Bathroom design inspiration

When we started this project, we had a general idea of the style that we were going for - clean, modern but not cold, timeless, natural materials, and simple lines. We started to term our desired style as Nordic modern farmhouse. But translating a general idea into specific material choices proved to be a challenge that required much time searching the internet for specific pictures of design inspiration.

I knew going in that we wanted natural materials, light colored wood, and a light filled room with neutral tile colors. But specifically, I had no idea. Looking for photos helped us to narrow down our choices.

These photos were the ones that resonated with us most, and from which we drew specific material selections.

I started to notice that I was collecting a lot of pictures of long, skinny tile that was stacked horizontally, like in this shower. I also liked the brightness of the white tile.


Chad responded to the pendant lights in front of the mirror in this bathroom. The large mirror behind the sinks makes the room look bigger and is very clean and simple. (But - we're not huge fans of the vanity - which is one of the challenges of inspiration pictures. You have to pick and choose what you like, and ignore the rest. Often I would find a picture I liked, and then ask myself, what is it that I like?)


Although this is a kitchen, this photo is the one we thought of most when selecting tile. We liked the white, horizontally stacked tile contrasted with the mid-tone gray tile floors, and the light wood flat panel cabinets.

This photo shows a similar wall tile, but (I think) in a carrera marble tile:

None of these photos illustrates exactly our new bathroom, but I think you'll start to get a sense of where we're headed.

We're excited.

Remodeling phase 1: bedroom and bath

Our remodeling project has begun. Let the craziness begin!

Phase 1 is tackling a bedroom and bathroom upstairs. Phase 2 will include the entire first floor, including a new kitchen. And then phase 3 is back upstairs, to add a master bath and rip out our nasty duplex kitchen and make the upstairs into bedrooms. But I am getting ahead of myself. This is going to take YEARS.

For now, we focus on just two rooms upstairs.

The plans

Here is the before layout. A big problem with this bath is that since the roof it pitched, the shower is only about four feet high. The dotted line between the bed and bath represents where that roof pitch starts.


Here is the after plan. The room placement similar, except we steal some room for the bathroom from the bedroom:

Before photos

The bath looks OK in this photo, but the big problems are hard to see: the pitched low roof, junky vinyl floor, dog eaten woodwork, broken window covered with flaky lead paint, discount vanity sink, and leaky toilet.


Here you can see why a shower would not be a possibility for anyone over 5 feet. You can also see one of the many, many cracks in the ceiling:

Here is the bedroom before, which we were sleeping in. It was actually the nicest bedroom in the house, but we were having ice dam problems due to the lack of insulation in that pitched roof, and also the windows were not entirely operational.


The rooms now

What have we done? Um, tore it all out. Here's the old bathroom.


Former bedroom:


Another view of the bathroom:


And one minor accident (restaged here) along the way... whoops! Everyone's ok!


The chaos has begun! Lord help us.

It's been awhile.

Well. Hello there! It's been awhile. I've fallen a bit behind on blogging. Um, like a whole year. We've, uh, been a bit busy:


It's true that pregnancy takes some of your brain cells and diverts them away from their normal activities. The scientists can't prove it yet, but I would guess that's because they are mostly men. This blog became a casualty. It was hard enough to get anything beyond regular functioning done, let alone write about it on the blog.

But, I'm going to try to make a comeback. We have some exciting things ahead of us with our new project house. We've been here almost a year now, and while we've mostly focused on raising baby, we've also started to get together our plans for the house renovation. We're working with an architect, and the house is gonna awesome. It's a big project, will be a lot of work, and will take a long time. But we are super excited about it, and we've got a lot to talk about.

In Search of New Blog Name
So! In honor of the blog comeback, I think it's time for a new blog name. But, I haven't thought of it yet. Got any ideas?

The new blog name should:

• Focus on house remodeling and design (with a few cute baby pictures thrown in here and there.)
• Be positive, because I want to focus on why we're doing this, not the inevitable grumbles and struggles along the way. For example, thisoldshitter.com doesn't fit the bill. "Old shitter" is the first nickname we gave to the house, and while it's accurate, it's a little obscene and definitely not positive.
• Be short and catchy, so that I can tell people, "hey, check out thisurl.com," and so they will actually remember it.
• Shouldn't focus on a specific design style, because we haven't defined our design style yet. The closest we've found to naming the style we're going after is scandanavian modern, or farmhouse modern, but we won't know until we get there, so we don't want to put ourselves in the wrong category. We'll use lots of natural materials, and the design will will be simple and clean, but also warm, friendly and super functional.
  
