Lights, closet doors, finished bedroom!

Our lights, closet door hardware, and final set of blinds arrived on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. These were the only things between us and a finished bedroom.  Here is a picture of the closet doors painted and back on the track. 

Also, here is a picture of the lights.

Another look into our old bedroom

Our former spare bedroom kind of became a junk room, or the island of misfit junk. It got that way because we had no furniture to put in the room. Now, our old bedroom has become the new spare room, and we refuse to let the same fate befall this room.  So, we dug our old futon out of Michael's parents basement and covered it with our old bedspread. Not too shabby!

Not to be a tease or anything...

We have moved our furniture into the new master suite, but we don't have the hardware to finish the closet doors. So, in lieu of pictures of the new room I thought I'd share a picture of our former bedroom furniture removed.  

Color selections

If you guessed that we are using turquoise again...you're wrong!  We painted 3 of the four walls Gravity Gray, and the fourth wall is painted Sweet Lemon.  Here is a picture of the wall colors. 

We are finished with all of the trim painting wall painting, and closet work.  The major project that we have to finish is the painting of the closet doors, which should be finished this weekend. 

We also have to install the last of our new blinds.  We received them all in the mail on Wednesday, but one of them was damaged, so we had to send it back.  Here is a picture of the blinds. 

Why my husband is a genius

On our journey to make our bedroom with the half bath into a true-ish master, I had one large request of Michael, make my closet doors fit the opening properly.

Here was the problem:

Our closet opening is 42 inches.  All of our closets have wooden bypass doors on a track.  The standard opening size is 48 inches, which means that the standard doors that were on the closet were 24 inches each.  This made the actual opening (that we use to get stuff in and out of the closet) was only 18 inches, which was too small for both of us.

 The solution?  Easy!  Cut the doors!  Sounds simple enough, but the doors are hollow, as in, filled with cardboard.  I thought that Michael would simply cut them down to the right size, and that would be all, but this is what the ends looked like. Not quite the look we're going for. 

All along Michael kept telling me about a plan to fix the doors, but that it was going to be a pain to fix.  So, last night we made several cuts on the table saw, and this is how he fixed the problem. 

He cut a small strip out of the wood that was going to be thrown away. 

Then he took said strip, and glued it into the door. 

Now the doors are in the process of being sanded and painted!  I could have never thought of such an elaborate way to make the doors we have work!  His idea saved us at least $200!  Thank you honey!  You are a genius!  We now have two 21 inch bypass doors!

Oops--Finished bathroom

My apologies for the delay, I'm sure that everyone has been chomping at the bit to see the completed bathroom!  We finished it right after I got home from my trip to New York.  So after much adieu, here is the finished bathroom!

 View from the door.  I painted the picture that is on the wall. 

 Mirror, light, and towel rack

 

Toilet and medicine cabinet

 

 Vanity & sink

We have tile!

Michael spent Sunday afternoon putting tile in! He is the most patient man I have ever met, because the tile that includes the toilet pipe took him close to an hour to cut. 

The tile was completely installed by Sunday evening, but grout cannot be applied until 16 hours after the tile has been laid.  So, Michael spent a few hours grouting the tile on Monday. 

 tile before grout

grouted tile

Sanding,painting,and cement board, Oh My!

So, after we removed all of the old fixtures from the bathroom, we began the rebuilding process.  All day Saturday was spent patching, sanding, painting, and finally putting in cement board. 

Painting is my thing, as in, I am actually capable of painting.  Credit for everything else goes to Michael. 

paint color (turquoise)

Cutting the cement board

Installing cement board.

Our empty bathroom

This is what the bathroom looked like on Friday night.

Tile selection & vanity light

We have selected our tile for the half bathroom!  It is called midnight slate copper.

We also have been eying a light fixture at Lowe's for quite some time now.  The fixture that we wanted was relatively inexpensive, but was perfectly to our taste.  Unfortunately, the perfect light was out of stock at Lowe's.  We had asked to purchase the display model several different times, but each time we were told that they were getting more in and that they could not sell us the display.  Tonight we spoke with a very helpful man at Lowe's who told us that he would sell us the display, because they weren't getting more of that fixture in stock.  We told him to hold it for us and that we'd be there shortly.  He told us that he would also discount the fixture since it was a display model and had been touched and used in the store.  When we arrived, the associate took his time and made sure that we had all of the parts necessary.  He then marked the light down to half of the original price!!!  We were so excited to get the light that we wanted, and we got a super deal on it! 

Our new light fixture

Bathroom before

 doorway without trim and door

 light and mirror

 Michael took the door off of the hinges

 view from bedroom

 sink/vanity

medicine cabinet

Bathroom outlet

Our house has 1.5 bathrooms.  The half bath is small, 19 square feet to be precise.  It is located off of our back bedroom.  We do not currently use that as our master bedroom because it is smaller than our current bedroom because of the amount of space that the bathroom door takes up.  Otherwise, the rooms are equal in size.  Michael and I have come up with a creative solution to fix that issue.  But, before we can get to the actual remodel of the bathroom there are a few minor changes that needed to be made. 

The half bath had a light switch, of course, but did not have an electrical outlet.  Since it is our goal to make this a true master suite, we had to run new electrical to add a GFI outlet.  Michael and I spent Friday night adding a new junction box and outlet

. New outlet with outlet cover

Don't worry about the piece of drywall that is missing, before we paint, all imperfections will be fixed!

We bought a house...

To quote Sarah Richardson from the HGTV show, Sarah's House, "I bought a house."  This statement is said in Sarah's remarkably adorable Canadian accent.  The premise of her show is the purchase of an older home that needs some of her personal touches to make the house spectacular.  This show is one of mine and my husband Michael's favorites.  As of April 26th, my husband and I became first-time homeowners.  We work incredibly well together, and love taking on home improvement projects.  Our house is already pretty fantastic, but we have a very modern/retro decorating style.  It is our goal to make or 1950's Ranch Style house look more mid-century modern.  We have already taken on several large projects, and would like to keep track of our progress in this blog. 

Our house