Bathroom DIY

I have hated our bathroom since we moved into this house 5 years ago.  We ripped out the rotting linoleum shower liner and put in your basic white square tile, which was what we could afford at the time, and I am fine with that.  It looked like it had been painted with leftover paint, since it had a couple different colours that were very similar. It is a small bath, and has the washer and dryer in it as well, so it's a tight squeeze, and repainting just felt like a very big, annoying job.  The vanity and the "over the john" are oak, had no hardware and were stained an orangey shade.  The room really needed a do-over.

As usual, I forgot to take a before picture, but I found an-in progress pic from when we were doing the tile, so you can see the paint colour and the ugly oak.

The paint color wasn't terrible in and of itself, but it was not kitchen and bath paint, and there were lots of streaky lines in it from past condensation.  The back side of the door was also tan, as was all the trim.  Just before I got started, the accents were a mixture of nickel, oil rubbed bronze, and white.

So the plan was to paint the cabinets white, paint the walls, door, and trim, and replace or spray paint accents to make everything oil rubbed bronze.  Mid-project, I also decided to take down the ugly 3-door mirrored medicine cabinet and replace it with a mirror.

You can see in the above photo that the washer and dryer are immediately to the right of the door.  Our project for next week is to frame in a piece of drywall to hide the side of them.

 This is the finished product, less a few final adjustments. I'm thinking about replacing the shower curtain, but we'll see.  I am also considering replacing the light fixture above the mirror.  It is the only source of light in there other than the window in the shower (ugh, that's another post) and it doesn't produce enough light.  I'm probably just going to get a similar one, but with three lights instead of just one.

I am in the process of spray painting a floating shelf white to install below the sink. We are also strongly considering replacing the sink and countertop, but we'll see if that actually materializes into a project.  The mason jar soap dispenser was a Pinterest project that took five minutes, and I got the votive candle holder at a garage sale for 25 cents.

So..what do you think?

Relocation Station

Hubs and I have resumed talks on relocating to our dream city, Victoria, BC.  We left Victoria five years ago to embark on an adventure in Northern BC and the winds of change are a-blowin once again.  I am so excited to live on the island! In the meantime though we have a lot to do around our house to get it ready for sale!  And Pinterest is only making my to-do list longer with all the amazing projects I see on there that I just have to try!

This weekend we tackled the first project that was not mainly cleaning/organizing.

We repainted two of our three exterior doors.  They were painted a charming shade of red when we moved in, but they have faded and chipped over time and needed a redo.  I don't have the chip or old paint can to colour match so I just decided to start fresh with a new, bold shade of red.

The "before" shot is of our front door, which we haven't painted yet. I plan to paint the trim white as well, and touch up the green trim around the frame.

The "after" shot is of the garage door. I'm so happy with how it turned out!

Hubs getting ready to put our back door back on.

This is the original front door.  It looks cute still, but up close it is really rough. I will be painting the window trim white as well, instead of the icky yellow colour.

This is the finished garage door! It looks so much better in real life. The flawless door also makes the trim in the door frame look like absolute garbage. I will be painting that dark green very soon.

I will post an after picture of the front door as soon as it's done. Probably not until next weekend though. In the meantime I have lots of work to do in the bathroom!

A tragedy, but at least now something has been done.

This is my corner of the internet. I may not have any readers, but today, I'm using my little corner to ask that people with information about Ira Parmenter and his behaviour when he was the pastor of Colwood Church, to please talk to the RCMP.  This situation stirs up a lot of anger in me, and a lot of sadness, because an entire community was damaged due to the actions of a deeply trusted, even beloved, leader and role model.

I have close friends whose lives were drastically altered when they found out what Ira was doing, and have never been the same.  He hurt and took advantage of their friend, while posing as a godly leader and faithful husband. It's sickening.  I can't even imagine what the victim herself (and other victims who have not yet come forward) is going through.

To the person who wrote this Anonymous Blog Post: ya, you are right. HUNDREDS of people were affected. And not just members of Colwood.  It was everybody, the whole community, everyone who is friends or family with members of that church.  It's like a ripple in a pond - oh wait, except that it's a goddam tidal wave.

CTV News Video

CBC News Story

Ten Months!

Claire is ten months old!  The weather was agreeable enough that we were able to do photos on the front lawn, and we even let our dog, Sierra, in on the fun.  More surprising though, for me, is that she wanted in on it.  She was very uneasy and aloof when we brought Claire home from the hospital and I watched them very carefully (I still do) during the early months, since Sierra really didn't seem to like having a baby around.

Everything changed though, when Claire started on solids and subsequently began feeding Sierra from the high chair.  Now they are best friends. :D

What Does a Year and a Half get you?

So it's been a while.

This little personal project has been waiting for me on the internet all this time, just sitting here, unchanged like a little time capsule.

Let's briefly bring this place up to speed and then I will try and discover what I want to use my little corner of the internet for.

May 26th of 2011, Dave and I welcomed our daughter Claire into the world.  She is now a very adorable and charming 9 month old, crawling, cruising, giggling baby.  Being a mom is just as terrifying as I thought it would be, but ten millions times as awesome.

This is Claire at 8 months old, enjoying a massive snowbank in our front yard.

Although it has been a year and a half since I last updated this site, that's really the only update worthy of mention.  I found out I was pregnant shortly after my last post, and it's been 'baby stuff' ever since. And probably from here on out.

I have some ideas about the direction this page will take, and I will be exploring those thoughts over the next while. We'll see where this goes, but in any event, I don't want to let this just disappear.  More to come.