Laundry Room Makeover-5

Finally the finale of the big house re-do.
Because you have waited sooo long :)

 

The laundry room freshly painted and utilities in place. There is one thing I failed to mention to hubby and I guarantee if I didn't say anything now, he would never have noticed...

 

The measurements were so tight that no one remembered the width of baseboards until all of the drywall and painting was done. On the right wall we left the existing board in place so to compensate the baseboard on the new wall was run up to the washer and stopped there. You wouldn't have even noticed if I didn't say anything. ;)

 

 

DETAILS

 

I have wanted for such a long time to put my girls' special outfits displayed in shadow boxes.

I just wasn't sure where to hang them. I didn't want them in their rooms.

 

 

I thought the laundry room was a cute and perfect place to display them.

This is the only thing on the new wall.

I loved every line.

 

 

 

BEFORE & AFTER

The bathroom was fun to update. It is a little more "grown up" we keep saying. :)
I seriously was nervous that hubby would think I made it look like a granny bathroom.
When I told him my color scheme I could instantly detect his distaste.
I was much more hesitant to reveal this one to him.

DETAILS

 

I walked past this 'Be Silly Sometimes' pictures a couple times while browsing Target. I kept glancing at it because it matched my color scheme but kept reminding myself that I was going for a "sophisticated" look.

But let's face it.

A lot of times I need a reminder.

Slow down.

Take time to enjoy the little things, the little moments, make silly memories.

In the past few years I had a hard time just chilling out and being silly.

I went back and grabbed this picture when I realized all of this.

Every day when I look at myself in that mirror now, I see the little reminder overhead.

Slow down. Enjoy the day. And soak up the memories.

I will never get these days back.

 

Yellow and white chevron curtains that started my whole inspiration.

I saw some on Pinterest that I loved.

But I grabbed fabric and sewed these ones up myself.

 

Target never fails. Although my rug looks matted now, it is super cute. Babygirl enjoys dancing on it in front of the big mirror. So I don't think it will ever return to it's fluffiness.

 

 

{Also, I know I don't really have a 'before' pic for the bathroom but just pretend that white on the left has a doorjam and a handle. Wah-Lah! Before pic!}

 

BEFORE & AFTER

 

Laundry Room Makeover-4

Why yes.. Yes I am still dragging these house posts out :P

After the final drywall work was done we had to paint. But I decided I didn't want to paint the bathroom unless all of the wallpaper was off all of the walls. When hubby and I painted before we just painted over top of the patterned wallpaper. Three of the walls were covered but not the wall with the toilet. When the new wall was built the drywall guy scraped the paper off the half existing wall for me. Thus leaving 2 smooth and 2 patterned walls in the bathroom.

We set out to scrape the rest of the paper off. A few months ago I decided to paint the space beneath the upper kitchen cabinets after I peeled the border off the wall. I looked online at home remedies to remove wallpaper. Warm water and fabric softener. 

Funny thing is, I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned that last part to hubby. Ha 

Babygirl decided she wanted to be a big helper :) She loved that mommy let her do grown-up stuff. 

We did not have a paper scraper and I was too cheap to purchase one after dying of a heart attack over the amount I spent on paint. So we improvised. 

Why yes... Yes that IS a pizza cutter. 

No one will ever want to eat pizza at my house again! :)

Finally after 2 days the wallpaper was fully scraped off. The floors were swept, walls wiped down, and painting was able to begin! 

Once again I Iet Babygirl help the grown-ups. She loved painting with us. I had to keep my eyes on her the 2 days it took to paint because she would randomly grab a brush or roller and start on her own. 

I screenshotted the last picture from snapchat since I didn't have any pictures of myself painting. 

Laundry Room Makeover-3

I had to wait out until the next week in order for the drywall work to be done.

Since the first guy had to do his job in two days instead of one it knocked me down on the priority list. The drywall guys had other jobs scheduled.

Perfectly fine. I understood.

 

Didn't mean I wasn't frustrated.

At this point we were at one week of construction.

