a step in the right direction

We are getting so close to the big bathroom reveal, there are just a couple of things that need to be accomplished before we show you the new vanity, etc. We decided that posting an "along the road" post about the bathroom would alleviate some length that the full post could take, so here is a snippet of what we have finished, what we are in the middle of, and what we have yet to do! 

Finished: 

1. The bathroom plumbing:

More on the install later but the water is running and we don't have any leaks!!

2. The Toilet Paper holder is installed:

We took down the ugly gold and silver original, puttied the holes it left behind, painted everything white again, and then installed the new holder. Even simply upgrades like this can make the room feel like new! 

   

3. The "towel bar" wall is mended:

Because of the new vanity, the old towel bar didn't make sense in the bathroom and well, it was just plain ugly. We took down the original and instead of adding anything in it's place we just repaired the wall by puttying, sanding and painting it back to white! It's nice to just have some fresh white wall space in a small bathroom like ours! 

As you can see in the first and third pictures, the space between the wall and the "counter" shrunk from about 10 inches to four inches. Hence, the awkwardness of a bar. 

   

In process: 

1. Laundry Chute makeover:

The laundry chute, our new must have house inclusion (we LOVE it), was looking a little sad and needed a pick me up. First, we scrubbed the metal to get it nice and clean and to rid the frame of most of its rust. Second, we removed the handle/latch and taped off the door. Finally, we painted the outside edge with a small paint brush in order to spare ourselves from streaking. As for now only the outside frame has been painted and the door still needs a coat or two but it's already looking much better! 

      

2. Medicine Cabinet:

With our new vanity the existing medicine cabinet is looking dwarfed and yellowed. The new crisp white porcelain sink creates a true point of color reference for the cabinet. We don't want to buy a new cabinet yet, and we don't want a gaping hole in the wall covered by a larger mirror either (we like the storage space) but something has to give. Our answer: paint! We haven't decided if we will go white like its surrounding walls or dark like the base of the cabinet but we do know it's getting some paint lovin' this week! So far we have removed the door and used liquid deglosser, a sanding agent, on the frame to ready it for paint! 

   

   

Coming up: 

1. Sealing the shelves: 

We have noticed that the shelves we refinished for the bathroom (here) collect a lot of dust and are hard to clean because we didn't use a sealant on them. We are going to use a water based sealant so we don't have to air out the bathroom (and house) for days after applying. 

2. Changing out the light fixture:

We don't like the fixture in the bathroom but it does give great light to the vanity area. We know we are going to need one that is generally the same shape etc, but we would like a bit more of a modern flavor. 

3. Taking down shower door: 

The shower doors have been a "take down" since the very beginning and we would like to eventually live with a curtain in it's place. We are most likely going to take the doors down before we retile the bathroom and just fill in the screw holes for the time being. 

Now you can see where are at, definitely in process but making great steps toward the finish line! Keep following us this week to see what we will come up with next! 

What did all of you work on over the weekend? Anything exciting, big or small? We'd love to hear from you! 

simple changes that make a big difference

WARNING: you're in for a long post today!

Sunday was a day filled with projects for Rob and I. We tackled some of the shorter, simpler projects that we had been delaying on because we never wanted to open the can of worms on these projects (which was silly because the proverbial cans were all so tiny). Well, now they are finished very nearly finished and what a difference some simple changes can make! Let me just tell you - things are feeling fresh at the Rebhan house - woot!

We completed three tasks:

1. filling nail holes from previous owners curtains, etc and our decor changes
2. taking the inner molding out of the old bedroom doorway (that is now the secondary entrance to the dining room)
3. repainting the inside of the front door and all of the door's trim

We started the day with projects one and two, three was added on as we started patching and painting and oh my, what a difference that painted door makes!

Project 1: 

There were lots and lots of holes around the house from temporary decor solutions and "mis-hung" pictures/frames, as well as from all the old curtain rods the previous owner had installed.

Now when I say "curtain rods", I use the term loosely because they were more the bracket and telescoping rod variety that end up being covered in six layers of paint before they are ever taken down or replaced. Needless to say, it was not easy to get the 10 brackets (whose screws were completely stripped) down off the wall.

