Category: Home Reno & DIY

Things have been trucking along, which means it’s time for another Home Update post! This time, as part of our Master Bathroom project, I have an update on what was previously our old master bathroom.

It was a teensy little 3-piece bathroom with a shower, toilet and vanity. This is the best photo I could get by standing partially outside of the door:

We lived with it for 10 years though because renovation projects are expensive. So, for 10 years, I had to be super careful balancing my stuff on the tiny countertop while popping out my contact lenses. And for 10 years, my tall husband banged his head and elbows every time he’d lean down in the shower. Oh and when he would look in the mirror over the sink… it was so short he couldn’t see his face, just his neck.

All those problems are solved with the new master bathroom (post coming very soon), which means we had this extra bathroom just hanging around. My dad tried to convince us to keep it by taking out the shower and putting a door there to go through to the office. However, we already have 2 other full bathrooms on that floor, so I felt that the space could be better utilized.

As you may remember, I built myself a walk-in closet: Home Update: Walk-In Closet, but I wasn’t planning to share. Sorry, not sorry.

So, I thought it would be a fun idea to turn that little old master bathroom into a walk-in closet for my husband. Which is exactly what we did!

My husband and dad took the old bathroom down to the drywall and then my dad re-drywalled the jankey parts and gave it a few coats of spackle. Once it was all dry, I gave it a light sanding and painted the whole space (Greige again, since I had a full can left over from my last painting project and it’s a wonderful neutral). Then, Travis and I cursed, sweated, and cursed some more installing wire hanging racks (a free hand-me-down from my parent’s old closet). New carpet came last week, the clothes went in… and we’re done!

Well, we’re 99% done. We still have to install the light at the top of the closet (conveniently not included in my photos) and it’s on the schedule for our next free weekend. Besides the light though, we are done, done, done with this project.

It’s a much better use of the space and quite thrilling for my husband to actually have all of his clothes in one spot, rather than spread all around the house. I enjoy it too — not having a treasure hunt through the boxes under the bed, the entrance closet and Jack’s closet when looking for a packed-away polo shirt.

I’m so happy to be able to share another update post with you. Especially because my living room was a disaster for 4 weeks and now it’s back to normal. Actually, it’s not back to normal… it’s better than ever!

As I mentioned in my previous update post, in order to get the plumbing and heat up to the new bathroom, we had to run them from the basement, through the first floor and up to the second floor. This impacted the opening between our living room and kitchen, as well as the living room ceiling.

Part of the ceiling came down on April 24^th and then on May 7^th, the couch got covered and moved and the room turned into a disaster and stayed that way until June 4^th.

Once the plumbing was fully completed, my dad put new drywall up in the ceiling and wall, taped it, spackled it a bunch of times, and then primed everything and painted the ceiling. Over the weekend, I spent six hours in the living room and the connected entrance area edging, rolling, edging again and rolling again.

{Actually, I spent 10 hours painting that day, but the rest of the time was spent upstairs. And yes, my body hurt afterwards}

Once again, I chose Behr Greige for my paint color. I love that it is a nice, clean neutral and it really brightens up the room. I had no idea how dirty and marked our walls were until we moved everything away from them and I started painting!

Once the paint was dry, Travis and I moved back the couch. Then the following morning, I built a new console table and put everything back up on the wall. Most of the same pictures went up, except for the area over the bookcase.  I used the opportunity of filling holes and painting to put up new stuff on the wall and I love how it turned out.

If you’d like to see a fun Before/After Reel I did on Instagram, you can find it here:

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And here are my After photos:

The pictures stayed the same on this wall (below), but I switched out an old black fake fireplace/space heater thing with this pretty console table. It gives us better storage options for Jack’s video games and chargers and also sticks out less from the wall so it doesn’t block foot traffic.

And here is the updated area (below). We’ve had the organizer since Jack was a baby and it now houses a mix of toys and games. I picked up the two hand drawn pictures at a consignment shop, thrifted the sculpture, found the drawer at an antique shop and the mirror was a clearance find at T.J. Maxx.

And I let Jack decide how to fill the drawer slots.

LOOK! He made mini Lego figures of our family! And of course Travis and I both have gigantic cups of coffee:

Having our living room back together feels fantastic. I’d been holding off on repainting for awhile since it was going to be such a pain to move everything, so I’m so happy that the huge job is done and everything looks so nice and clean again.

Next up, the walk-in closet!