Master Bath Retreat

As I mentioned in my last blog post I mentioned that we finally found 2 new bathroom light fixtures in December and it started our crazy bathroom reno projects. In true Trojacek project fashion, this one ended up taking WAY longer than anticipated with several bumps along the way but it turned out better than we had imagined! Shortly after we moved into the house we stained the bathroom cabinets with the Rustoleum Transformation kit. While we enjoyed the updated look...they didn't wear well. With the natural light in the bathroom you could see pretty much all of the imperfections. We had also been dreaming of taller vanities like we had in our old house. Once we ordered the light fixture we decided to go all in in our master bath renovation!

This project seemed to last forever though. We ordered the light fixture before Christmas and ended up getting it in MARCH after the arrival date kept getting pushed further back. The Pottery Barn mirrors we ordered (which also ended up WAY back ordered) didn't fit. We had to cut a hole in the back of the vanity for the plumbing (which we expected) and had to have a plumber come out and move some of the plumbing (which we did not expect). The faucets were TERRIBLE to install and we almost gave up but Justin was able to get them working with a different type of drain from Lowes. The flooring took longer than expected to install because they didn't order enough materials (seriously...this is the story of any of our home reno projects!). I tried sanding/painting our medicine cabinet and that turned out to be an epic FAIL (thank goodness for crafty friends). Once we finally got the light fixture installed we realized how YELLOW Edison bulbs look and hello - that is the whole essence of the light fixture and what we modeled this WHOLE reno around. Luckily Justin was able to find some brighter ones on Amazon (don't worry - we ordered the hospital bright ones first and had to return those to get normal ones).  HOWEVER, we pushed through and corrected all the issues and were left with our dream master bath!

Before
(like way before)

After

We had the floors installed by the same company that installed our laminate and we LOVE them! We want to replace all the tile in our house with this wood looking luxury vinyl. It's easy to keep clean and there is NO GROUT! Hallelujah! We decided to re-paint the room (again). We really enjoyed the aqua but felt it didn't really match the look we were trying to go for. 

We searched for vanities foreverrr and wavered between white and grey but ultimately fell in love with this one with the carrera marble top. The faucets were another obstacle. I wanted something that would mesh well with the light fixture but also look nice with the chrome vanity hardware. I really liked the look of the black matte and so happy we decided to branch out a bit. Justin installed the backsplash and is basically a pro now :)

I mentioned we had ordered pottery barn mirrors...well, I fell in love with the idea of pivot mirrors but did not love the price. (Side note: you see the outlet in the middle of the backsplash...we had to work around that unless we wanted to move electrical or lose an outlet...nope to both!) We decided to go for it and we would just be buried with the mirrors because I couldn't stomach the thought of the cost! haha. Well turns out we didn't measure correctly and there's no way we could center them over the sinks so they would just look goofy. It ended up working out because we got the money back for them and used the mirrors that came with the vanity and they look great! 

Overall, we are loving all of the updates (and the taller vanity)...it feels like a completely different room :)

Bathroom Vanity & Mirrors - Home Depot

Faucets - Wayfair

Backsplash - Floor & Decor

Light Fixture - Texas Bright Ideas

Wall Paint - Sherwin Williams Requisite Gray

Shelf - Kirklands

Decorations - Hobby Lobby/Target/eWay Furniture

Floors - Vinyl Planks (Sendero-Passerine) installed by Flooring Warehouse

Bath mat - Kohls

Toothbrush Holder - Kohls

Hanging Baskets - IKEA

Outside Light Reno

There are a handful of cosmetic things that we knew wanted to change before we even moved into the house. One of those being the horribly ugly outside garage light! It was setup on a sensor and a few months after we moved in the other bulb went out (only one was working when we moved in). We knew we wanted to replace the fixture so rather than spending money replacing the light bulb we just stuck it out. 

We were putting off this project for 2 reasons. One - We had no idea how to replace a light fixture. Two - The placement of the fixture is so low that we had to make sure that we bought a light that went up rather than hung down. Easier said than done.

One day we were at Lowes and saw this fixture and decided it was time to tackle this project! I'm super proud of Justin for doing this all by himself...well, he needed my strong arms to hold up the fixture while he screwed them in! haha

Before

Can you say U-G-L-Y??

After

We also replaced the entry way light so they matched.

Another part of the project was the fact that the owners only had one light put outside the garage (instead of 1 on each side). My dad encouraged Justin that this was a project they could tackle in no time! For our anniversary my parents gave use a Lowe's gift card so we could purchase the other light :) I fully intended on at least somewhat documenting the process of installing a light where there was no light before but Justin, my dad, and his friend Mark ended up installing the light while I was getting my hair done so I only have after pictures! That's okay - pretty sure I would have been lost with all that electrical stuff anyways!

The Finished Product! We finally have symmetry!

New doors!

Our house is technically 3 bedrooms plus an office/den and a flex/dining room - according to the floor plan. The office is a pretty large room with a nice closet so the only reason it's not a bedroom is because it's missing a door. The flex room is a LARGE room that we weren't quite sure what we were going to do with when we moved in. We knew we did not want a large formal dining room - to us that's a waste of space since we have a spacious breakfast nook. What we did know is that we wanted to add a door to the office so we could make it a bedroom if needed (or so I can close the office door if I need to). We were still undecided on the purpose of the flex room (other than the tumbling room that we refer to it as haha) but we did know we wanted to add french doors. Justin's dad owns his own construction company so we were lucky enough to have him take time from his busy schedule to come down here and build us some walls and install some doors.

We LOVE how they turned out! We've now decided to move my office from the office to the flex room. I have a new desk ordered and can't wait to start designing this room now! 

Before

During

After

Notice my little helper??

Master Bathroom Update

Justin and I have been constantly working on house project since we moved in and we are finally getting some of them complete! We painted our master bathroom back in February or March but there were a few finishing touches we had to finish. The last thing was a new valence that my mom made for us. My mom and I picked out the fabric at JoAnn's and she made the drapery. She finished it a few weeks back and we've had the curtain rod since May but finally got around to hanging it yesterday. I'm so happy with how everything turned out! I saw the wall color on pinterest and had to really search on the blog it linked to to find the actual blog post and color of the wall but it was worth the effort. It's definitely a brighter-bolder color than we usually choose but I'm glad we branched out on this one. We decided to stick with white accents for the decoration - which matches the white tile of the tub and shower - very spa like! 

We still have one (maybe 2) project left in here but it's a big one - change the cabinet color. We've talked about refinishing them the way we did our guest bathroom but this house does not have raised vanities like we put in our last house (sad day!) so we don't want to do all the work and then decide we want to put new cabinets in the bathroom so we are just holding out for now. We also want to frame the mirror but that will have to wait until we make the cabinet decision also.

Before

After

Mom made this valence too :)