I was tired of my house being torn apart!

I lost all motivation of cleaning.

The rest of the house fell to pieces and turned into a train wreck.

I didn't care.

I was over it.

 

In my mind, if the whole house couldn't be clean then none of it would be. 

 

The drywall took 3 full days.

Then came the fun of painting and decorating.

I love that I can keep dragging this process out. ;)

Laundry Room Makeover-2

 

This was how the worker ended day one. Uhm no.

This wasn't what I asked for. I wanted the door removed and a wall put in.

He tried telling me I chose to go with the other option of leaving the washer and dryer how they were and just creating a way to open up that door into the master bathroom.

 

No thanks mister.

Please return tomorrow to fix what you messed up.

 

I had a major cry/fit meltdown out of frustration.

The guy had already told me he was going to charge me $50 more than he quoted me.

This was before I told him he wasn't doing it right.

 

I was tired.

Tired of doing this on my own.

Tired of trying to deal with people while my hubby is away.

This is his job!

He's the one who's supposed to schedule/hire people to work for us.

He's the one who's supposed to negotiate.

 

I was mad, sad, frustrated. Everything.

 

So needless to say..

He returned the next day. Moved the waterlines over to where I wanted them and framed the doorway for drywall.

Laundry Room Makeover

After having some electrical work done a few months ago we were left with a small hole under the fuse box. We had ancient circuit breakers and it would be so expensive to replace if anything were to happen with them. So we went ahead and replaced the whole box and all the fuses.

After coming to realize that there wasn't a wall behind the counters separating them from the laundry nook, we decided to go ahead and have some drywall work done.

These are all the BEFORE photos.
I had to clear out all of the bottom cabinets in order for the plumbing work to be done.

 

The refrigerator had to be moved. This isn't the normal location for these furniture or appliances.

 

 

This was the small hole that needed fixed.

This was the beginning of 2 1/2 blah weeks.

Christmas Decorations

It is so hard preparing for the holidays without my hubby here.

Christmas is his favorite time of year and my heart hurts this year that he is so far away.

When he was deployed to Iraq, his R&R was over Christmas and New Years so he only missed Thanksgiving at home.

 

I normally decorate the house the night before Thanksgiving per tradition,

but after a trip to L&D and constant contractions,

I thought I should get things decorated as soon as possible.

I wasn't going to risk going into labor and then trying to decorate the house

with a newborn and a toddler.

So the décor went up the weekend before Thanksgiving.

 

I tried to take a video of babygirl helping me decorate the Christmas tree but that was short lived and I ended up doing it alone because she freaked out over the way the tree felt.

But I took pictures of everything so hubby can imagine what things are looking like at home.

 

Someone got into the holiday spirit for the occasion.

Pink tree in babygirl's room.

She did help decorate this one.

And I catch her all the time taking the ornaments off and pretending to decorate all over again.

Babygirl's special ornament this year.

Baby-Sister couldn't be left out!

She needed her own purple tree to match her room. 

A few new ornaments I picked up to represent this year.

I looked everywhere for a yellow ribbon but couldn't find one. 

Right before Babygirl was born we picked up this ornament at a craft festival. 

Baby-Sister couldn't go without either!
I was over the moon when I found the same stand at the festival.

Our finished tree.

Not sure why I didn't get a picture of it all lit up.

I am sure there will be plenty before Christmas is here.

I skipped my normal tree ribbon this year and bought

yellow ribbon.

I wanted to do an all-Americana theme but decided not to spend the money on new décor.

My yellow ribbon is enough for me. 

He may not be here, but his stocking still hangs.

Care Package -Decorating

Like I have said before,

babygirl is serious when it comes to coloring on boxes for her daddy.

She misses him SO much and I know that coloring pictures and boxes for him is a special deal to her.

 

 

This is one of the first care packages that I sent hubby.

At his going-away party I invited people to bring items to help fill his first boxes up.

It was fun to send him things from a group of people when he first got overseas.

There was a lot of snacks and hygiene items in the first few boxes.