Guest Bedroom and A Surprise Office Spot

One day I'll take real pictures with a real camera.  These pictures are terrible...I know that and I apologize to  all my non-existent readers.

Anyways...a couple weeks ago I took on the guest bedroom by myself.  R had to work and I know how much we've been slacking on getting this house remodel finished.

The whole house was painted the same color off-ish white.  Not a terrible color but boring.  The whole house also has crown molding, which I love (although I do not love painting it)

Here's the guest bedroom before.  Loving the green carpet?!?!  We actually toyed around with the idea of keeping it....I know, right!?  Just FYI, it's being replaced in two weeks. Woo-hoo!

This is just walking into the room from the main part of the house

Turn to the left and that's the closet

And the view standing inside the closet.  And B photo-bombing like usual.

We chose Behr's Brampton Gray for this room.  We'll put R's things in this room (deer head, two-man saws that hang on some boards on the wall) so it had to be some-what manly.

I love the crisp white trim against these walls...so clean looking

Here's the doors open to the closet (and some sheet rock work I had to do).

I wasn't going to do much to the closet at first and then decided to go ahead and paint it with left over paint from the bathroom (Behr's Pensive Sky)

After we put the guest bed and a couple other things in the room we decided that it would not accommodate a desk for me to work from...in came the closet office.  This actually will work out pretty well for us because it gives us a whole guest room for my family or our friends to come and not have to sleep on the couch. The only downfall is that it will take away some storage.  Not a huge deal.

R hung some shelves and I still need to do some more painting (shelves, brackets and a surprise element) and we need to install the desk top.  The random chair is where I sat to tell R where I wanted the shelves.

Can you guess what this is for??  You should see these beauts in person...swoon!

Something a little different

Today is a little different...it's not about our house but about me.  I've been overweight for most of my 26 years.

I grew up with beautiful, skinny friends.  They were all so wonderful.  Never once did I feel bullied or tormented for my weight...but I ALWAYS felt like the "fat girl" of the group...not because of anything they did but because of myself.  I was pretty active through my adolescents, playing soccer, softball, and volleyball (rec and travel and in school) but despite all that I was still pretty overweight.

I'm on the far left

I'm 2nd from the right.

I'm on the far right.

I've joined a challenge put on by Jess at Operation Skinny Jeans and I'm determined to not let this opportunity slip by me.  I'm notorious for starting something and not finishing it. I don't want that to happen again.

Today is the weekly goal link up at OSJ.  So here it goes.

I'm one for saying...tomorrow I will start exercising...not today...but tomorrow!  You know what never works??  Saying "I'll do it tomorrow".  Tonight, I will go out and start my C25K.  No excuses.

In October of last year I gave up all soda and sweet tea.  I was a diet soda drinker so no extra calories but I was filling my body with so much other garbage that are in sodas.  I decided enough was enough.  I was definitely "addicted".  The headaches from not having my 3 or 4 a day sodas lasted for probably 3 weeks...that's not really normal for everyone.

It's now been 6 months of NO soda.  I miss it occasionally because I like the bubbles...but I haven't gone back.  I now only drink water...and occasionally add mio.  Oh, I do have coffee in the mornings..but I rarely drink a whole cup.

Even though all I drink is water I want to track my consumption by making sure I drink 100 oz (about 4-5 of my tervis cups) of water each day.

I'm pretty bad about scarfing my food down.  Like it's going to disappear if I don't shovel it in my mouth.  I need to learn to stop, enjoy what I'm eating, and listen to my body when it says it's satisfied.  Not clean my plate (despite what my mom told me when I was growing up!!)

I'm linking up y'all!  (P.S.  it just took me a good 30 or so minutes to figure out how to put this clickable picture in my blog....haha!!)

Have a great week y'all.  I will try to come back and update about the house, we painted our master bedroom yesterday!!

Remember me....

Remember me...ugly, old, gross bathroom.....

No?  Me either.  Thank goodness!  Bathroom is 90% complete!  Happy dance.

It won't put 'put together' until I officially move in...so hopefully only a couple more months.  And maybe by then I'll take decent pictures....with a real camera!!  Until then.........insert sub-par iPhone pics.  You get the point! :)

To do:

Install white electric sockets/covers

Hang towel bar, toilet paper holder, etc.

Clean out tub (there's misc tools in there from the weeks of remodeling)

Fix toilet (yeah, brand new toilet broke)

Get new ventilation fan

Decorate & put everything away!!

Putting In Cabinets & Counter tops

This is where it gets exciting. Finally real progress of a real bathroom.  Richard installed the cabinet and counter tops while I was at work one day.  It was such a nice surprise!  

Unfinished Counter tops

After we finished the counter tops (sand, condition, stain, sand, stain, sand, poly, sand, poly, sand, wax, buff) we got to work painting the cabinets.  Stock, semi-gloss white from Behr - straight from the shelf, all the guy did was shake it up for us.

