Hall Bath - Finished

This is our first room we've remodeled start to finish. I am really proud of it and relieved it's over. There were so many times along the way we could have just called it "good enough" and moved on. But I don't think there's anything we did only once, we just kept re-doing and figuring things out until we got it right. So I'm proud of that. And I'm happy to be able to give Arden baths again and to have a bathroom for visitors to use that doesn't embarrass me. Instead I'm like, oh thanks for coming over do you need to go to the bathroom you probably should just in case.

We kept the Kohler toilet that was in here. The sink and vanity are new from Ikea, the faucet is old (vintage?) Ikea. This Godmorgon vanity is fine, it's very simple and the drawers are nice storage-wise. Kind of too white over here.

Here is the also beautiful shower tile. I love it so much. This is 2x8 Daltile Natural Hues in Mint. For me it was the perfect mix of mid century style as far as color, but also modern in terms of tile size and installation style. And also, this is technically the kids/guests bathroom so I wanted it to be fun and colorful. I ordered it from Salt Lake Tile, who were amazing and so helpful and let Arden eat all their candy like a candy psychopath, and let me take home their single sample mint piece and carry it around and hold it up next to everything else I ordered for the next month like a tile psychopath.

I will never regret paying someone to install the tile.

But the real winner here is the person that gets to walk on this tile every morning. My favorite thing about this bathroom times a million. It is from Fireclay tile, 6" hexagon in carbon. Since I failed the initial tile install and had to order an additional 5 square feet, I worked with their customer service people who were so nice and got my order to me within a few weeks even though they said they couldn't rush orders. Shh. Thanks fast tile makers! And you just can't beat handmade tile. It is so dimensional and fancy and perfect. Buy it, love it, but don't try to install it yourself.

 
Love you bathroom! So glad you're mine.

bathroom before

Hallway Refresh - Finished

The hallway was a project I worked on while the bathroom projects were going too slowly and I needed to fix something anything. I had given the hallway some love in the past but it just wasn't working. It started an avocado green which just made everything look sickly and grimy. Then I tried to be trendy and painted it a navy blue. I gave that a good 2 year run but I could just never get into it. The blue was too dark, and I realized that blue isn't very mid century and I'm just not that into it. Sorry, dark blue. I love you in everyone else's house. So I painted the ceiling a fresh white (Behr ultra white), the walls the same white as the rest of the house (Behr painter's white).
Pretty rug from our trip last month to Marrakesh.

Flush light from Lowes, isn't it pretty? I think it looks like a Jonathan Adler light.
Frames from Target. Love those big mats.


Most of the changes were really boring. I switched out the air intake vents for fresh white ones. I took out the bulky smoke and CO2 detectors and switched in a pretty Nest one. Except it keeps giving me false smoke alarms which is going to cause a heart attack. I also patched and painted the trim, that was really tedious but looks so much better.

Here is a terrible before picture from a different angle, sorry. This is actually the main reason we did the hallway refresh, is because I wanted to take out that bulky swamp cooler vent since we took out the swamp cooler when we put the new roof on 2 years ago. And you can see how bad all those detectors and doorbells look. Now everything is gone except the doorbell and one detector on the ceiling. And just look how dark blue that dark blue is.

Boise - Modern Hotel

We ended up in Boise a few weeks ago so I booked a room at the Modern Hotel. I thought it was a really well executed renovation and the hotel is really fun with great details.

You know it's a good vacation when you're eating cookies in bed for breakfast while watching the world cup under a George Nelson bedside lamp.

 

 I like the simple mosaic tile in the bathroom. This might be what we go for in the master, although darker. I think mosaic tile can be a little over the top - it's hard not to get excited about all the color combos. But these colors that are similar look best together in my opinion.

 The outdoor space was really inspirational to me. The cement pavers, with stone bonfires, log seating, no maintenance rocks and a few trees and karl foerster grass. I'd love to have space like this in my yard where there are no plants to take care of but it's all beautiful and useful.
 
The simple white quilt was from a local quilting shop. I think it's something I could make pretty easily, two white pieces of fabric, parallel wavy quilted lines. I always struggle to marry homemade things with mid century style, but I think if kept simple enough like this it can add a nice touch.
 