Once we managed to get everything removed, we used putty to fill all the holes. I prefer the kind that goes on pink, that way I can and make sure that I filled everything properly. I also use my hands to apply it to the wall for nail holes, but a putty knife does come in handy when you are really trying to smooth out a divot!

After we spackled everything, we waited for all the pink to turn white and then we sanded away. It doesn't take much power to sand these little areas so we just used a couple scraps of sandpaper and hand-sanded. I always like to hold a damp paper towel under my spot sanding so I don't have to clean up after! After the sanding, I just painted over the holes and "waaaalaa!" clear white walls again. It really is the simple things.

Project 2:

When we took down the wall to create the walkway (you can see that project here) between the dining room and the living room, we also took down the old bedroom door. We figured that eventually we would refinish the doorway so it no longer looked like a doorframe, but a walk-through; no one would ever know what we had done (hee hee). Well we have been done with the walkway for about two months now and well, we just got around to refinishing the trim. Thankfully the way door frames are put together, it's not hard to take them apart!

Rob only needed a hammer, a crow bar and some sand paper to get this job done! Now that we have done some projects around the house, we always appreciate those that don't require many tools and tricks!

 

As you can see from the "action shot" above, a few swift hits with the hammer and that molding was popping right off. Sometimes it amazes me how easy it is to take apart a house, ha! It took Rob about five minutes to get the molding off the sides and top of the door frame. Once the big pieces were off he had to go back and get the little splinter leftovers that were being held on by the layers and layers of paint that doorway had seen over the years. As you can see in the picture below, there was a lot of paint scrap left behind!

Once Rob took all the scraps off, all that was left to do was sand! Again, it wasn't a job for the power sander; he was able to take the remaining paint bumps and smooth them out to be level with the frame just by hand sanding.

After that, all there was left to do was paint the frame white! For now, we have sanded down the hardware "holes" and have painted them white. We are eventually going to fill them with wood, putty and paint over them again but we didn't have time this go round. Honestly though, even though we have one more step in this project, we are happy that we got what we did out of the way - it already makes a big difference! We will take a picture of the finished project when all the paint has dried and the holes have been filled!

Project 3: 

Project three snuck up on me while I was doing project #1. I was painting over a hole next to the front door and it hit me how ugly and tan/brown/yellow the front door was - yuck! So without thinking twice I just ran my paint brush over the door and now, the rest is history as they say.

The lighting in these pictures isn't great but it doesn't take great lighting to see how ugly and dirty our front door looked from the inside... not only was the door an ugly tan color, the molding around the windows (which is plastic, ew) was completely yellowed from years of sun and wear. I had never painted a door before so I wasn't about to try and paint around all the knobs and locks. After removing the lock and door handle, I also removed the plastic frame from the inside.

Here is an up close view of the window molding... can we all say it together now? EW! So yellow and so dated looking because of it. To be completely honest, I hadn't really looked twice at the front door before because there were other things to be done - but boy am I glad I looked a little closer on Sunday. After removing all the molding, I painted the door with a paintbrush for two coats and then rollered on the third coat to make it nice and smooth! I used an eggshell white that I had laying around the house - same as the walls - so it just blends right in!

I didn't want to hand paint the molding, figuring the plastic would get all streaky and that would frustrate me to no end. So I chose to spray paint... I love spray paint! Let me re-phrase, I LOVE spray paint, but I hate the spray paint that I chose for this project. It had a terrible sprayer and my table in the basement as well as my arm got covered in paint. boo!

Even though it was messy, it was worth it because the frames look 100x better than before! So crisp and clean, with a little sheen to boot!

After letting the spray paint and the door dry for about two hours while we went out and celebrated with some friends on their engagement (shout out to Jordan and Danielle, congrats you guys!!), we were ready to put the door back together

The window glass is actually just held between the two plastic panes (one on the outside and one on the inside) with a bunch of screws, so the process to take it apart and put it back together is not a hard one! 

