DIY Powder Room Makeover

We live in an eleven year old townhouse, or should I say eleven years young?!

It definitely does not fall into the category of out dated. But being the avid "pinner" that I am lately (I blame the whole "stay at home mom" thing) I have become obsessed with doing DIY projects around my home to make it more appealing and with the times.

Our powder room seemed like a good place to set my creative juices free. It isn't too big, it is on the main floor, there were many ideas I had that could make it look more modern in a decent price range. Done. The powder room it is!

First I began with prying the baseboards off the wall. Just one random day during the holiday break. A little due to the fact that I was bored, and a little due to the fact that my husband was home and this way I could force him into helping me. Smart! He, on the other hand, hates when I do this...

Here is a photo of the bathroom BEFORE. Please excuse the training potty and baby pants on the floor. (you can't see it well, but there is a wall to wall mirror above the vanity)

The entire wall was consumed by a large over sized mirror and a set of 80's lighting. Which is funny because our townhouse was built in 2003... go figure. So first off, these two main items needed to go. Luckily my husband is an electrician ::happy dance:: so he is more then qualified to change lights and redo wiring if necessary. Ladies, tradesmen is where to go to find your husband. Trust me!

BYE BYE MIRROR...
Removing that size of a mirror took some studying. First I covered the entire mirror with packing tape, as to avoid any shards of glass cutting us if the mirror were to break. Highly recommend not skipping this step if you intend on removing a glued mirror from your wall. Thankfully our mirror did not crack or break in the process of removal. Perfect, no seven years bad luck. It did however take two people to get it off the wall as it was extremely heavy. After it was all taped up, we inserted wood shims in behind the edge of the mirror to slowly allow the glue to separate from the drywall. After about ten minutes of adding shims and moving them around, the mirror was completely separate from the wall and we were able to take it out of the bathroom. Now, I have this giant 4x6 foot mirror sitting in my living room waiting for another DIY project to become of it. My poor husband. (see end of blog post for what I did with the mirror).

NO MORE OLD VANITY...
The next to go was the wall to wall custom vanity. I wasn't a fan of the counter top, or the fact that it went over the back of the toilet. With some screws removed and my husbands muscle, he basically just ripped the counter and vanity from the wall. Now we were mirror-less, light-less, counter and sink-less.

FLOORS...
Up came the toilet, so we could take out the lino flooring and replace it will a heavy duty vinyl tile. The style where it comes in a strip that interlock together with glue. We had already redone our master bathroom with this flooring and loved how simple it was to install and how great the final product looked. We even decided to use the same color in the powder room a well. A warm beige tone. The original floor was ripped up easily and the new floor was installed within two or three hours. Yep, that's how we roll. Having done this type of flooring once before we new what we were doing and didn't have too much square footage to cover, or it would have taken a lot longer. Thank you small bathroom for that.

ACCENT WALLS...
Recently, I have fallen in love... With board and batten molding (or batten and board, whichever is the correct one) There are many different styles, and I just knew that I had to incorporate it into the powder room. Making a small room feel more modern with simple molding seemed like an easy fix. We purchased over one hundred feet of two and a half inch flat board. This when then cut into smaller pieces to be applied to the walls. You can see in this photo how we were deciding on the the design by laying out strips to see what the overall product would look like. Once we were happy we began attaching them to the wall. Using a small amount of PL and a couple finishing nails the board and batten was up. Nail holes and seams were filled with a putty that goes on pink and dries white so I knew when I could go back and sand it sand prior to painting. The entire wall and boards were painted in white to appear as one solid piece.

FINDING A VANITY AND MIRROR...
After searching for what seemed like forever, I finally found a vanity and mirror combo that would look great and fit well in the space. I had my husband pick up the items from Rona and we installed them the same day. Something wasn't right. The vanity seemed too small for the space. It was wide enough, but its depth was more narrow then I'd like. It was a very modern and clean looking piece but I couldn't get past the overall look of it in the powder room. I continued my search and found a new vanity that was a bit larger and had a warm toned sink/counter top that went with the floors perfectly. Luckily it was about the same price as the original vanity so we returned the first one and installed the new one. Boy am I happy now! It looks much better. The mirror that had been purchased still matched the new vanity well, so we did not need to replace it.

FINISHING TOUCHES...