• Could include minneapolis or mpls, as that indicates the urban location of our home.
  
• Could reference the fact that it's an old house becoming new again, or an old house transformed. Our house was built in 1923, but when we're done, it will be almost all new. The form is very simple, almost a farmhouse, with hardly any redeeming things to save in the renovation. We loved the fact that it was a blank slate that we could work within - ensuring that we have a roof over our head while we transform the entire space. We're not adding on, we're just working within the existing square footage and foot print.
  
• Shouldn't be too personal - i.e. I don't want to include our last names or address.
• Might include that we are doing a lot of work ourselves. We'll hire people to do parts of the project so that we finish before 20 years from now, but we'll be taking on a large part of it ourselves.
  
• Might include that we'll be budget and value conscious, but not cheap. Long lasting, beautiful, natural materials are not the cheapest choice, and we definitely have pretty big budget limitations to work within. Champagne taste, beer budget. We'll need to be creative and resourceful.

Wow, that turned into a long list of requirements for a short little blog name. Can you think of anything that fits the bill?

More before pictures + how we removed heavy smoke smells from the walls

Well, we did it. We successfully moved into the new place, which we are now referring to as the "sweet dump." I am tired. It's been non stop moving, packing, organizing. We close on the old place tomorrow.

We got lucky and both renters moved out April 1, so we had about 2 weeks to clean and paint, which has made a HUGE HUGE difference. The pictures below were taken after both tenants had moved out and the place was empty, as we just started painting. The big thing which cannot be expressed by these photos is the incredible SMELL of the first level. The former tenants smoked heavily. Here's how we got rid of the smoke smell.

Smoke removal for walls and rooms with heavy smokers
-Wash all rooms where heavy smoking occurred repeatedly with TSP
-Wash all rooms repeatedly with a product from Odor Matic, a local Twin Cities company, which did wonders and actually leached the nicotine out of the walls.
-Repeat. Some rooms got washed 8-9 times. Wash until the wall stop oozing nasty nicotine. Yuck!
-Primed the walls, ceilings, and all all woodwork with a product called BIN. This is a product similar to Killz but works better for woodwork and for smoke.
-Repeat
-Painted 2 coats with regular paint (we have had good luck with Behr paint.)

So, um, that was a lot of work. My job was to write the checks, as I was lucky that the guys on Chad's landscaping crew were willing to do this dirty work. I loved the feeling of sitting at work while all the nasty crap got done on the house. I think we've already done more on this house than has been done in the last 50 years.






We already have a good before and after shot just from the tenants moving out:

Before:




After:

Kitchen designs

So, I downloaded the IKEA kitchen design program and started playing around with some kitchen designs. Here is where I left off:
The space in the right lower corner would be a bathroom. The area in front of the sink would be a breakfast bar open to the living room.

It's a big work in progress!

Laundry Ideas

Where to put the laundry? Upstairs, main floor, or basement? We won't know our options until we get further into the redesign, but I would love to move the laundry into either the main floor or upstairs - but there has got to be enough space for storage and hanging clothes, and I am not sure if we have it.

Some ideas from Better Homes and Gardens: Laundry Rooms

I like the sink and the hanging storage:

Love the sink - looks old and super functional. I wonder how much it costs. Probably more than my fridge. :)

Another nice layout, but no room for hanging clothes.
A nice little laundry space.

Kitchen Cabinet Inspiration

More ideas from apartment therapy: Christen's "Beautiful Goofball" Apartment

I love the cut out handles in the cabinets and the marble countertops.

Inspiration: Kitchen

More kitchen inspiration from Apartment Therapy: Jason Weinbeck's Mid Century Frugal Fix Up . This place is in Richfield, MN.

Our first big project at the new place is likely to be the kitchen, so I've been gathering up ideas and inspiration for the design.

Nice choice of materials (on a budget) in this cute little kitchen. The cabinets are from IKEA, we will definitely be considering them as a source in our design. The tile was cut down from standard 12 by 12 tiles to save money.