office overhaul

Our office was purple and green, and it really needed a paint job, but we had already put all the things in there and the colors were d-a-r-k. I do not understand why they were those colors or why they were so dark. I polled Facebook & Instagram for paint colors for the walls, and we settled on Light French Gray by Sherwin Williams. It is perfect! It is just the light gray I was aiming for. Our kitchen cabinets are an Olympic color called Dogwood Blossom, so I opted to match our upstairs built-in shelving to that. I value consistency in paint colors in a house (each room in my house is a different shade of beige.  Each one. Different.), so this seemed like a reasonable idea which paid off, because choosing between shades of white sounds pointless.

Here are my super-fun taken-on-my-iPhone before photos:

After much taping, priming, painting, and more painting, we finally had a room we would really love.

Here is a grand tour of our office with the updated colors:

this is a very clean version of Austin's
desk. this is not my desk.

I do claim that desk!
{what do you do with a glider you don't use?}

found this gem today at Kirkland's for $15!

a look at our brackets. we love the flexibility.

pair of curtains ordered from Kirkland's
for $25

we made our giant ruler go to seven feet
instead of 6!

I used to walk in this room and just think of all the work it would one day need - almost every time. And now I get to relax and enjoy it. This is a room Austin works and plays (computer games) in, where I spend time with the Lord and where we get general home chores done. I wrap gifts and make crafts in here as well. It's been a huge change since the room was painted. The room has come together with new accent pieces - frames, wall decor, and shelf decor.

So happy to be done... or mostly done. We have doorknobs coming in this week!

xo,

Elizabeth

master bath renovation: week 3 {completed project}

Aesthetic White

The bathroom is FINISHED, and I just want to scribble hearts all over these pictures as I figure out how to decorate this new, pretty space!

The paint color is Aesthetic White 7035 - Sherwin-Williams. Clearly, it's not very white. I picked it after playing with their Color Visualizer online, which I used to contrast this with (Sherwin Williams' most popular beige!) Kilim Beige which is all over our entire house. Not so much anymore, since I painted all of the trim white, but prior to that, everything was beige. We got rid of the window in the bathroom, so I wanted to use a brighter, cleaner shade. We are REALLY happy with it!

We are so thankful that this renovation was successful. We've seen horror stories on HGTV where the contractor walks out, or they spend too much, etc. We did have a lot of work done, and there were a few surprises, but ultimately this renovation was good for us and our house. We no longer have black mold growing in the base of our shower; we don't have any issues with our dryer vent pipe; we don't have to worry about the mixture of galvanized piping and copper joints causing a major catastrophe in our home (well, at least not in the master bathroom... sigh). Now we get to enjoy a beautiful bathroom!

I'm totally exhausted, so the pictures are going to speak for themselves. And the ones of the floor in the shower are meant to illustrate the way the travertine looks different when wet (I poured water down the drain).

Gorgeous floors

SPACE to dance in the morning

Main bath area. Three mirrors because we are vain...

The vanity looks small here but it is PERFECT.

Looking into the potty/shower area from the closet

Shame shot, more floors <3

Got that curtain at Target for $7 y'all!
Squealed as I left with it.

See where the water was? Love the color variance!

Again!

Crooked (darn it!) but I love my new wall art
from Target (I promise this is not a Target ad).

Again.
Sometimes, love is a Tyler Candle. Mmmm.

Can you tell our counters are pinkish?
Ironic homage to the old bathroom.

I am moving into this room.

THE SHOWER! We haven't event used it yet!

Who knew a toilet could look so gorgeous?
Keeping the stickers until we are un-lazy.

This tiny light is perfect for early mornings!

Another view with the dim light.

Old Bathroom Reminder Photos:

NEW, Safe, Expensive Bathroom Photos:

My last note: we believe and follow Jesus. It was a struggle to spend this much on a bathroom. Do we love it? Yes. Does it seem like it's too good to be true? Yes. Did our jaws drop when we found out that we could have had our house burn down or have pipes burst had we not done this? Absolutely. There's a blessing in this, though it was costly. We know we spent quite a bit on this, but we also think of it as an investment. If the Lord ever calls us to move anywhere, we like to think this will help our house sell like a hotcake and prove to be a point of good stewardship. And we hope it blesses other people... So, now that we aren't embarrassed by our bathroom, take the one-gallon-challenge (come over, drink water), and use our bathroom!

XOXOXOXOX (happy girl),

getting over our first cold

We ended our streak of no baby sickness last week - at 5.5 months old, Ethan got his first cold! We think he caught it at church. He is a very strong baby, though, and after about 9 days of cold symptoms, we started to see relief! Today he is asymptomatic, aside from a few little boogies.

I got very little done while he was sick, because there was snuggling and healing to be done. I had to make sure he was propped up on his mattress, swaddled, warm, had his humidifier on, had his baby eucaliptis/spearmint rub on his chest and feet, and suck out more boogies than I care to recount. Do all babies hate that snot-sucking thing?

Since I'm not working from home, we've decided to transform the back office (4th bedroom in the back of the house) into a man cave for Austin (plus my sewing machine - so masculine) and make the would-be dining room - which is attached to the living room - Ethan's play space.

It's safe to say this little boy is without want.
He has never even touched half of those toys!

That play mat was $13.50 after a coupon at Garden Ridge! It helps keep Ethan off the carpet when he scoots, which is great because there's an endless supply of Bear hair in the carpet since he is shedding his winter coat.

Next on my list is painting all of our trim white, which I started when I recently painted the dining room and the entryway, beginning with the living room trim and then the kitchen, followed by the hallway, bedrooms, and then - finally - spraying all our doors! We all know how much I hate painting doors...

Happy to have a healthy baby boy again! And here's this gem, too - three generations of Haynes men!

xo,

the (mostly) finished entryway

This is what our living room looked like before our party:

Filing taxes after buying a house and having a baby = a huge mess! We managed to get that all cleaned up, just as we wrapped up the entryway. We do still need to paint the hall doors (one is on the right of this picture - still beige!) but I am waiting to borrow my dad's paint sprayer so it goes faster...

Without further ado, here is the finished product!

The shelf is Threshold by Target. The quality is terrible
(even for Target!) so it may be returned soon...

A shot of the door with the new taupe paint

The paint in the entryway looks more brown than in the office space, but it is exactly the same. I love it - I told Austin the other day that the entryway makes me feel like we have a model home - not something from the 1970's that we're struggling to bring into the 21st century! If you're wondering, two coats of Benjamin Moore paint in two rooms (just the lower half) went further than two coats of Valspar just in the entryway. We did not use primer on the lower half of the entryway, and the Benjamin Moore covered it well (it was beige). We then used primer + two coats of Valspar's Winter Dawn on the top (that's the same shade the trim is but in a different finish). We have more Benjamin Moore paint left over than Valspar, so though it was twice as expensive, it covers twice as well. We hope to use the remaining paint in the master bathroom remodel, and we also hope to buy more of that tile for the eventual master bathroom remodel, so the house feels cohesive (and because we love the tile & paint together!)

We could not be happier with the results. Our next big projects are:
-painting all of the trim in the entire house
-painting all of the doors in the entire house
-making a decomposed granite patio in the back yard
-remodeling the master bath
-installing engineered hardwood in the office and living areas (potentially the hallway as well)

Recap of the before & after:

For now, the painting will continue on. We're waiting a little while to start on the rest. It's still too chilly - even in Texas - to work in the back yard!

xo,