DIY Edition: Bathroom Painting

Meet my downstairs half bathroom. If it had a name it would be something difficult to say like Rikkitikkitimbo. Why? Because this bathroom has been the epitome of difficult. 

Here's a little backstory... 

Before heading out of town to celebrate Christmas with our families, we purged our well with bleach. Over the course of two days, the bleach sat in our water lines. It ate some bacteria and removed some grime while also loosening the water calcification deposits that had formed on some of our old copper piping. So, when we got home and flushed out the pipes and drained the water heater we ran into leaks in our guest bathroom. 

Friends, I'm telling you - this was no picnic. We were supposed to cook the most extravagant Christmas dinner that you've ever seen. Due to this tragedy, I had to move the whole smorgasbord to my brother's house so that the men could get the pipes fixed and we could get our water turned back on. I digress, let's talk about painting. Awful as all of that was, let's get to the good stuff. When that nightmare ended we got to repaint our guest bathroom!

Here is the color that we chose. I apologize, it really looks so much different in the lights that I chose to photograph. I can best describe it as grey during the day and blue at night. It's a versatile color and I feel that I got two colors in one. I love this since I have major commitment issues with paint.

Twin Cities by Valspar                

Since we don't know what the exact color of our bathroom was, it was a perfect excuse to choose another and repaint. After our contractor came and patched and sanded our walls we were set. 

Here are some before and after photos (guilty, they were taken with my phone :(...) to hold you over through the end of this post. 

This little corner was a bear to paint. We didn't move the vanity, but if you're doing your bath, I'd advise you to do so!

Here is the final color!

Thanks for stopping by the Humble Hammock! I'll have more on this bathroom as I decorate and hang items on the primary wall. Stay tuned!

Cara

DIY Edition: Shedding

When we bought our house last fall we stumbled into a house that I'll refer to as "one in a million" even though there are a few others in our 1970's neighborhood that look quite similar. The gentleman who renovated our home knew the meaning of quality and did a spectacular job on the inside. The outside however was certainly in need of some work and after a full winter of itching to get our hands in our backyard, we were chomping at the bit to keep from lacing it with explosives and starting over.

My better half will tell you that I have a habit of exaggerating. So, tell me, when I say this shed was on the brink of spontaneously combusting, can you really disagree?

78 hours of hard work (divvied up among family and friends) produced this beautiful replacement:

So how did we do it?

• Stayed focused. There are 100 other projects we want to get to, but spreading our money out among them would have slowed our shed project down. STAY FOCUSED and handle one task at a time. It's much more gratifying. Since this, we've made a 'Honey-Do' list to support our future focus.

• Admitted we were inexperienced. Our fathers and brothers knew more than us when it came to cutting, measuring, leveraging, building and general carpentry and electrical work. We let them share honest advice so that we could make decisions with the future in mind. 

• Got educated on exterior paint. Sure, we've painted a billion things, but paint can be tricky. We spent an hour at the Home Depot learning from the paint specialist and getting educated on the tools we needed, the paint that best served our project and technique. After it was all said and done the paint tech even gave us a sweet deal just for being so patient, kind and open to learning. We ended up with Valspar Reserve Exterior paint that was a bit more high end, but only took one coat to cover. According to the paint specialist, that's a rare thing to find!

• Collected coupons. One of our family members is a war vet and gets the military discount at Lowes. They came with us to buy our lumber and we got a really really good deal on it. Additionally we saved up some gift cards and coupons before making our planned purchase. That planning alone saved us $300 the day we picked up the lumber. Our grand total for the shed remodel landed somewhere between $500-$600 after we got the locks, electrical modifications, paint, hinges, lumber, caulking and roller brushes. Not bad for a shed that would have cost over $2,000 to replace brand new!

Have you done something similar to this before? What were some of your challenges/successes? 

Thanks for stopping by the Humble Hammock and looking around; do come back!

Cara