Hall Bath Phase 4 - End in sight

After a month of scraping cement off tile, ordering new tile, and getting quotes from tiling installers, all of which were booked out for at least two weeks, suddenly there was tile. And suddenly with that it seemed like the bathroom is almost finished. These are just crappy iphone photos but I'll take better ones once the bathroom is done. it's hard to get a good picture of the shower tile but it's the perfect mint color.

I spent so much time choosing tile that I thought I'd never be happy, but I really love it and think I won't ever get sick of it. The handmade hexagon tile is so beautiful I could look at it all day. And the perfect 2x8 tile in the shower is such a nice, modern, soothing color. I'm so glad we took the extra steps to get things done right.

 

This is the extent of the usefulness of the bathroom right now, but I'm in heaven. Bathing Arden was definitely what I missed most about not having this bathroom (we just have a tiny shower in the master) so I'm so happy to have progressed to this point. I went with Moen bath fixtures since that was what was here before, and it saved on having to replace the shower valve. And finally we can look at the beautiful new cast iron tub that's been hiding under a protector the last month.
The entire reno I have been saying there is only one month left. But now I think there is really one month left at the most for finishing touches and putting fixtures back in. It's nice to have the usefulness come back piece by piece. So nice.

Hall Bath Phase 3 - One stop forward, 2 months back

we got our beautiful floor tile a few weeks ago and decided to go for it one saturday. 

it looked great. it is so beautiful. it took me at least 6 months of pinterest to find this tile and i love it and nothing will ever change that. but really, when they tell you to not lay handmade tile yourself, they mean it. i've laid tile before and it was a walk in the park. in general laying the hexagon tile went fine. but after a while i noticed a crevice forming between tiles. as i continued it got bigger and bigger, i continued anyway because i am so persistent, it ended with a 1.5" gap between tiles, and i tried to tell myself it was fine and it was under the vanity and ryan tried to tell me we could live with it for now i knew none of those were true so it all came up, we had to reorder a few more sq ft, ryan made an executive decision that we're not allowed to tile anymore, and we spent 1 month of evenings scraping cement off the backs of tile.

and now we're back to here.

the lessons i am learning are the opposite of what i thought i would be learning. i thought i would be learning how to properly remodel a bathroom start to finish. instead i am learning when to admit defeat. i am learning that doing it right is more important to me than having a bathroom again ever. instead i am learning the names of really good tile installers.

Hall Bath Phase 2 - What Goes Under Tile, etc

the rate that this bathroom remodel is going is slower than i allowed myself to believe when we started. but i think if i was realistic in my planning, i would have realized this is just how long it takes. when you are doing everything for the first time, and you want it to be perfect, and your life is already full time full. i am telling myself that we could now have it done a month from now.

problem is that we couldn't make up our minds about tile until a few weeks ago, and the floor tile was 4 weeks out, and the shower tile 6 weeks. 4 weeks sounded like a long time but it's actually how long we needed to get everything ready.

the tub went in first after spending a month airing out in the front yard (that's a thing, right?). we had our plumber put it in since the drum trap below needed to be replaced with a more efficient p-trap. we've done everything else though, one lesson i'm learning is that it's ok to do something over. this is a frustrating lesson to me but the second time i always get it right. the first time is more like a practice round sometimes.

one of the most time consuming things so far has been patching all the walls. there were dozens of holes and torn paper where the molding was glued on that needed to be repaired. each spot takes 3 rounds of compound and sanding and takes so long and is so dusty. saturday night i did the first round of paint on the ceiling and walls. this shines a light on spots that weren't repaired well enough, so i will still need to do one final patch round and painting round.


we have paid for other work to be done in our house but nobody cares about your house like you. that being said, i kind of wish we would have paid somebody to put in the walls and floors. they are not perfectly even and i am losing sleep about it. i wonder if the unevenness is only a big deal in my head and the thinset/tile combo will solve everything? or if i'm making a huge mistake and the whole bathroom is going to cave in. don't cave in.

it is nice to look back at the before pictures to remind myself how ugly it was.

