A little old and a little new

When we moved into this house 3 years ago fixing up the bathroom was at the top of our list.  We just needed to find a bag of money first.  Ha ha.  It was a mix of cool old tile and newer Home Depot cheapy stuff.  The sink was kinda crazy because someone had cut the old sink out and dropped in a nice glitter embedded sink complete with mismatched tile edging.  The floor was a mess of beige tile that was all cracked and broken.  The tub was horrible.  It was so tiny I don't think the water even came up to my belly button.  Here's a little reminder.

We knew we wanted to stick to the original style of our 1950's house so I searched the amazing internet and found a company that claimed they had a passion to preserve original vintage homes.  We had the owner come and give us an estimate and we talked with him about what our vision was.  We wanted to keep the old vanity and linen closet and just put in a new tub, tile, vanity top, paint, and floor. 

Well he had different ideas.  He wanted to gut the whole thing and put in double sinks with a fancy stone top.  I think as soon as he said double vanity my husband and I knew he wasn't for us.  I mean I can see how a double vanity would be nice especially since this is our only bathroom, but it just isn't our style.  Plus, since it is our only bathroom and we really couldn't have it torn up for over a month which is what he said it would take. 

So we moved on.  We have this great friend Jerry who put in the vct flooring in our laundry room so I suggested to Matt that he message him and see if he knew anyone that did the kind of thing that we wanted.  He came back with his cousin Ted.  Ted came over and we told him what we wanted and he was awesome.  He understood exactly what we had in mind and said it would definitely be something he could do. 

So we went with him and we are so happy we did.  Not only was he pleasant to have around he did an awesome job.  We didn't have a shower for about 10 days but he left the toilet in until he absolutely had to remove it.  Which actually only ended up being half a day.

I also have to add that while we knew what we wanted the bathroom to look like we had no idea where to start in regards to sourcing materials and such.  I have been reading a website called Retro Renovation for a while so that's where I started.  I learned a ton from there.  Who knew there were different spreads on bathroom sinks?

So here it is.  We all love it so much and can't believe what a difference a little tile and paint makes.

A view from the doorway.  I don't know why the rugs looks so weird but they are a lot more green.

 A little closer with the curtain open.  I love the way he framed the glass blocks with the black tile.

Super cute knobs on our lovely deep soaking tub.  It's about 5 inches wider and a zillion inches deeper than the old one.

We had one of those ugly storage things hanging from the shower head before and I knew I didn't want to put up another one so we had these little niches put in for all of our soaps and shampoo.  

I hated having the stupid tension shower rod fall down all of the time so we put in a permanent one.  Best decision ever.  Not only is it stable but the rings don't get caught on the little ridge in the middle every time you open and close the curtain.

We had the vanity sanded and painted.  No more painted over hinges and dinged doors.

 Ceramic tooth brush holder

My $30 habitat for humanity sink.  I really wanted an 8 inch spread faucet and looked forever for a new sink but couldn't find one.  Just when I was about to order a Kohler Tahoe sink I found this beauty.

 Side view of the vanity area

Little metal shelves I found on etsy

Ted said he had a vintage toilet that a previous client of his had him take out.  It turned out to be perfect.  It was also FREE!  It turned out it had a little crack in the tank that dripped really slow but I just drained the tank and fixed it with a little epoxy.  No more leaks.  I also put in a new toilet paper holder since the old one was all rusty.

 Little vintage shelf I got on ebay.  

Matt brought this hamper home from Out of Vogue when he had band practice one night.  We didn't need a hamper at the time so I just put it in our bedroom for the time being.  Well it turned out to be perfect for the new bathroom.

Did you see the little Thermador peeking out from behind the hamper?  There was one there when we moved in but it didn't work.  Our friends Mike and Pam saved theirs for us when they remodeled  their bathroom a few years ago.  Ted had to move it up a little to accommodate the tile baseboards but it turned out perfect.  We aren't going to use it just yet though since we don't want Juniper to get burnt on it since she is still so little.

Some little hooks on the back of the door that I had used in the girls room but took them out a while ago.  There is also a set of hooks about mid wall on the left for the girls to hang up their towels.