We brushed the paint on for the whole thing.  Was that the best option - probably not - but it turned out really good.  Only took a bazillion days to finish.  (paint, sand, paint, sand, paint, sand, etc)

Bad lighting - sorry - but we got the tower shelf up and the sink and new faucet in.

The faucet was a steal on Amazon (plus we have prime which gives us free shipping...always makes me feel like I'm getting a deal! ha)

Doors and drawer fronts went on (missing a few handles on the doors) and got the mirror put up.  We reused the mirror that was already in the bathroom - R just built a simple frame and I painted it white to match.

I love how it looks. It's better than I imagined.  We also opted to put doors on the top shelf in the tower part and I'm really glad we did - it would have been too open and weird if we didn't.  

And here's my PITiful photo-bomber.  He's not always sad...he just likes the attention it gets him! 

The Plank Wall - Cont.

A friend told me the other day "Your Pinterest projects work out so much better than mine".  I laughed a little becuase I've definitely had some major FAILS when it came to trying Pinterest projects. But that's another day!  The plank wall was definitely inspired from Pinterest and all the amazing blogs I stalk.

Richard is so great...I say, I want a plank wall and he's got it.  In his head he already knew exactly how he was going to do it - didn't write anything down - did all the planning in his head.  Kind of like this.  I told him I wanted a console table for behind my couch.  Like this one from Ana White:

via Ana White

I like how it's rustic and charming and fits right behind the couch.  Perfect...and it comes with plans!  Even more perfect.  So I show this to Richard and he's like...yeah, we can do that.   And ya know what he does.  He makes it - no plans - no real measurements...just makes it.  And it's so beyond perfect and I am in love with how it turned out.

Yup...it's amazing.  It took him a couple hours to make..pretty sure it took longer to paint than it did for him to build it.  Haha!

(PS...don't mind the fugly tile and carpet...it's a rental house R's family owns...work with what ya got!!!)  Anyways...point to all this rambling is...he winged it.  Another PS...he's a carpenter by trade so that's how he can just figure it all out in his head.

Annnyyyyywaaayyyss.....

Back to the plank wall.  He got it all hung up and we decided where we wanted it to stop.  I said...oh...about here (and pointed to the wall) and that's how we figured that out.  Super technical.

We keep a clean work area.....ha.

Paint color for the plank wall is Rhino by Behr.

  

Paint color for the walls is Pensive Sky by Behr (it's actually a little more gray than blue)

And here's a sneak peek at the whole bathroom.  It' definitely coming together. 

From the Heart.....Pine

Our original idea.  Buy a countertop/sink combo from Ikea.  Why?  It was economical.  Then came:

via Beneath My Heart

and we totally changed our plans.  Richard has a pile of heart pine behind our house from a tear down job a while back.  Originally floor joists in a house.  We were going to have to glue three pieces together to get the depth we'd need for a countertop.

This stuff is amazing, y'all.  Look at those rings!  I tried to count...umm, not happening.  

We let the glue dry for quite a few days and then sanded and sanded until it was a nice smooth, flat surface.  We also trimmed the edges down and Richard rounded the corners.

We installed the countertop and I put on a pre-stain and then two coats of dark walnut stain.  After we let that dry we applied a couple coats of poly (we also sanded in between coats) and then waxed it.

It turned out better than we could have imagined.  I love it!

Here's a messy/in-progress pic (with the tower shelf...more on that later).  And PITiful Brody...oh goodness...that sweet lil face!

A Plank Wall

I knew I wanted one in the house but where to put it was the problem.  I first thought I'd want a pallet wall.  

Like this one:

via Cape 27 Blog

I love it....it's beautiful (her whole house is) but I wasn't sure it was for me.  Since this will be a rental house once we move out we wanted to go for something that was more timeless.  I love the pallet wall and want one...ooohh maybe pallet headboard...like this:

via Liz Marie Blog

Seriously...a beautiful statement piece in the room.  (making mental note to show Richard this!)

But onto what we decided to do.  A painted plank wall.

Inspiration from this:

via Sweet Pickin's Furniture

And this:

via The House of Smiths

(Side Note: The House of Smiths is one of my FAVORITE blogs to follow)

And of course...the inspiration for the whole bathroom:

via Beneath My Heart

We decided to stop the plank wall similarly to how they stopped theirs.  We used pre-sanded 1/4" plywood that Richard cut into 6" strips and did a shiplap edge so they'd interlock.

Secret:  we didn't patch the sheetrock (see!).  Richard hates doing sheetrock work...so we just put the boards over it.  He's the professional...so he gets final say in this department! ;)

Here she is...beautiful!  And see the floor!  Tile went in over the weekend and we grouted on Monday night.

And here's a sneak peek at colors and the countertops (swoon-worthy for sure)!

Slowly but surely...it's coming together!