Hall Bath Phase 1 - Demo

my early intention was to keep and restore the "original" grey square tile found under the brown tile. unfortunately #1 there was quite a few missing and broken tile. unfortunately #2 after hours and hours of scraping the tile adhesive off the tile i come to the conclusion that this tile is not original to the house. i came to this conclusion because i watch both sherlock homes on bbc and elementary on cbs so am basically a detective. there was cement backer board under the tile - they didn't use cement backer in the 1960's, also the tile is 3x3, not the standard 4.25x4.25 in mid century homes. but the kicker is that when we took up the tub there was a brand name visible on the backer board, i looked that up and the brand started producing backer board in 1987. which makes sense. it looks like something that would be installed in 1987 but DANGIT. also dangit because this tile is all up in the master bathroom which i am always so smug about it being original. but at least now i won't feel guilty about gutting it.

the good news is that it's not worth keeping since 1987+ tile who cares and we'd rather have a different style anyway. tile: 1 jackie: infinity

anyway, the tile in the shower goes, the tile on the floor goes, the cement backer goes. toilet, sink, tub, gone. all of this is pretty easy because ryan's muscles. (the exact location is toilet - in my office, sink - in the hallway, old tub - in the garage)

we found small amounts of mold, which is scary/not scary because of google, but we sprayed it with bleach and then i'm not really sure after that. i guess cover it up and ignore it.

for phase 2 i hope to show you an installed tub (the 300 lb one that has been sitting in my front yard for a week) and installed cement board on the floor and tub walls. i am giving myself to the end of march to make this happen. some people can do this in a week but we can't all eat free time for breakfast.

toilet hole and tongue and groove subfloor:

Hall Bath Before

I feel a little selfish for renovating this bathroom because for starters, it is the best bathroom in the house. and it's all in working order. but we've lived here for 2 years now and have yet to tackle a Big project (kitchen, 3 bathrooms, basement, deck/exterior) and i'm ready to make it happen.

i'm ready to love my house, not just the idea of it. and this bathroom is a good place to start because it is the main bathroom, guests use it, we both shower in here, and where i spent most nights giving arden a bath. so you can say i've spent a lot of time staring down the things that i hate about it.

1. the style. this tile doesn't belong in a mid century home. not that i'm not going to switch it out for baby pink tile, but this ain't no ski lodge in tuscany (not a place).

2. the tile installation. i'm going to install the tile myself but i swear i will do it 50x over so it doesn't look like that. is it that hard to cut a tile correctly? probably it is. also a ton of the floor tile is cracked. no thanks.

3. i want to upgrade a lot of little things. deeper/nicer/more modern tub, have a hand shower so hopefully i can wash arden's hair without meltdown screaming sessions, a shower curtain that doesn't fall on your head, molding and trim that matches the rest of the house, etc.

toilet is staying, sink is staying. vanity is going to be dancing for its life.

The Worst Parts of My House

The worst parts of my house aka my to do list for the next 5 years are
1. the hall bath
2. the kitchen
3. downstairs

This is the floor of the hall bath. I am generally a very careful person, so I took care to pry up small corner pieces of tile to see what was underneath. Original adorable square floor tile. Score. I let that soak in for a few months until I couldn't handle the wretched brown giant tiles anymore. So last week I got out the crowbar and down to business. But the more tiles I took up the worse it got. I can handle a few broken pieces, I can handle a few missing pieces but then there were just gigantic patches of missing tile, filled in by some kind of mortar. Another great and thorough DIY job by previous owners wah wah. Unfortunately this project is in hold for now because I need to figure out what to do and this is literally what it will look like for the next 2 years until I can make a decision. I think I'd like to do concrete floors. If that's not possible then a concrete looking tile. The shower is this same brown tile. So.

No it's not a black and white picture. It's just a cold and lifeless kitchen.

The kitchen is in pretty good shape because somehow I have controlled my to demo it. Initially I thought I would need to redo all the cabinets because the layout is all wrong and there's no storage, but now I've decided to do everything in my power to keep them. But this room really needs warming up so I'm going to strip the cabinets and get back to the wood/birch plywood underneath that I think is really pretty and warm. I've already done one to test and I love it. The subway backsplash was something we did when we first moved in because there wasn't one. Subway tile is fine for most kitchens but it doesn't seem like it belongs in a mid century house. I've got my already broke just thinking about it heart set on Heath Ceramics tile. The fault really goes to these two kitchens for being too damn beautiful.

