Bathroom half empty or half full? Downstairs study/bathroom

The layout of our house is very similar to our Bellevue neighbors.  Except our house has a fabulous bonus room:  an addition off the back of the dining room.  This is our pass through to the backyard deck and it has traditionally functioned as a study for us (although one day we hope to make it into a playroom for some kiddos).   In addition, this room had a coat closet (in the southeast corner of the room) and our main floor half bath (in the northeast corner).

Half baths are great for function, but this one left a lot to be desired; it was dark, smelled a little funky, had a wobbly toilet and just wasn't very welcoming to guests (or us, for that matter).   When we started planning our bathroom renovations, we knew we wanted to put some money into updating this half bath.  New floors, new vanity, a fresh coat of paint.  Then we decided, why not just upgrade it to a full bath while we're at it?   So that's exactly what we did.  We moved some walls, added a shower and moved the coat closet from the alternate corner of the room to squeeze in between the new full bath and the back wall, thereby flushing off that wall.

The reno also gave us a chance to refresh the back room, and paint over the hunter green paint with a fresh coat of a cool grey.  Here are some before and after shots:

Back room BEFORE,
looking from dining room through back window. 

Back room, looking from back window into dining room.
The coat closet is just beyond the desk and the 1/2 bath behind
that bookshelf. 

Half bath BEFORE (gag). 

AFTER:  sink and toilet in same position. 

Porcelain "Carrera" 9x14 wall tiles (for shower and taken all the way around).
18" x 18" light grey floor tiles, with a heated floor pad beneath. 

We made some very intentional design choices in this bathroom: 

1. Light colors: cool greys and whites, to help it feel bigger, cleaner and more "spa-like".  Couples massage, anyone?  We started with the "Carerra" look-alike porcelain tile from Home Depot, which we got for only $2.20/sq ft.  Our splurge was the slate hex tile for the shower floor and the shower inset.  This we found at The Tile Shop for around $13/sq ft.  We only needed about 15 square feet for those spaces, so it seemed like a decent place to splurge.   The wall color is "Gravity" by Valspar.  The floor is 18"x18" light grey ceramic, which we found for a STEAL at $1.90/sq ft at a local discount flooring outlet.  

2. We decided to take the shower wall tile all the way around the room (at least to chair-rail height) to help make the space more cohesive.  What we didn't want was a small room to feel even smaller because the shower and non-shower spaces felt separate.  (Which is also why we chose a simple white waffle shower curtain.)  We also hear it's nice to have easy-to-wipe tile on areas where dirty little kid hands tend to touch. 

3. Since there was no source of natural light (further contributing to the dark, cramped feel) we installed a sky-light (a Sola-tube, actually) in the ceiling.  I forgot to photograph it, but it does such a great job of bringing some natural light into the space.  On a sunny day you don't even need to flip a light switch; your business is perfectly illuminated by the skylight :) 

4. Speaking of making the room feel bigger, this was the main reason for such a big inset shelf.  Since it sets that shower wall back another couple of inches in the area where it counts (shoulder and arm room), we wanted to make it pretty big.  We intended to put a glass shelf somewhere for extra product storage, but decided against it since we didn't need the extra shelf space. 

5. Finally, another small splurge: we added a heated floor!   (That small panel next to the light switches is the control panel.) Because there is no radiator in this back room (yes, we still use our trusty rads for cold weather heating), it tends to get pretty chilly in the winter, especially when your bare tootsies are on a tile floor.  We haven't had an occasion to turn the heated floor on yet, but we'll update you on how it functions once we do.    

New shower!  Slate hex tile used on the shower floor and in the inset shelf. 

Gotta love your Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap. 

Vanity and toilet both from Home Depot.  

View from back door.  Coat closet on left, bathroom door on right. 

Love the function of these shelves added to the
wall between the bath and closet doors.  

View from the bathroom door, of the backdoor. 

Goodbye, baby girl

"And who's to say which is more incredible—a man who raises the dead … or a God who weeps?" -Ken Gire

Six weeks ago our plans for this weekend centered on a gender-reveal/Labor Day BBQ in our backyard.  A celebration with friends.   We would be 19 weeks pregnant. 

Instead, today we said goodbye to our baby girl.  Five weeks ago at a routine ultrasound we learned that our baby had no heartbeat.   Given her measurements, she likely passed two weeks prior, inexplicably.   We were devastated.  Heartbroken. Undone.

The grief has been intense and bewildering.   Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.  This little life, so full of promise and innocence and hope…just snatched away.  Leaving everything feeling so empty.  So dark.  And today, that is really all the words I have to describe it.  I hope one day I’m better equipped to share that experience.  Because, as I’ve learned, miscarriage is far more common than we know.  We were so far along that we had no choice but to share the experience with our friends and family.  And we have been so grateful for their love and support. But I fear many women (& their partners) are far more alone in their grief. 

This morning Jake and I decided to have a small service together at Forest Park.  We chose a quiet, green clearing, surrounded by trees.  We read Psalm 139, prayed together, cried together and released a single purple balloon into the sunny sky.  Our prayer was that it would honor & celebrate our daughter’s short life and that it would glorify her Creator, Whom we believe is holding her now.  He is a good Father. 

Sweet Grace,

Despite having never held you in our arms, you had such a hold on our hearts.  You, my dear, are so loved.  We prayed for you; we planned for you; and we thank God, even now, for each day we had with you.  You were eagerly awaited and already loved by so many.   We miss you every day. 

But through our tears, sweet Grace, we give thanks.  Thanks that you are held in strong and worthy arms, now.  That Heaven is all you’ll ever know.  Thanks that we can rest in the promise that one day every tear will be wiped away and all things—suffering, death, brokenness—will be made right.   Thanks that your very name will remind us of the boundless provision and sweet redemption of God.

