Our First Major Project!

 Landon and I decided to take a "staycation" this past weekend to spend some time around the house, working and hanging out with our new puppy!

Our goal: refinish the downstairs half bath in order to bring it into the 21st century.

As with all projects, this was easier said than done. We set our budget, headed to Lowe's (as always) and got everything on our list. We found this amazing vanity and etagere, both on clearance...which we got further reduced just by asking a friendly Lowe's employee how much he wanted to get rid of them. :) They were both still in boxes and completely undamaged. Yay for bargains! We also decided on a light gray paint to go with the black and white vanity and etagere: the finished project will be black, white and gray with punches of bright red.

The old bathroom--note the hideous '80s built-in vanity, the cabinet doors that refuse to close and the non-matching sink and toilet. Sweet.

We ripped out the existing built-in (demolition is SO FUN!) and tore up the subflooring. Then, we replaced the backerboard in the floor and re-tiled the floor where we'd torn it up since the new vanity is smaller than the older one. Landon was really excited about the tile-laying since he's been wanting to try tiling since we moved into the house. We were both really happy that he did such a great job on his first go-round.

New backerboard!

After sanding down the walls, I started to edge the walls in our new gray paint. I'd made it almost all the way around the room when Landon noticed that part of the wall was curling up. Thinking it was just a part of the sheetrock doing something weird, Landon pulled it...and it kept coming. Yikes. We discovered quite quickly that what we THOUGHT was sheetrock was actually painted wallpaper, which was finally peeling up. Ugh. So, instead of painting, we commenced to peeling off the wallpaper (which is oddly satisfying) for two hours.

Darn you, wallpaper.

After getting rid of the surprise wallpaper, we made sure all of the excess wallpaper glue was off of the wall and spackled the few holes that had been gouged as a result of our occasionally overzealous wallpaper removal.While Landon made sure the spackling was drying appropriately, I put the etagere together, a process that was incredibly easy (thank you Phillips head screwdriver!).

Then (and only then), we got BACK to painting. This time, I made it all the way around four times (two coats of primer and two coats of paint) without any other major surprises.

Call me a home improvement dork, but I LOVE a paint roller!

And what does 2 gallons of paint, one vanity, one etagere, two paint rollers, two paint brushes and 60 hours of work get you?

One new, 21st-century powder room!

One of my most prized souvenirs from when I lived in London. This is a legit street sign, I promise!

Taking all of those million photos finally came in handy!

Grey squares--love.

Check out that new sink, new faucet and new soap pump!