The floor is the #1 thing that has got to go. It's awful. The tile is so so bad. It is so ugly and dirty looking and also super uneven. I have tripped over uneven tile. #2 thing that has got to go is the counters. They are concrete and I like the look but they are just too fragile on the surface and look cheap.

And I'd like to add: pantry and other better layout things, grown up dining set, sexier light fixtures, new hardware.

So really, it's fine I just want to change every last thing about it.

The downstairs is scary, starting with this horrible banister. I've gotten a few quotes from stair people and metal workers on a better railing but nothing seems quite right. Something with a matching gate would be nice so this ugly thing isn't the first thing you see when you walk in the front door for the next 5 years.

The actual downstairs is really a full gut job. It was all DIY'd in a major way. Wood laminate that is clearly not on an even surface, toilets turned the wrong way, original fireplace covered with 90's ceramic tile, beadboard where there should be sheetrock, etc. There are no pictures because it is just too scary for the internet.

Mid Century Window Coverings

When we moved in two years ago the only item of "decor" in the whole house was unworking vertical blinds covering our large front room windows. Those came down when we redid the windows and then we lost the blinds. Not really, but we remembered how awesome it is to look out those windows so we left them off. Sorry neighbors.

 

In my mind the perfect combination for these windows would be solar roller shades combined with thick drapes. This would give us privacy with some warmth as well. Inspiration:

 combined with this (link)

love those pretty yellow heavy drapes. (link)

Those two pictures are a pretty good indicator of the design battle going on in my head.

This week we got the roller blinds installed. They look beautiful. They take out the glare so I can binge watch Friday Night Lights at any hour of the day. But I can still see the mountains through them. There is not quite the privacy at night that I was hoping for, but that is where the drapes will come in at some point. I'm going to live with it like this for a while but I think this room is really needing some color.

Blinds are from blinds.com, the Bali collection.

A Mid Century Exterior Door

My main goal for my house is to keep and restore as much of the original that is left as possible. But there are a few things that just aren't in good enough shape to keep. The front door is one of those things. It had a storm door that no longer existed when we moved in, but the aluminum frame was still there. The wooden door had morphed and you could see sunlight and feel cold air through the cracks at the top. For all I know this wasn't an original door, there wasn't anything special about it or the knob. Time to go sad door.

But where can you find a good mid century exterior door? I got a few quotes when I was getting quotes on new windows in the spring. Their eyes glazed over when I asked whether they had any modern styles, and my eyes glazed over when they showed me their catalog of 100 different styles of six panel doors. I decided a slab door with a cool handle set was my fate.

At one point I had my heart set on Crestview Doors. The styles are exactly what I need. But then two things happened: they raised their prices by 500%. And every door expert I talked to said I needed a fiberglass door, not a solid wood door. Fiberglass doors are better for the extreme weather we get, the direct sunlight, and don't need to be refinished or repainted. But it is a good site for inspiration.

I was shocked when I browsed through Home Depot's door selection online and found two cool modern doors by Builder's Choice. One had 3 windows and one had 5 windows. We went with the 5 window modern door because I liked the clear glass better. We were able to get $100 off the door by leaving it unpainted instead of the brick red that wasn't up my alley. I'll definitely be painting it once it warms up in the spring.

I love the change. I love that it brings light into this little entry space and the look fits with our house. It ups the curb appeal. And I'm happy to have the extra security with the deadbolt. Handle and deadbolt by Kwikset from Amazon.

But I do have some regrets.

1. I asked the installer to save the original moulding on the interior side but he said it was damaged too badly so he used the moulding that came with the door. The new moulding is not solid wood and I hate it. So I'm going to have to replace that to match the moulding in the rest of the house at some point.
2. When the installer took the door and frame out, I noticed that underneath the tile there was the original hardwood. For some reason I thought the tile was original to the house but now I doubt it and it looks really 90's to me. But the door is installed to the height so we're stuck with the tile.
3. That the installer left his blood behind.

What color should I paint the door? The current vote is purple.