Today, baby girl, we entrust you to the Lord, who knows you and loves you far more than we ever could.  And this, our prayer for you:

“For you formed [her] inward parts;

you knitted [her] together in [her] mother’s womb.

I praise you Lord for [she] is fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 

[Her] frame was not hidden from you,

when [she] was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw [her] unformed substance;

In your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for [her],

when as yet there were none.”  Psalm 139: 13-16

Fly to the Father, baby girl.  

We will see you soon.

This One's for the Dewey Decimal Nerds

Look at what we found at an Antique store yesterday!  We are down-right giddy. It needs a little lovin', mainly in the form of a good sanding and darker stain.  But after months of searching, this beauty is definitely one of our favorite pieces and you can expect at least one additional blog post on it. 

A Quick Christmas Wrap-Up

Just a quick post on a few of the fun things we enjoyed this Christmas.

New chalk board frame, heralding the coming King. 

Advent candles, on mirrored stand, all from World Market, with sage from the garden. 

Book page rosettes. 

 

Book page snowflakes for wrapping. 

Boxwood branch and book page rosette=cheap wrapping adornment. 

 

Peppered beef tenderloin. Major yum. 

Rangel Family Yueltide Beer Tasting selection.  2013 "Grandma Got Run Over by a Weissbier"

A Fresh Coat of Pantry

We are still thrilled with how awesome our kitchen renovation turned out.  It feels bright, clean and modern.  Exactly how we wanted our kitchen to feel.  But this newly reclaimed fresh feeling in the kitchen only heightened the feeling of nastiness that remained just beyond the basement door.  Behind this door...

was this...

and this...

So we recently decided to tackle this dark, ugly space and make way for some of that clean fresh kitchen feeling to seep into the pantry/basement steps.  Aside from a LOT of paint, we had to do a little bit of structural work to reclaim some of the space that used to be enclosed for the radiator, but ended up being dead space because we removed the rad.  

Enter: my manly husband and his power tools.  With the help of a hammer and a reciprocating saw, Jake had the space opened up in no time, and then built new shelves to span the reclaimed area.  

Then, of course, came the 8 hours of prep and painting to finish off the space.  It wasn't glamorous. It wasn't exciting. It wasn't even photo-worthy, evidently. (Have I mentioned lately how much I dislike plaster walls?)  But it was worth it.  We went with a semi-gloss white in the pantry and a cool grey on the walls down the stairs.  

 

In addition, we decided to change up the flooring a little bit.  We covered the closet floor with cheap peal and stick vinyl tiles (just for a slightly more finished look) and we "carpeted" the top steps and landing.  I say "carpeted" because we literally took old carpet remnants, cut them to size and staple-gunned the edges to the wood.  Don't look close, cause it's a little ghetto.  But it was cheap and now our footsies are a little more comfortable when stepping into the pantry.

And then of course I got to reorganize the pantry shelves. My favorite part.  Nothing too special here. Just a couple stacking baskets for onions and potatoes, and a few new containers for other random things.  

 

Hello clean(er), bright(er) pantry.  You aren't the glamorous walk-in pantry of the magazines, with great lighting and perfectly squared walls, but you'll do fine.  Just fine.

Painted Chevron Table Runner

Who doesn't love a good chevron print?  It seems like this pattern is everywhere these days.  And I'm not complaining because I love bold graphic prints.  But I do wonder how long the trend will last and I'm hesitant to sink too much money into a big chevron rug or too much time into stenciling a whole wall in the pattern.  Which is why I'm a sucker for cheap, quick DIY projects like this one.  

Here's the link to the original project description for a painted chevron pillow.  Wanting something fresh for Christmas for our dining room table, I decided to turn it into a table runner project instead. Although, the colors I chose for the Christmas runner turned out...ummm...less than lovely.  I was going for a classy red and a light shimmery champagne combo, but it turned out red and bright yellow.  It felt a little too "school-house".  So I used the left over fabric and some other paints laying around and made another one for non-Christmas decore.  As you'll see below, the "in progress" pictures are from the Christmas trial (and error), and the finished project pictures are from the second take, which turned out much better.  Here's the quick rundown: 

Supplies: 

-2-3 yards of white cotton fabric (depending on the length of runner you want)

-fabric scissors

-No Sew fusible web tape (or a sewing machine, if you'd prefer to sew up the edges)

-painter's tape

-acrylic or fabric paint (one or two colors)

-ruler

Fusible web tape is such a great option for when you need a quick finished edge and don't feel like threading your sewing machine (which is seriously one of the hardest steps in sewing for me; it feels  like a crazy maze that someone's using to trick me).   The directions are on the package, but basically you just iron the seam you want "sewn" (in my case, 1/2 inch around all edges), put a stretch of tape under the seam, iron over it again (with a damp cloth over the fabric) and it's done.  Here's what my seams looked like after using the fusible web tape. 

Then you tape our your pattern, which in my case was a chevron with vertical lines trisecting the pattern. For a 6-foot-long runner, this takes a while.  But a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon with Arrested Development reruns on in the background, and you're good to go.  A good taping job makes all the difference in creating sharp, crisp paint lines. Then, of course, you paint the resulting white parallelograms (aw-yeah, 6th grade geometry), in alternating colors.   Let the paint dry for a couple hours, then carefully peel away the tape.  Voila!

A note about the paint:  there is such a thing as fabric paint, but for some reason the only fabric paints I could find at the craft store were super ugly colors--primary colors, neons and nothing else--as if it were still the 1980's.   And as I learned in my first attempt, the right color is essential to the final product.  So I recommend using regular craft paint MIXED with a textile medium, which makes the paint fabric-friendly (and machine-washable).