Woohoo! The bathroom is done except for some finishing touches. But now we can "RELAX".
I'm on the search for a couple of things which I hope to find in the next couple of weeks. But before I share the reveal, I want to go over some of the projects.
First the fun stuff: I wanted to completely refresh the decor to go with our new bath. I found this wood sign on clearance at Target:
Ok, that saying doesn't go with a bathroom. Let's give it a makeover. New paint and stencil with a new saying and now it's perfect:
Next up, a metal truck. I wanted one of these back at Christmas when I saw them all over blogland but they were all too expensive so I never bought one. Then recently I was in Ross and saw this one.
It was only $15. Oh yeah, it came home with me. Never mind it was orange. I can fix that. And I did. Plus I added a sign to the doors.
Yep, it says "Heartwood Farm est. 2012 (that's the year we bought the farm). I'm going to have fun decorating it.
I also picked up an old Scrabble game at a thrift store (already using it on the window sill to spell out "relax"), gathered up some items from around the house to use on the walls, and then painted the shelves of the floor shelf unit in ASAP Coco as they were scratched up - plus it ties it in with the vanity. Now I just need more metal baskets I got in Canton last month. hm...sounds like a Canton trip is in my near future!
We had a lot of work to do after all the tile work, like adding bead board where the vanity used to be and new pieces next to the shower plus new trim:
Painting the window sill, door trim, door and of course, all the bead board and trim:
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| getting the door ready to paint - the color is really mahogany like the window sill below |
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| stained window sill to be painted |
Removing the popcorn on the ceiling and giving it a fresh coat of paint as well, and sealing all the grout...
Oh the grout. The floor grout did something unexpected. Bruce mixed it up and it was nice and dark brown, he grouted the floor and it dried...white. What?? Apparently it can happen. It is called efflorescence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efflorescence
In chemistry, efflorescence (which means "to flower out" in French) is the migration of a salt to the surface of a porous material, where it forms a coating. The essential process comprises the dissolving of an internally-held salt in water, or occasionally in another solvent.
Oh great...we didn't want white grout on the floor. Now what? Are we going to have to chip it all out and redo it? Please no...We looked it up and discovered acid will remove it. Although they do make an acid for this very purpose, we used plain vinegar (so-so results) followed by apple cider vinegar. The apple cider vinegar seemed to work the best although that meant I scrubbed each line twice.
Are we having fun yet? Finally the grout was no longer white. What a relief.
Then we hung the door up. Now only one side was stained mahogany - the inside - which I painted white; the outside was its original golden oak color. I didn't think anything of that side...after all it was the side that faced the hall and all the doors were that color. That is until it was opened (it opens in) - IT LOOKED AWFUL - clashed with the floor. I told Bruce, "I'm going to have to paint the other side as well!" He replied that if I did that, I'd have to paint all the doors. Oh no!! I don't need more work. I need to finish this bathroom. What to do??
I decided at this point I needed a break. My hands were hurting, I was stiff from kneeling on the floor, and now about to cry over the stupid door. I headed into the bedroom to grab a magazine and my eye fell on the dusty dresser. (Demolition causes a lot of dust!) As I swiped my hand across the dust, I remembered I had stained the top with Minwax poly/stain combo in Walnut. Could it, would it work?
I ran to the garage to find the can...and...wiped a bit on the bottom edge and sure enough, it turned the door darker!! I quickly wiped it on the whole door. What a relief. It now blends with the floor instead of clashing. I then did the two bedroom doors too so they match. Another disaster averted! :o)
Bruce got the buffet all configured for the plumbing - you can see the drawer detail below where he notched the middle drawer and then built sides so we still have storage in that drawer.
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| Pre-grout cleaning...you can see how white the lines are |
I antiqued both lion pulls and the new white knobs with some of the buffet paint color. It really makes them stand out and helps them not be so stark white.
Whew! If you've stuck with me through all of that, congratulations! We just have a few small details to finish (like hanging the towel hooks...I am not putting a towel bar back on the door!) but we are otherwise done! We love how it all turned out. It may be my most favorite room in the whole house now...it feels so fresh and calming. Be sure to come back next week for the final reveal. Trust me, it's gorgeous.
Have a wonderful rest of the week!