After everything was put back together, it was an amazing difference! What was once blah and brown is now crisp and clean! Thank goodness for a little white paint :)

We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and loved ones and we wish you a prosperous new year! As always, thank you for following along with us! 

Until next time, Lindsey and Rob

swing and spray

Well it's been a while but we are still working hard on projects here and there. Today we took advantage of this beautiful Sunday to work outside and enjoy some of the warm not so freezing weather. While Rob worked on some of the weeding, particularly the plants that get stuck in the dogs coats and are a pain to pick out, I started to see what needed to be done to our new patio swing. The swing came from one of my dad's clients, someone who just didn't want it anymore and didn't want to put the work into making it look nice again. Well I'm always up for something free even it needs a little love. 

Honestly, I was even a little skeptical when it was dropped off, I mean look at that cover. Talk about moldy fabric and spider webs galore. This swing had definitely seen better days but it was well worth a little bit of elbow grease to get it back into ship shape. 

I decided the first thing that I would do was take the cover off - it dates the whole swing a little more than Rob and I liked and with all the shade the big tree in our yard provides, we weren't too worried about even making a new one to replace the moldy, ripped cover. 

Rob and I took some sandpaper to the whole unit, wiped it down to relieve it of any remaining bugs or webs and then I started spraying. We decided to go with Rust-Oleum Multi-Colored Texture Spray in "Aged Iron". It's a great product and can be found online for about $5 or in local hardware stores for about 9$, so shop around! One coat on the whole unit (not including the seat or the back of the bench) took three whole cans of the Rust-Oleum. Note: if you use this spray paint, know that it is great for sprucing up a piece but not great for full coverage - if that's your goal, I would use this texture as a second coat. 

All in all it took about three hours with a trip to the local hardware store in the middle for extra paint. Definitely not a hard project but well worth the difference a little sweat equity makes in something that was free!!

 

As you can see above (before) we were dealing with some rusting and the original paint was wearing thin and becoming green in some areas. It wasn't a solid color originally, maybe a two-tone textured deal? I'm not exactly sure but we just went right over that. 

The results are just noticeable enough and the whole swing looks a lot fresher than before. The pictures below are our "after" results. 

We are starting to love our little backyard, we even got a fire-pit the other night! Super cozy!

 

Everyone loves the outdoors in our family and we will be using this patio as long as we can before the snow comes! 

lots of love and until our next project, Lindsey

 

p.s. We got a new dog last weekend and she is great! Harlee, the black butt in the picture above is a 1.5 year old Australian Shepherd who is fitting in perfectly with Oswin, Rob and me. YAY!

Refinished floors and bruised knees

While we still had an empty house we decided to re-finish the hardwood floors in a couple of rooms. We didn't go all the way to full sanding and re-staining but my (Lindsey's) mom and I did sand the whole floor with hand sanders while crawling on our hands and knees - hence the bruises. You never realize until the next day how hard the floors actually were on your bare knees and chins, ha! We took the top layer of polyurethane off the floor and re-coated with a new layer. We had to sand, wipe, sand, wipe, make sure there was no dust remaining and then we started to paint on the polyurethane (clear coat). Mom was such an asset during this process, she honestly did most of the work!!

Mom rocking out the floor! 

The only parts that we had to stain were the replacement pieces from taking down the wall. The long piece in the walkway was replaced and stained to be a close match to the floor - we wanted it to be a little different that the rest of the floor for distinction between rooms. 

Close-up on the re-stained and replacement pieces. They blend pretty darn well! 

You can see the division between the rooms here. We only refinished the room to the left of the new walkway. It wasn't necessary to refinish the right side because it was previously a bedroom with very low foot traffic. What a nice perk that was since it took a long time to get the first half done! 

The finished product was shiny until it dried. Now, it just looks fresh and clean and there are no areas that are chipping away. We were also able to fill any holes or nicks with wood putty so there aren't any snags.

Before it dried.

Dry floor: you can still see the wear marks but everything is smooth and finished feeling. 

Big time thanks to my mom for all the help, it was so much easier with her help! We now have all our furniture moved in, pictures to come once everything feels more settled!