Unexpected Garage Door Makeover

On our house to-do list, we had planned, eventually, to replace the garage door. It was old, creaky, the color was all wrong, and it was just generally ugly. Well, though it was on our list to replace, we hadn't planned to do it as quickly as we had it done.

Back in October of last year, Shon and I were sitting in our family room (which is right next to the garage) watching tv, and all of a sudden we heard an EXTREMELY loud noise. We ran to the door to the garage to see what was going on only to find the  mounting hardware ripped completely out of the ceiling and dangling barely above Shon's Honda Accord. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that one of the previous owners of our house had the mounting hardware pop out of the ceiling as well and simply did a poor patching job. Hence, our super fun discovery.

(Drawing courtesy of: http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/improvement/outdoor-projects/garage-door-opener-how-it-works)

We bought a garage door from Home Depot, and had it installed by their installers as well. The quality of the door is perfectly fine, but I can honestly say I do not recommend using their installing service. It took them about 2 months longer to get the job done than they told us they'd come out and they left the job site dirty and with screws all over the ground. Thank goodness I found them so we didn't puncture any of our tires when we were finally able to use our garage again.

Despite the poor installation service, we are very happy with the way it turned out. It's got a bit of the craftsman style we like, and it doesn't creak like the old one!

Half bath renovation

One of the first projects we completed in this house was to renovate the half bathroom. The bathroom is very small, but we did what we could to spice it up a bit.

Before we got our hands on the bathroom, it was pretty bland. White toilet, white sink, white walls, white floor. And the worst? CHROME FIXTURES EVERYWHERE! That's probably my biggest pet peeve.

The first step was to put a skim coat on the walls and ceiling. It had some sort of weird texture...maybe a previous owner's attempt at venetian plaster. Fail. It took a good long while, a lot of patience, and a LOT of sanding. However, we ended up with a very smooth surface, ready to paint.

Shon and I love the look of oil-rubbed bronze, so this faucet was exactly what the doctor ordered.

I was really excited to get started with painting, because I knew I wanted to try something a little more than just a single color on the walls. We chose to do one accent wall with stripes. The colors we selected were Behr Sea Salt and Behr Ocean Pearl. I am so happy with the way it turned out!

We bought a new mirror, a new light fixture, a new hand towel, and a new faucet. AND, I even replaced the faucet on my own! Good gravy was it challenging for never having done it before. It only took 5 attempts before the faucet and drain assembly were leak-free! :-P This is now probably one of my favorite rooms in the house. Hooray for hard work and a little creativity!

Master Bathroom Reno

We saved all our pennies and finally were able to redo our master bathroom. Check out the nice green tile and gorgeous lumpy wallpaper. You're jealous, aren't you?

Before

In order to save a bit off the final cost, Shon and I decided to do the demo ourselves. And let me tell you, it was NOT as easy as we expected. We started the project thinking...we're just going to hit crap with a hammer and we should be done in a couple of days. Well, we did hit crap with a hammer, but it certainly didn't only take a couple of days.

We'd made a little progress at this point, but still had that pesky green floor to get rid of. Little did we know that underneath the green tile was concrete that was reinforced with some kind of wire mesh that made demo EXTREMELY difficult.

 In order to gain a little square footage in the bathroom, we took a little space from our master closet, so here you see Shon after he'd finally made it through into the closet.

 40 hours later, over 2 weeks, and a couple of jacked up fingers/hands later, we finished the demo and our contractor began on the renovation.

 Lesson 1: wear gloves.

 Lesson 2: don't hammer your finger

Though the demo was slow, we saw quick progress when the contractor started working.

 
We chose a 12x12 travertine tile for the bathroom floor and walls, and a mosaic travertine for the shower floor.

 

 We picked a vanity and sink from IKEA because it was simple and had drawers vs doors, a look Katherine preferred.

And check it out! Just like that, it's finished! We are so happy with the end result and feel like we live in a luxury hotel now.