once the walls and floor look good, you can add some unique and lovely features for very little money. Repurpose some old furniture and sturdy packing crates by giving them a thick waterproof covering and painting them to match the bathroom décor. Once they are finished, they will look lovely and provide you with some extra storage space for spare towels, toilet rolls and other toiletries and cosmetics.

Skirting the Issue

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Give your basin a skirt! Making a cover to fall prettily from the edge of the basin to the floor, not only creates a wonderfully seamless look in the bathroom (which will be enhanced by your choice of attractive fabric!) but you are creating a wonderful space which can be packed full of bathroom supplies!

Hang It All!

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Invest in some pretty hanging baskets that are designed for indoor use. When these are packed full of bath products they will have everything easily to hand, and yet, still out of the way and not cluttering up the floor!

Opt For Non-Bulky Storage

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Shelves, racks and hooks are wonderful in bathrooms, providing useful storage options without being bulky or space-consuming. Install plenty of these and get rid of all your floor-bound clutter and see what a great difference it makes.

Ornamental Bath Products!

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Create a vignette with beautiful and useful products: from bath bombs to fancy soaps to ornate jars of bath salts, modern bathing products can look amazing and smell gorgeous too. Arrange several of these products to create a delightful impression, while ensuring that your favorite bath bomb is always nearby when you need it!

Top 5 Messy Business Redos

I've owned my house for quite awhile now and feel like I've done a lot of upgrades. But sadly most of them I did before discovering the blogging world, so I didn't "do it as a I went" I thought it would be fun to highlight some of my big projects and some of my favorite projects. That might light my fire to pick up a paint brush again. or something.

1. Kitchen. The kitchen overhaul was my number one favorite favorite thing. (Besides installing wood floors rather than uglio carpet that was originally there.) This is what the kitchen looked like before. Clean. Dated. Nasty. Ew. 

The kitchen had everything from the handles spray painted... to the cabinets painted... to the walls painted... to the countertops. It got real painted all up in there.

Installing wallpaper backsplash from Lowe's was also an awesome money saving solution and made it actually look pretty.

Here's a comparison of the before... and after. Way better in my opinion!

Total cost: $300.00
Total time: 10 days

find all the details: painting the cabinets here, painting the countertops here, see how i added little details here, tile backsplash here, accessories here and here,

2. Guest Bathroom. My second favorite project I actually did quite awhile ago... almost two years I think... might be time for some switcheroos! But anyways. This guest bathroom has undergone at least three transformations. The most recent one being from a baby blue nursery with the same dated cabinets as the kitchen to an elegant, relaxing space.

Here's what it looked like back in 2008:

And in 2010-2011:

Everything in this room got a face lift. The countertop was replaced awhile back but I painted the cabinets a blue gray color and moved the shower curtain up to the ceiling and put in two panels which makes it feel bigger and allows light from the teeny tiny window to come through.

2011-2013:

New light fixture for super cheap from a WalMart clearance sale (I think it was only $20.00 or something)  and even added a storage component where the old towel bars used to be. That's the problem with a house like mine... no storage. At all.

Total Time: 1 week

Total Budget: $150.00

find all the details: how it got started here, some cabinet assembly info here, and the final product here.

3. Jewelry display built-in.

Total Time: 2 days

Total Budget: $35.00 (already had beadboard left over, bought trim and hooks)

find all the details: built in details and origination here, how the whole bathroom panned out here.

4. Laundry Room.

 This room was originally such a total nightmare we called it the "murder scene" when we first bought the house. (I say we because it was my parents and I.) Everything was basically wrong about this room and I've managed to correct most of it. The venting for the dryer was being pushed under the house, which is real bad bad for the insulation under there. So that was rerouted and new flooring was put in when we first did the overhaul on the place.

Here's what it looked like for the first couple years of living here (roughly 2008-2011):

My washer and dryer came from Habitat for Humanity. The dryer I actually got off a dude that was shopping that same day. For free! So they were okay for the first few years. They were super loud and sometimes you had to wash stuff twice and definitely not energy efficient.

                      
Gross. That's all I can say.

                                         

After the great flood of 2010 (when my entire house had to have the flooring replaced due to a slow leak from the water heater) I decided it was a good opportunity to redo the laundry room, though I feel the color is a bit too dark now.

We ended up tripling the amount of usable storage/work space in the laundry room. Which has been really great.

And this was the final reveal picture:


Total budget: $900.00 for the washer and dryer. Roughly $150.00 for wood, paint, and accessories.

Total time: 3 weeks

 find the details: starting the project here, making the awesome countertop here,  making the shelf here, finishing up the accessories here.

5. Free Furniture Painting.

I think free furniture is the best furniture. If you know exactly how to make it pretty anyways, otherwise it could get a little out of hand. 

One of the first things I painted was this park bench my Mom gave me. I don't recommend actually sitting on it but some spray paint and a little can of exterior paint can go a long way.

A previous roommate had left behind this old desk. It was sort of warped and funky but with a little engenuity it worked out well in the laundry room for the litter box and extra storage. That's my thing if you haven't noticed... creating storage.

Not to bad eh?

 I had another friend that was moving into an apartment from her townhome and didn't have any back yard space for a full 8 piece outdoor furniture set. They weren't awful but I thought they could use some more class...

9 cans of spray paint and 1 horribly sore thumb later I had an awesome, all matching patio set.

 

This chair was given to me by my Mom also. She found it at a thrift store for about three dollars. So it wasn't free exactly but pretty close. I think it came out of an office or something.

Some spray paint and cute fabric made it totally awesome. No more weird chair! Yay.

{see it all here}

 Before my parents moved away to New Mexico they found this buffet/cardenza thing on the side of the road that said "Free" they loaded it up in their mini van and brought it over! It cost me nothing to redo it because I used a bunch of paint I already had and reused the handles.



{see it here}



Not too bad ey?


I suppose when I stop to think about it I do have a lot of things accomplished in my little house. I also now think that I've got a few more ideas for other things to do. No more blogging slump! Hopefully anyways. lol. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions on any of these. :)