More hooks for towels

Best floor ever.  We originally wanted a 2" tile checker floor but I couldn't find the tile in stock anywhere.  I liked the look of the 1" hex from home depot but wasn't in love with it.  I found some 2" hex tile at B&W Tile and we ordered it in sheets of black and sheets of white.  We created our own pattern which Ted cut out and laid by hand.  In the end I am glad we couldn't find the checkered because I love this so much more.

 Like other things I searched forever to find a light I liked that wasn't $1000 or more.  Found this vintage beauty at Out of Vogue for only $30.  I love that it has the little slits in the side that shine little bits of light onto the ceiling.  I can't get a good picture of that though.

 

 The freshly painted linen cabinet.  Complete with a nice clean painted cutting board.  lol  Sorry I always joke that the little pull out board is a cutting board in the bathroom.  I assume you are supposed to use it to fold towels and stuff.  I even out in new shelf liner throughout.

 Fun little picture we had in the old bathroom.  I also have some male/female ceramic wall hangings I still need to put back up above the hamper.

I even replaced the glass in the windows.  The bottom had mismatched frosted glass that I replaced with this reeded glass.  The top is just plain ol' clear glass.  It looks a lot brighter and cleaner though since the bottom textures never matched and the top had old tint that was peeling off of it.

So that completes the new bathroom tour.  1000 pictures later.  I love that it turned out so wonderful.  It's great to have a room that every single thing in there is something we picked out.  It's all new and clean but looks like it has been there forever.

Source list for those interested.

Tub - Kohler Bancroft
Shower Handles & Spout - Kingston Brass

Shower Head - Delta

Shower Niches - Redi Niche

White Tile is Daltile from Home Depot
Black Pencil Tile is Daltile from Home Depot
Black quarter round,edging tile, floor tile, toothbrush holder & base tile - B&W  Jesse is awesome and so very helpful.  Ask for him!

Sink and medicine cabinet - Vintage from Habitat for Humanity
Sink Faucet - Kingston Brass Metropolitan
Towel Bar - Kingston Brass Metropolitan

Thermador - Vintage from friends

Light & Hamper - Out of Vogue Vintage

Swivel Hooks - Home Depot
Vintage Above the Toilet Cabinet - Ebay

Vintage Silver Shelves - Etsy

Pulls - Home Depot

People Hooks on Back of Door - Urban Outfitters bought ages ago
Shelf Liner - Macbeth Collection

Shower Rod - Moen

Shower Curtain - Marinekko for Crate and Barrel discontinued. 

Boo!

It's coming up on that time of year again.  Halloween always reminds me of being a kid and dressing up in the awesome costumes my mom always made me.  Whatever I wanted to be she would make it happen.  A spider, no problem.  An alien complete with a paper mache mask that smelled like spray paint that I could barely see out of, check.  Inhaling that paint all night probably explains a few of my quirks. 

So when I had kids I knew I would always make them whatever they wanted to be too.  The first few years Finley didn't really have an opinion on what she wanted to be so I always made her something she was really into at the time.  Except the first year when she just wore a monkey costume I got at Old Navy on clearance. 

In preparation of starting on the costumes this year I thought I'd reminisce of Halloweens past.  Maybe I will actaully get a little inspiration to start now so I am not staying up past midnight the whole week before Halloween.

Ack!  Look at that little monkey

 Mary from Jack's Big Music Show.  Finley was really into this show at the time.  It wasn't a super popular show so nobody knew who she was.  lol

Pinocchio and Geppetto

Ringo from The Yellow Submarine

The Mad Hatter

 Rainbow Dash and Spike the Dragon from My Little Pony.  This was my first year having to make two costumes.  Since Juniper was too young to really be into anything I just decided to have her coordinate with Finley.

This years costumes are already planned and I actually already have patterns for both already.  I mean I am not making them exactly from the patterns just using them as a base.  Material for Juniper's has been sitting on the dryer for about 2 weeks.  I had grand plans of starting hers as soon as the fabric was out of the dryer.  That didn't happen. 

This year Juniper is in love with Yo Gabba Gabba so we are going with a character from there.  Finley picked a rather strange costume this year.  She loves Gilligan's Island and actually wanted to be Gilligan for a while but she changed her mind.  I was actually kind of excited because it seemed like a really easy costume.  She plays a game on her kindle called My Singing Monsters and she wants to be one of the Monsters from it.  Should be fun and a lot of work. 

