Bathroom renovation update!

Here we are at the start of day three of our four-day bathroom renovation. We've gotten a ton accomplished in the last two days! I'm confident that we'll be able to get all of the major stuff finished before Tuesday.

First thing we did was drop the ceiling. Then we started pulling down the tiles in the shower.



All was going well until we discovered this:



Black mold, awesome! This is the spot where the tiles had started falling off previously, so I wasn't surprised to see that we had some moisture there.

So we changed plans a bit and pulled down the drywall around the entire shower. We figured we might as well take it down to the studs and replace everything--even the spots that aren't currently damaged--to be sure that it doesn't happen again.





After bleaching the crap out of everything we put up a vapor barrier across the ceiling and down the walls. This helps prevent further moisture.



Then Branden and our bff Josh hung the drywall (the purple board underneath in the picture... didn't have time to take a pic of just this step, sorry!) on the ceiling and walls, taping and mudding along the seams. This particular drywall is mold and mildew resistant, so ideal for bathrooms.


After that we put up a cement backerboard, which is used to prevent mildew and also to help tiles adhere.


Last but not least, we put up the tiles!

Neither of us had ever tiled before, but it was really simple. It took a couple of minutes to figure out exactly how much thinset to use on the wall, but once we got that down, we were able to zip right through.

So the entire shower is finished now and that's where we're at! All that's left now is to do another coat of mud on the ceiling, grout the tile, put up trim, and paint!

I hope to have the full reveal in just a couple of days! Until then, here's a sneak peek of the shower tile:

Goodbye jungle, hello freshly cut grass

Yesterday we (and by we I mean Branden) finally got to cutting the grass with our hand-me-down lawnmower. After some tuning up it did the job, and the grass no longer comes up to my knees so I count that as a major success. Our house was dangerously close to starting to look like the eyesore in the neighborhood.

Here's Branden in action while I cheered him on from the front porch:


So much better!



Everything else is moving along nicely. The ceilings were ripped down in all of the bedrooms upstairs and the new ceilings are all installed now. Most of the paneling has been taken down too. And I'll give you one guess as to what was underneath the paneling. Oh yes. More wallpaper! These people were wallpaper junkies.

Here's the new ceiling in the master bedroom. You can see where most of the paneling has been taken off of the left hand wall and exposed the beige wallpaper underneath:


Here's the new ceiling in the second bedroom:



Most of the walls should go up on Monday upstairs. I'm still not sure how they're going to tackle the stairwell, but that's why we leave these things to professionals. :) Tomorrow the shed comes down, so stay tuned for those updates!

Progress! And, another change of plans.

We're getting there! Here's the living room with its brand new ceiling and walls:

The room feels so much bigger without the strange ceiling panels that were there before. It's really a huge improvement. Now picture it with the crown molding installed, the cabinet back in place in the corner, and some beautiful color on the walls, and we've got ourselves a real room!

Speaking of colors, I'm really leaning towards Martha Stewart's "Tobacco Leaf" paint color for this room. Here's the swatch:


It's a brownish/grayish/greenish earthy tone that I think could really pop against the white trim in the living room. This online swatch makes it look a little more gray/mauve than it looks in person. Who knows what kind of tones it will have in different kinds of light, though.

We do need to commit to paint colors very soon, as our contractor will be priming and painting the living room, stairwell, master bedroom, and all ceilings. Maybe some other rooms depending on the schedule. So we have to at least pick those out and the rest we can pick away at piece by piece.

The contractor ran into a snag with the dining room ceiling this week, which apparently needed to be completely restrapped. The beams were crooked and sagging, so he needed to redo everything to make sure the ceiling is strong enough to hold the sheetrock and is level. That set us back a bit in the timeline, so we're now actually going to be moving in at the end of June instead of this weekend. I'm a little relieved (though it meant switching around a vacation) and it is definitely the right move to wait until major construction is done before moving our stuff in. Luckily our current landlord is super flexible, so we're able to stick around here while our contractor is hard at work on the house. It's a little tough to be patient, but I know it'll be well worth the wait.

The dining room ceiling and walls are up now:

Last night we picked up a new chandelier at Home Depot for the dining room. It just happened to be the least expensive and the one that we liked most. Imagine that.

I'm pretty stumped on paint colors for the dining room. I'm thinking something pretty neutral, like a putty or a cream, will help the room flow into the living room. Gah! What to do?