Once all the big ticket items were in place I was now able to make this bathroom feel a little more alive. Believe it or not, it took me awhile to find a towel bar, toilet paper holder and light fixture that I liked and was the right fit. Luckily, to my surprise, I came across all three items in one combo pack! High five to me. Other than the light fixture, I was able to put up the other two all by myself. Not that either were difficult, but finding the perfect placement took some time. As did everything else I guess. The last touch was the decorative floating shelves that were put up above the toilet. Without them, the wall seemed bare. Now there is a place for extra rolls of toilet paper and some hand towels without looking too busy. 

COMPLETION...

BEFORE                                                                                              AFTER 

I am completely happy with the finished product and I am proud of my hubby and I for doing it all ourselves. Redoing the entire bathroom (excluding replacing the toilet, but including replacing the plumbing to the toilet) we spent approx. $900. From paint, moulding, vanity, faucet, sink, mirror, floors, light and accessories we got a brand new bathroom for a decent price. 

On another note... with all my Pinterest searching, I knew that we had to re-use the GIANT mirror that came off the bathroom wall somewhere else in the house. I had the perfect spot! I spent approx. $60 on supplies to create this oversized (6'x4') mirror that I hung in our living room. This puppy was extremely heavy so I may have required the help of my husband once again, but as soon as it was up I am sure he was happy that it was over....for now!

Thanks for stopping by!

-Mama Johnstone

Jealous of My Five Year Old

My five year old son has qualities I wish I had...

Each day brings him challenges. Getting older, growing pains, going to school each day, making new friends, learning new things. The list goes on. As it does for all children. Thankfully, my five year old does it all with such kindness, acceptance and love. He wakes up each morning with smiles, "I love you's", and the desire to make his day that much better than yesterday. With some of his first words being "did you have a good sleep mom?" Not wondering what is for breakfast or why he has to go to school, again. Just simply caring about my feelings and ensuring I slept well. Even if I had a horrible sleep or a nightmare I always seem to answer "I had a great sleep Honey". Because for some reason, whatever it may have been that made my sleep terrible, his words make it feel much less important and I am suddenly feeling great. He has the ability to do that with a lot of things.

Each afternoon when he gets home from school around 3 o'clock the phone rings. We all know who it is. Daddy! He is calling on his drive home to say Hi. My five year old grabs the phone and answers it, immediately saying "Hi Dad, did you have a good day?" Then proceeding to ask him what he can see out of his truck window. Without fail. Just yesterday I watched him pace around the kitchen with his hand on his hip and phone to his ear using the words "oh that's great!", and "awesome dad". At the time I didn't know what the other end of the conversation was but after talking to my husband I found out he had been telling him about his day, with our son sounding very interested and genuinely happy about my husband's good day. Again, thinking of others first.

I had recently noticed that my son had been playing at the school with a boy in his class that who I believe has behavioral issues. To what degree I am unsure, but he does have a one on one worker with him in class. Now when they play together I assume my son has no regard to this boy being any different than himself. Yet, the way he makes an effort to include this boy in the things he and his other buddies are doing makes me think otherwise. His uncle, my brother, is autistic. My son knows this. My son can tell that he is a little difficult to understand at times. I am not sure if this has made him more accepting of the boy in his class or not. He just simply seems to have a bigger heart then I can wrap my head around sometimes.

I have used the words "who is this kid?" In the most positive way imaginable.  More or less wondering how my husband and I got so lucky in having a child that understands what caring and compassion is. How can you truly teach someone who is five these things. With them understanding what you mean. He just gets it. He is lucky. We are proud.

Being a big brother he is now the protector. He has taken on this role just as I had hoped. Always making sure his brother is taken care of. Finding him lost toys, covering him with blankets when he is cold, giving him hugs and kisses when he gets hurt. I see their relationship getting better and better with each day. Yes sure, they have their differences but the intentions are always good. They also get past those differences within minutes. Another quality many wish they could have I am sure.

Being five he has the ability to ask for the world. He could easily play with his toys, sing his abc's and watch cartoons. On top of all that, he has decided to be an empathetic, caring and friendly little boy. Continually concerned about others well being. My biggest wish is that these traits do not fade. Life can take many turns and we as parents can only hope our children hold on to the good and overlook the bad. Learn from their mistakes and try hard at being better people everyday. You can be great but their is no limits to how great.