So stay posted and I may actually show you this years costumes sometime this November.  You know instead of a year or two later. 

I threw myself a party. I mean I threw Juniper a party.

Wow!  May 10th.  Yeah.  That was my last post here.  How does that happen? 

Well you haven't missed much.  I have done a few things around the house that I should probably post at some point.  Nothing major but a couple fun things.

One thing I did do was throw Juniper a 1st birthday party.  We usually don't do big parties over here but I figure everyone has to have a great 1 year party.  Also, we all really know that the 1st birthday party is for the mom since the baby will never remember any of it.

I was leaning towards a "you are my sunshine" theme but my friend Carrie suggested I do a rainbow party.  I thought why not do both.  Finley loves rainbows so I figured it would be a great way to get her excited about her sisters party without feeling jealous that she wasn't getting a party this year.  Their birthdays are 2 weeks apart so it may get touchy in the future.

As with anything nowadays I scoured Pinterest for ideas.  I came across this invitation and loved the modern simplicity of it so I decided to recreate it.  Yes, I totally copied it but I am cheap and it's not like I am selling them or not owning up to copying it.  Here's how mine came out.  I added little strips of color to the back to incorporate the rainbow part.

Next on my list was decorations.  You can't go wrong with rainbows with hints of yellow.  I gussied up our mantle with paper lanterns, a rainbow bunting, and Juniper's monthly pictures.  Since I hadn't taken her 12 month picture yet Matt had to quickly sketch out a fill in.

I also made a little display of pictures from the last year.  I used yellow bakers twine and itty bitty little tiny rainbow clothes pins to hang the pictures.  I actually left this up and replaced the pictures with Christmas cards as we got them.

Finley made a bunch of rainbow and sunshine art to display.

 

Can't forget the party hats and gift bags.

Outside I hung rainbow paper lanterns, made a rainbow picture backdrop, and had a few fun activities for the kids and adults.

The art table before and after.  I had glitter glue, rainbow crayons, punches, lots of scrapbook paper, scissors, markers, plain ol' glitter, and these fun things.  There was also a little table with a rainbow assortment of beads for making necklaces and bracelets.

 

 

Bubbles are fun for everyone.  Juniper thought they tasted good.

I got this next idea from a fellow November 2012 mom.  I set up a table with blank wooden blocks and had everyone use a sharpie to write a sweet sentiment for Juniper.  I'm a sucker for stuff like this.

 

We also can't have a party here without an official photo cut out thingy.

Food wise I decided to save my sanity and buy a cake from Costco and get Mexican food from a local restaurant.  Everyone like tacos, beans, and rice right?  I did put together a few snacks though and an awesome candy table.  I love candy.

Yummy ice cream with rainbow and yellow sprinkles.

I did make Juniper a smash cake but she wasn't super interested in it.  Which made me sad because the inside was rainbow and I would have loved to see her tear into it and get rainbow colors everywhere.

No party is complete without a playlist of songs about sunshine and rainbows.  Matt and I combed the internet and our brains to come up with the following list of songs.  I am sure the neighbors are tired of hearing all of these songs because we play them every time we are out in the yard.

Here comes the sun - The Beatles

Sunshine of your love - Cream

Swblar - Cream

Sunshine superman - Donovan

Jennifer Juniper - Donovan

You are my sunshine - Gene Autrey

Gimme a rainbow that's for real - The Radiators

I live for the sun - The Sunrays

The rainbow connection - Willie Nelson

Sunshine, lollipops, & rainbows - Lesley Gore

She's a rainbow - The Rolling Stones

Rainbow stew - Meryle Haggard

California sun - The Riverias

Walking on sunshine - Katrina and the Waves

Somewhere over the rainbow - Judy Garland

Sugar magnolia - The Grateful Dead

Good day sunshine - The beatles

In the end a ton of fun was had by all.

 

I did finally get that 12 month photo of Juniper.  I little late but I got it done.

Finally a huge thank you to my official birthday photographer Carrie.  Without her I would not have all of these great photos.