There's a Party in My Bedroom!

That's right! Nothing say's a good time like a party in the bedroom. Or...redecorating the bathroom. Which is what this blog is about. I mean, nothing says "sad" like this bathroom from the 80s. If you could see the light fixture, I'm pretty sure the tears would be flowin'. But rest assured! The Wonder Woman who is Cait has saved us from outdated this outdated bathroom! In order for such a transformation to be completed, 1 vital thing had to occur. I had to get underway. I know! It was difficult, but I was able to do it. When I left, the bathroom looked like this. And when I got back...

The bathroom looked like this ---> Cait is a miracle worker. All I had to do was take care of electrical. Easier said than done. Not to long ago, I replaced the dimmer switch with a new fancy $23 one from Lowes. Works great. Except with CFL bulbs. Of course. However, that wasn't the biggest problem. The major electrical problem that I had was the fact that the wonderfully intelligent builders of my house put a stud right behind the middle of the sink. Exactly where the new electrical box was supposed to go. Imagine my surprise when I saw that.

Time to MacGyver it! I took a fairly thick piece of trim and matched up where the screws were on the mount for the light. After drilling out all of the holes, I screwed the trim onto the 2X6 with 2 long wood screws. That thing isn't going anywhere for a while. After that, It was fairly straight forward. Connect Hot to Hot, Neutral to Neutral and Ground to Ground (which then attached to the bracket). After all of the wiring was done just simply attach the light fixture to the bracket, turn power back on and voilà! Easy as pie. But a fairly easy update. Just add new curtains, paint, shelving and light fixture and you have a whole new bathroom. That's it for this update. And now I leave you with the song that's been running through my head this entire post:




 - Brent

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

Well, as mentioned in my post here, we re-decorated our kitchen. In this post, we will discuss what was done. Mainly, I will discuss and you will listen. Of course, if you leave a comment, then you will be part of the discussion...but I digress. On to...Green! Or...Cavern Moss in Semi-Gloss from Olympic. We went from white / wall paper to green. I think it turned out pretty well. Green walls were only a small part of the overall plan. As you can also see, all of our cabinet doors (and the drawers that you can't see) were removed.

And here is Savannah helping Grandma paint the cabinet doors. It took a lot of white paint to cover those doors and drawers. But in the end, they look great. Especially when we added the brushed nickle fixtures. I'm glad that Cait is able to see all of this in her head prior to the start of these projects. There is no way that I could have done this the way she did. But let's move onto the part that I'm most excited about. Tile.

First, I would like to give my dad a huge "Thank You" for all of the work that he did in helping me with the tile. He presented some ideas that worked out for the best. However, none of us took into consideration the fact that when we offset the smaller tiles into the medallion, it wouldn't be center when we put the stove back. Oh well, I like it. But due to this experience, I feel confident enough to do more tile work around the house. Mainly in the bathroom. But after all was said and done, the kitchen looked like a brand new kitchen! We're looking to possibly paint the counter tops to look like granite. Of course, it won't be real granite, but it will look like it. Well, that's it for this post. And now, I leave you with this, How to brush your teeth like a Spartan!

 - Brent

Ho Hum

Wow. That's all I'm going to say about my time away from here. Things have been pretty busy lately. Let's do a quick rush through the past 6 months (in no particular order).
 - Savannah turned 2.
 - Cait had emergency surgery that resulted in altered Thanksgiving plans.
 - I discovered that I am capable of cooking a Thanksgiving meal.
 - We celebrated Christmas twice (with both of our parents).
 - We re-decorated the kitchen.
 - I learned how to put up a tile backsplash.
 - That makes me want to tackle re-tiling the bath in our bathroom.
 - Cait painted our bathroom.
 - I put up the light.
 - I discovered that the people who built our house were idiots.
 - I also replaced all of the electrical outlets and light switches in the house (excluding the garage).
 - Learned how to replace the S-Drive belt in my car.
 - Discovered I have 2 alter egos (on Twitter).
And yesterday, my dad helped me replace some (more) siding on the house in preparation of pressure washing.  Following the pressure washing will be painting the house O_O. Can't say that I'm looking forward to that.

My parents are in town for the next couple of weeks. They ventured our way to look for a new trailer, which they found. It's looking like they will pick it up on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to seeing it. You can follow their escapades here: The Idaho Nomads. Their blog is updated more frequently than mine. After here, they're looking to start their journey to the west.

Work continues on the house. As I mentioned, I've replaced all of the outlets and switches in the house. During this "adventure in home ownership," I have discovered that who ever did the wiring when the house was built, didn't have a clue as to what they were doing. For example, the outlets in the dining room and hallway are on the circuit labeled "kitchen light." Really? I thought they would have been on the circuit labeled "living room, dining room, hallway." I guess not. Next step is re-labeling the breaker box. That should be fun. Cait also painted the bathroom a nice blue and replace the shelving along with hanging a picture that matches. I got to replace the light fixture. A normally simple process, but not with my house. Let's just leave it at I'm getting more creative in how I go about mounting lights. I"ll post pictures later. Needless to say, the bathroom looks phenomenal.

We also painted the kitchen green! I know what you're thinking..."Green? Really?: Yes really. I thought that it wouldn't work, but it does. Add to that the slate tile backsplash that my dad and I hung up behind the stove and the repainted cabinetry and you have an amazing looking kitchen. I think I need to post a blog showing just updates completed in the past 6 months.

I think this will be it for my late night / early morning ramblings. Until next time!

 - Brent