We have butt heads many times. The year we introduced our youngest son being our worst.  I am happy to say that it is in the past and we've come to understand each other better. He still knows how to push my buttons but since turning five he has grown up tremendously and matured to the point where we can reason with him and have real conversations that we know he understands. He gets a lot of his amazing traits from his dad. I also know that his younger brother will pick up on this behavior one day as well. So I hope to be surrounded by gentlemen as they grow up. My goal with having boys is mainly to raise respectful, and fun loving men.

I learn more from my son then one could imagine. He teaches me how precious life is. He reminds me what is important and what isn't.  He shows me how to love unconditionally. I recently read a blog about how a mother is their sons first love. I hope this is true because from the moment he was born he was and is my forever love.

We Stew Differently

So I inherited the old "put whatever you have in the fridge and pantry in a dish and that's dinner" curse from my Dad. Or so I thought!

Not only does it make life easy, it makes you get creative in the kitchen and I love it. I happen to have a husband who will eat anything, but I have two young boys that aren't so much like their dad. Picky for sure. Yet, they seem to like the majority of my meals. Win!

A few weeks back I found a few items that were half gone in our fridge and decided to make a stew. My own style of stew. I was never a fan growing up but I do enjoy slow cooker meals much much more now. Especially being a mom. It is a life saver in some cases for sure.

Here is my creation for you to try for yourself:

What I used...

Half a pack mini red potatoes, quartered
Broccoli floret,  cut into small pieces
Baby Carrots, a handful cut in half then into pieces
Yellow pepper, cut into small bite size pieces
Tomato, diced
Stewing Beef, browned before hand
Can of condensed, Cream of Mushroom Soup
Chipotle Ranch seasoning, to taste
Seasoning Salt, pinch (optional)
Garlic Powder, pinch (optional)
Sour Cream, to top off (optional)
Shredded Cheese, to top off (optional)

How I made it...

1. Brown the stewing beef over medium high heat until cooked.
2. Meanwhile, cut up vegetables. Feel free to add vegetables that you have in your fridge or prefer to the ones I've mentioned above.
3. Place cut up vegetables, beef, cream of mushroom soup, and seasonings into slow cooker.
4. Mix all ingredients together and allow to cook on high for an hour, or until potatoes become soft.
5. You can choose to cook on low for longer, approximately 2.5 hours. Make sure to stir occasionally and test vegetables tenderness every once and a while.

Great for a winter Sunday dinner. Best when served warm with a bun. As I write this I have my own slow cooker heating up this very dish and I am quite excited to eat it once ready. I can smell the Chipotle seasoning already, yum! I recommend finishing it off with a spoonful of sour cream on your plate, to cut back on the chipotle spices and even a little shredded cheese for the kids. Enjoy!

Here are a few photos I took...

-Mama Johnstone

To Kindergarten He Goes

The day has finally come. My oldest sons first official day of Kindergarten is tomorrow.

Even with the teachers strike delaying his first day, he is quite excited to get this show on the road. In his mind, summer just lasted a few extra weeks.

Looking back on these past five years and remembering all the times my husband and I thought about him beginning school feels so far behind us. Five years isn't that long... but five years has brought so many memories, obstacles, events, milestones and celebrations. My mind flashes back to the day he came into our lives. It is a surreal feeling to try to picture it. How can this young boy have ever been a baby, or toddler? He came out of the womb walking and talking as far as I'm concerned. There has never been a day that we were worried about how he would do in life. From the moment he found his own personality, my husband and I knew nothing would stop him. Yes, he is only five, but he shows so much potential it is scary.

A big memory that stands out in my mind is how my husband and I used to look in his crib and watch him sleep. Wondering what he would be like. Wondering who he would become. Wondering how we got so lucky that he chose us. We still watch our babies sleep, we still wonder who they will turn into over the years. Wonder what path they will choose. It is a lot of unknown. Exciting and curious unknown.

I have done well. Not allowing myself to get too worked up about school. He has been through two years of preschool, so this is just another step. Right?! So, I had done well... until I met with his new teacher today and was given a booklet to take home. In this booklet it contained a story regarding a boy named Jack, a Beanstalk and a Giant, referring to school and the teacher. In the end, the mother knew she must allow Jack to climb the said beanstalk on his own, and know the Giant is fully qualified to take him under their wing and show them the right stepping stones necessary.

Then it hit me.

My baby is going to Kindergarten!

What the hell happened? Where did the time go??

