I will warn you that this may be one of those epic books that has about 700 chapters. Hopefully not. I mentioned yesterday that taking off the door to the linen closet (To be clear, I’m not talking about the actual bathroom door. I’m open to a lot of things but no bathroom door is definitely not one of them!) was a huge turning point for us. It instantly went from a giant unconquerable task to something that we could manage one step at a time. Why did we think it was such a turning point? See for yourselves.
Before:
After:
Doesn’t that feel a million times more open? Imagine Peter and me sitting on our bed a about midnight on a Friday night. I say, “It’s just so cramped in there. That door gets in the way.” And then Peter exclaiming, “Let’s just rip it off!!” Here’s an action shot just for fun.
Unfortunately, removing the door left us with huge slits and holes in our door frame from where the hinges used to be.
The holes can be easily patched using wood filler. I put some in each hole, making sure to pack it into the small crevices in the back.
After letting the wood filler dry for about 24 hours, I sanded off the excess, and then repeated the process. If I was going to do this over again I would have put an insane amount of wood filler over the hole so that when I sanded it I wouldn’t have to add any extra. The reason being that making wet wood filler attach to dried wood filler is much more difficult than when it is all wet. I ended up battling the bits that were falling right off onto the floor.
When the holes were patched and the door was off for a few days, Peter and I couldn’t bare to look at the awful wall color any longer. For some reason, the linen closet was painted a terrible yellow color. You’d really have to see it to understand just how bad it was. I’ve attached a photo below but it really doesn’t do the color justice. If you want to get an idea imagine urine mixed with whipping cream and then covered it with high glass paint. It was really that bad!
Anyone who knows me well knows that grey is my absolute favorite color. (I remember asking a friend of mine if it was OK to paint my entire house in different shades of grey. The short answer is no but I still believe I could make it work.) After a trip to Home Depot, we brought home a few paint swatches and taped them inside the closet to get a better idea of what the paint would look like.
Wondering what we chose? You’ll have to come back to find out, but since I forgot to take pictures when we first removed the door, the after photo at the top will give you a sneak peak of what’s to come.
What’s going on in your bathrooms? Many of you are probably following Meg’s bathroom reno. Heather wrote in yesterday saying that she has an embarrassing bathroom as well. Does anyone else have anything to share? Or does anyone else just want to help me encourage Heather to post her bathroom photos? (Misery loves company.)
This tutorial was the reason that I fell in love with ~Ruffles and Stuff~. I saw the picture of these perfectly embellished slippers and I swooned. I was uncertain about my sewing skills but the tutorial seemed so easy and I had confidence from my recent success of making a tutu, so I went for it. I left work and went straight to store, after store, after store searching for everything I needed. When I finally got home, I was so burnt out that I left the materials hanging in a bag on our closet door.
But last week, while Peter was out of town I pulled them out and decided to give it a try. Amazingly, it turned out really well. Here’s the boring before:
And here’s the amazing after:
If you want to do try it yourself, here’s what I did. I started with basic Isotoner slippers. I bought mine on sale from Kohls. I cut the seams to remove the the little bows from each slipper. Using a white cotton, peach cotton, and gold tulle I created three flowers for each slipper. I was a bit concerned about this step because I didn’t know how to make fabric flowers. I learned that several wavy circles stacked on top of each other works out pretty well.
Then fold each flower in half and sew a small little “x” into it. This keeps the flower together, without taking away its movement.
Finally, add three champagne pearls and sew the flowers on to the slippers.
Now prance around your house and relish in the femininity of your new slippers!!
Have you guys found any tutorials that you just had to try? How’d they go?
Before Peter and I moved in together, I read a lot of articles about difficulties that many couples face when trying to merge their decorating styles. So when I moved in I waited and waited until eventually I couldn’t stand it anymore. I needed our place to feel like a home. We decided to pick one room and focus our efforts on making it feel livable. We’ve had some detours along the way but I can finally say that it’s finished, or at least as finished as a room can ever be.
Last night while looking back on the before photo, Peter exclaimed, “How did you even live here?!” The funny thing is that he lived here for three years like this before I ever moved in, except without the TV or the coffee table. It was really bare.
(Sorry, I forgot to straighten out the cover on the chair before I took this photo.)
I would love to add a rug but, unfortunately, one of our dogs can’t control his bladder when he gets excited. We love him anyway.
You can read more about what we did here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. *Deep Breath* On to the next room.
When I was visiting Clay, he showed me a quick trick for cleaning grimy faucets. You will need is baking soda, vinegar, a plastic bag, and a rubber band.
Pour some baking soda and vinegar in the plastic bag until the mixture starts to bubble like a volcano. Then attach the bag to the sink using your rubber band. Wait awhile–we forgot about it for a few hours but I’m sure an hour would have sufficed.
Remove the bag and enjoy a cleaner faucet! It’s that easy and look at the difference!
Don’t you wish you had a friend like me to post photos of dirty places in your house? 
Thanks Clay!
When Clay and I decided to refinish his dresser it was in pretty sad shape. There were dents and scratches all over and, as you can see in the picture below, one of the handles was missing and one was mysteriously upside down. Strange.
After our attempt to stain the beat up dresser failed, we decided to hide all of our mistake with paint–but first we wanted to challenge ourselves in one more way. The pulls that Clay found to replace his old ones required holes that were wider apart than the originals. Instead of searching for pulls that fit the preexisting holes, we decided to patch the old ones using Elmer’s Wood Filler. The process was simple. Fill the holes with putty and let them dry for 2-8 hours (huge window, I know). We left them overnight just to be on the safe side. After the putty dries, you sand off the excess until only a smooth surface remains.
We also did this with some of the major scratches and dents on the outside of the dresser.
After two quick coats of paint and the not-so-quick process of re-drilling holes appropriately sized for the hardware, Clay’s dresser had a brand new look.
I think the handles were meant to go on the other way but Clay preferred having them look like they pointed at one another. Overall, we’re really pleased with the way that it turned out. The dark color balances the curves of the wood making it feel more masculine. It’s definitely more suited for a guy’s room.
