thanksgiving

Today I'm thankful for a day in my pj's and time spent doing whatever I please.

After: The Bathroom!

Although it's been finished for some time, I hadn't made it 'round to posting the "after" of the bathroom project. This week's CSI Project is Beautiful Bathrooms, so I thought that was the perfect chance to reveal the final product. There is a little bit of the process that I'll go back and mention later, but for now...

Remember the BEFORE?

Don't forget this is how it looked when we bought the house in 8+ years ago: (we painted before we moved in)

Well, here's the AFTER:

Big difference, huh? (long gone are the days of "The Fish Bowl")

For those who didn't follow the entire process, here's a quick run down of what we did.
Ripped out:
old vanity
all the old tile
old toilet
part of the wall down the studs around the tub
sub floor down the joists

& then we:
replaced the subfloor & put down cement board
replaced the removed portion of wall with cement board
replaced the vanity
replaced the toilet w/ a more efficient model
replaced all the tile
new countertop
new sink
new faucets
reused the towel bars
painted- Pittsburgh Paints Spring Rain
sewed a new shower curtain
purchased a couple of new accessories

Now for some fun photos:
Our beautiful Italian ceramic tile floor.

The new vanity with the Piedrafina marble countertop-it's a recycled product!

The hooks I stained to match the rest of the wood tones.

Ikea Limmaren bottles for lotion, face wash & soap, along with the back spash tile.Joe and I both have drawers now!
We love the new bathroom. It's calm and serene and the opposite of what it was before. It's a pleasure to end the day soaking in the tub. I think we achieved the spa feel we were going for. We also love not having to bathe in the wash tub- thank goodness we have a powder room or this project might have been the end of our marriage!

All totaled, I think we ended up spending around $1500 for the entire project, which considering we ran into unexpected problems, wasn't too bad. I'd budgeted $1400-$1600, so we did pretty well.

If you'd like to read more about how the whole project went down, please click on the "bathroom" label to the right and it will show you the whole process.

I'm linking to :

Cleaning Green

For some time now, I've been thinking about making my own household cleaning products & the last few times I've used the chemical versions of these cleaners, I've noticed that I'm having a harder time staying in the bathroom while I use them thanks to the fumes-that's not healthy if you ask me! I've always had to be very careful of choosing products thanks to exceptionally sensitive skin, so, I guess there's no time like the present.

I'm starting off with the things I know I'll use on a weekly basis:

Toilet bowl cleaner
General Cleanser
Glass cleaner
Something to clean our ceramic cooktop
Something (different from the general cleanser?) for the marble countertop

I figure I'll need:

Spray bottles
Raw Ingredients
Recipes (lots of good ones on line)

I already have:

Buckets
Rags

I'm thinking that if I find a really good recipe that works well, I'll make a spiffy label for the bottle and include the recipe on it, and offer it as a pdf if anyone wants to use it.