Why have I been in such denial up until this point that my child has grown into a boy. A handsome, smart, caring, creative young man. A little part of me wants to wrap him in a blanket and sing lullabyes to him. He may laugh at me and call me crazy, but it will make me feel better.

I will be ok. He will be ok.

No, he will be great!

For all the mom's out there with kids going to Kindergarten this year, or in the next few years, please know... the sadness you feel is normal. In fact, it isn't sadness at all. It is an overwhelming feeling of being proud. So unbelievably proud of your five year old who is now making their first moves to building their life as an individual. Creating new friends, learning new things, developing skills to use for the rest of their lives. It is a strange feeling. Embrace it. It will be added to the list of indescribable feelings you have had throughout your child's first five years.

Now I go to bed with a tummy in knots, an over filled heart and slight tears in my eyes.

My baby starts Kindergarten tomorrow...

I am the BEST Driver...

We all know how awful it is to travel in rush hour. Wait, let me rephrase that. We all know how awful it is to travel in a car, on the road, period.

I have come across many mind boggling drivers throughout my commutes. I am sure many of you can agree. What types of drivers have you experienced on the road? Well, let me tell you, mine has become enough to write about...

Here are some that stand out in my mind.

1. The "Newby" Driver:
Pretty obvious that I am referring to the young guns on the road with the ugly little "L" sticker on their tailgate. Yes, the ones that drive with extreme caution and shoulder check until their necks might break. This I do not have a problem with. No, in fact, PLEASE shoulder check, but don't move into my lane while doing it. Also, as scared and nervous as you are to be on a busy four lane highway with cars flying past you on either side, please know, we are much more terrified of you than you are of us.

2. The "White Knuckle" Driver:
This could be two types of drivers. One being the driver with their hands gripped so tight at ten and two I assume the blood vessels are going to eventually explode in their hands. Holding a steering wheel for dear life does not make you drive better. However, it does alert the surrounding drivers to change lanes. These drivers can also be referred to as the ones that can barely see over the steering wheel itself. We shall simply call this version, knuckle drivers. When you can see more of the back of your hand rather than the road in front of you, that is a problem. Please, please find some type of pillow to place under your backside to allow you to see the road as clearly as you should.

3. The "Can't Wait To Go" Driver:
I also like to refer to these drivers as a-holes. An impatient driver, I find, will speed off as quickly as they can from a red light, only to slam on their brakes within forty feet at another red light. This my friends I feel has karma written all over it. Even the intersection gods want you to slow down.

4. The "Happy Braker":
I do not know if this type of driver is looking for a cash grab with ICBC or they literally don't realize they are doing it. We use our brakes to slow down and stop. Simple. We, other than the above driver, do not tap our brakes a hundred times while driving on a flat road. It would make sense in rush hour, the stop and go is inevitable. However, to brake repeatedly going 50 kilometers an hour with no one in front of you and no one riding your tailgate, I think it is safe to say you just do not get the concept of having two pedals below your feet and only need to use one foot at a time.

5. The "Cutter Offer"
This has happened to all of us. I am sure many of you can also relate to this as well. The cutter offer, the one who feels superior enough to weave back and forth through lanes to win the race. Oh wait, that's right, we aren't in a race. We are all just getting to where we want to go. Funny. This driver is also surprisingly easy to catch up to at the next red light after they just cut you off. You turn your head to look at them but you will never see more than half of their face as they are much to ashamed to even look at you. I also literally laugh out loud when I am cut off and that same person then gets stuck behind the slowest driver imaginable. Again, karma. It always shows up a the perfect time.

6. The "Tommy/Tammy Texter"
Pretty easy to see where I am going with this one. We see the commercials on tv, we hear the commercials on the radio, there is no need to text and drive at any time. If you are about to respond with a reason you should be able to text, or that you are a great texting driver, I will have to stop you right there. No, you are not a good driver while texting, ever. Try to argue this with anybody and you will lose. The "WTF's", "OMG's" and "LOL's" can wait. Seriously, no one cares anyways.

Of course, I am not the BEST driver. But I can say that I am none of the above. I tend to have two little passengers in my back seat who are more precious to me than anything else in the world. These two are the reason I am none of the above. These two are the reason I hope you aren't either. Minus the "newby" drivers...because let's face it, we've all been there!

DIY "Re-Do Stairs" Project

My husband, two sons and I have lived in our home for just over five years now. We have had the same old carpet on our stairs leading from the foyer to main floor since we moved in. Everyday I walked on it I told myself "I'm going to rip this carpet up one day...I'm going to do it!"

