"I have no idea what I'm doing...

... but I know that I'm doing it really, really well." pricklypearplanner.etsy.com

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Making some more progress on the living room shelves. Tonight I got the tv mounted and I love it! I just have the 2 bottom left boards to cut, stain and seal and I will be ready to load it up with books, movies and gold armadillos!

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Working on a new project!

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Packing it all up #byechristmas #dontmakemegobacktowork

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My dad and I installed the crown molding on Sunday and I'm in love with it! It really frames the black walls so well! I filled the nail holes and caulked everything (very messily) and now I just need to touch up paint everything.

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Done! (for now)

Wooo! The guest bathroom is all done!

It's a whole new bathroom! Let me run down all the changes:

-removed shower doors

-removed wall paper

-removed popcorn ceiling

-painted cabinets

-painted walls

-put in new tile

-put in new baseboards

-put in new toilet

-put in new hand towel ring (its cute so it gets a mention)

I wish I could've done something about the yellowy counter top and sink but it would've been really expensive to replace. 

Down the road I may decide to replace that counter top, along with the light fixture and the mirror. But for now I'm calling it done!

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Obsessed with my new floors! #diyftw

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Maybe I should've worn gloves? Tiling Day 2

That is after 3 hand washes and a shower! Ooops! Thats what I get for using charcoal colored grout and no gloves.

So messy!

That's what it was looking like after grouting and doing the first pass with a damp sponge. I did a second pass with the sponge and I'll have to do a third tomorrow. I have tomorrow and Tuesday off from work so my plan is to finish cleaning up the tile tomorrow and then head out to buy my baseboards and cove molding and get them all painted. 

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Tiling, Day 1

WOOOOO! The tile is down and it looks pretty great! Here are way too many progress pictures!

Cutting around the toilet hole (technical term) was easier than I thought it'd be!

I really didn't want to have to pull up the existing laminate so I did a little research and bought a fortified grout mix that could be put down over linoleum. 

Proof that I actually did this!

And my face when I finally finished!

Grouting is on deck for tomorrow!

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The Current State of the Bathroom

It might look like a gigantic mess but there has been progress! The baseboards, toilet and door have been removed!

The toilet that was in the guest bathroom used wayyy too much water to flush and I'll be replacing it with a much more efficient model. Removing it also let me paint the bottom of that wall, rip out the baseboards and paint the side of the vanity! Thanks to Dad and Joe for getting the toilet and baseboards out of there!

Also done is all of the cabinet painting! 3 coats of white chalk paint on everything!

I just cant get over what a difference it makes! The door up top obviously was still wet when I snapped the picture but you get the idea. So much fresher! 

I also painted the bathroom door trim with my bright white trim paint to match the doors that got painted before I moved in. And while I had the paint out I painted the last piece of living room trim that hadn't gotten its coat of bright white!

The last step before I can lay down the new tile on Saturday is to clean and scrub the existing vinyl floor so I can lay my new tile right over the top of it! And then I need to perfect my layout!

Hopefully I will have some more fun updates this weekend!

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The Tile is Here!

They all arrived intact and they're beautiful! I love the no gloss/matte look to the tiles too. I was hoping thats what they were based on the pictures online but since I couldn't check them out in person I was a little apprehensive. But these look great in person!

Of course I had to do a little dry run, laying them out on the floor to see how they're going to look.

Oh well those few look good, how about a few more?

Looking even better... but why don't I just cover the whole floor!

BAM!

I wish I had time to get started on this tiling this weekend, halloween weekend can't come quickly enough!

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Started painting the cabinets! 3 coats definitely looks best, the door and drawer above only have two.

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Adding to my to do list

So the vanity and storage cabinets in the guest bathroom are in pretty rough shape.

Exhibit A)gh

Exhibit B)lah

And Exhibit C)rappy

So before I put the new floors in, I figured I should repaint the cabinets without worrying about dripping paint. I wandered around the Home Depot paint section after work today wondering how on earth I would choose a white when I saw this chalk paint sitting up on the counter. 

If you do a quick Pinterest or google image search on chalk paint you'll see some fantastic projects. I grabbed the bright white color, "everlasting", and painted a quick sample on the inside of a cabinet door tonight. 

In that picture the inset panel has two coats of the chalk paint. The light in that bathroom is terrible, especially at night, but I think the paint will take 3 coats to fully conceal the previous yellowy tint but I like it! This paint goes a long way too, I think I may be able to paint both cabinets with just the little 8oz container! If it turns out well I'll probably paint my master bathroom vanity as well, its in about the same condition as the guest bathroom. I also need to find something else to paint with all of these awesome colors...

My tile is scheduled to arrive on Thursday so I will definitely lay out a few in the bathroom and give everyone a preview before tiling weekend commences on 10/31.

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A man with a plan

Thanks to some very generous friends and family who gave me some Home Depot gift cards, the bathroom floor redo is now on the schedule!

The tile has been ordered and 2 days off from work have been requested. I'm ready to do this!

This is the tile I bought! 

I researched a lot of different options for tiles and my favorites were always the hand painted concrete tiles. AMAZING but also like 30 dollars a square foot... so not happening. These give the handpainted look on ceramic tiles for around 5 dollars a square foot. Much more doable. What really sold me on this pattern was a review on Home Depot's website from a customer reviewing the tile. I borrowed her pics below.

So the tile is scheduled to be delivered 10/24-10/28 and I've requested 11/3 and 11/4 off from work. So Halloween weekend, its on! 

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I had some house guests this weekend and this is definitely my favorite picture of the weekend! Come stay anytime little Finn, oh and your parents can come too.

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An Instagram Collage

I bought several clearanced frames from Michaels a couple of weekends ago including a couple of 18x24's. We all know that framing is my fourth favorite hobby so I've been trying to figure out what to frame for a couple of weeks. 

After printing a few of my vacation pics a couple of weeks ago and framing those, I really wanted to use more of my own photos around the house. The only problem is that I don't take particularly great photos and I don't even have a real camera so blowing up a photo taken on my phone to 18x24 is probably not going to be great quality. What I do have though is hundreds of Instagram photos that I love! So I decided to do a fun collage. 

I printed about 30 pictures to play with. All I did was take the faux print that came with the frame and flip it over to the white side and then loosely measured out spacing and taped my pictures down. Boom, done!

I love how bright and colorful it is and how easy it will be to swap in and out new photos whenever I want! Another thing I got done tonight was finally hanging some curtains in the guest room!

I've had those silvery gray curtains since my apartment but I didn't have the right size curtain rod for that room until today. 

I snapped this picture of the curtains before I had hung up my new framed photos. I need to find something a little larger to hand above the night stand on the right, or put a few more small things with my small boat print. With the large framed photos on the left now, things are looking slightly off balance. 

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It is a BEAUTIFUL day today! The windows are open and the sun is shining in. Ginger has never been happier! She needs a little sunning/napping porch added on to this window!

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I've been doing a lot of sewing this week. I'm still so excited to have an entire room for my 47 hobbies! Bert and Ging's only hobbies are napping and being adorable. #oneofthesethingsisbiggerthantheother