Carpeted Stairs (Before)

 

The time came to make that thought in my mind a reality. I have been in love with the sleek dark wood step and white riser combination for a long time now. To be perfectly honest, I saw this style for the first time on the hit comedy 'Modern Family' and have wanted it ever since. It looks clean, classic and very sharp. Since this is the first thing you see when stepping into our home I knew it needed a face lift. So up came the carpet. Not easily I should add. First I began by basically taking a peek at what lay beneath the drab carpet...the riser showed promise. A nice smooth piece of wood. Perfect, I can go ahead and rip the rest of the carpet up and won't need to do much work to make them beautiful...wrong. Oh, so wrong I was. The steps I found were made of particle board and there was no hope to make them look good. Sad face.

 

Riser look liked "useable" wood, Step was NOT

 

Particle Board...ugh.

 

 Carpet Completely Removed (Gross)*The stairs looked like this for approx. a month and a half*

 

Bye Bye Ugly Carpet!



Enter husband here. My hubby was now the only way I could achieve those beautiful stairs I dreamed of. I can make things look pretty, but this task would include a lot more manual labour then I could do on my own. Luckily, he was a good sport about it and was happy to help out. He basically ended up having to do a good majority of the work and did an amazing job if I do say so myself. We can now officially say we are on the DIY bandwagon. So much pride when you finally complete a project and can sit back and admire your work. In the end, the journey was worth it. I am not going to lay out a step by step process of what we did exactly to get the ugly carpeted stairs into the beautiful wooden ones they are now, but I can tell you I did a lot of research. There are many blogs out there that can help you in the right direction if you wish to do this to your own stairs at home. Every home is different and will come with its own challenges, just be prepared for the challenges that will arise and be ready to tackle them head on.

Our first challenge came when I finally got all the carpet up. After taking needle nose pliers and removing every single staple that was stuck in the particle board, I'd say between twenty and thirty per stair, we assumed we could use what is called a stair cover kit. These are pre-packaged kits you can purchase from Home Depot that can be stained in any color you wish and simply need to be cut down in length to fit. After purchasing one kit we soon found that they wouldn't work for our stairs. They were just too small. Since this plan was a no go, we had to find a new solution. Unfortunately, this new solution would involve a lot more hard work then we had initially thought. Each and every one of those particle board steps had to be ripped up. Again, here is where my hubby needed to step in. He likes using tools and muscle so this task was easy for him. I'm sure he had fun too. We ended up getting full steps with a pre-rounded edge and pre-cut riser. The steps were made of oak and we decided to stain them an espresso color. Two coats each step. They are now a beautiful and rich brown tone. Which matches a lot of our furniture in our house, as well as the mirror frame in our front foyer. This kind of happened by accident but we are happy it worked out the way it did. The risers each got two coats of white primer. After the stain dried we applied three coats of polyurethane designed for floors, that was oil based for durability. Kids and wood, we didn't want to take any chances.

 Stained steps, ready to go!

 Painted risers, ready to go!

Making the cuts...watching his fingers as he goes.

 

Perfect fit!

 



Placing the steps one by one



Once the steps were ready to go my hubby measured each step and cut them to size for a more then perfect fit. Starting with tearing up only a few existing steps at a time he began placing them with the use of No More Nails adhesive. Since glue these days is so durable, no actual nails were necessary. You wouldn't want to put nails in the tops of your steps anyways as they would be very difficult to cover. We placed about four steps and risers at a time each evening over a three day span. We used my husbands weights to ensure a good bond from frame to stair. Sometimes you just use what you have.

 Weights, multi-purpose use

This was a slow process considering we both needed to help with the stairs but have two young boys and couldn't trap ourselves on the bottom floor with no stairs leading to the main floor in our house. It may have taken longer then we would have liked but it got done and it was well worth the wait. We had some scratches on the walls so I decided it would be best to apply a new fresh coat of paint. We also removed our bannister to give it a face lift as well. Since the risers were so white, the bannister appeared beige, but now it is clean and white like the rest. No one is allowed to touch it anymore... this is the only way it will stay white! No shoes allowed on the new stairs either, just in case.

Here is the final product!

 Ta-Da!!! From drab to fab!

 

 

Thanks for reading, check back for all of our new projects to come. Every home deserves a little TLC.

 

 

-Mama Bear Johnstone