A bathroom update, but make it extra moody.

Finally tackled our little windowless powder bathroom. This room was white, boring and so very sad. But now...it's green, dark and extra moody. With a splash of gold. Because why not go bold in such a small space?!? I've had this vision in my head for a while, wanting to dress up the back wall in a horizontal version of board and batten essentially. The room is far from large, so I hoped this feature wall would help make it appear wider. The ceilings are already tall, so I didn't need to draw anymore attention that direction. Those tall ceilings are part of the reason I've been putting this project off for quite some time, it felt daunting. But when I volunteered to host my family for Christmas Eve, I knew it was time to get to work! (And apparently I work well under pressure.)

Bathroom before, looking pretty bland.

Starting with the accent wall treatment, I was happy to find some precut trim pieces that were only 6 feet long which worked perfectly as the room is just over 5 feet wide annnnnd they just barely fit in the back of my SUV. The boards I used for this project were 1x2x6 MDF boards. They do come in longer lengths as well, but I bought the shortest I could get away with mainly for ease of transport reasons. I try to only drive the creeper van when it's absolutely necessary. 🤣 I played around with the spacing by placing tape on the wall, but eventually landed on spacing the boards about 10.5" apart. Once I cut each board down to size, I added a bead of liquid nail to each piece and then nailed them into place with our finish nailer. Super quick, easy and simple process. I also used this quick dry wood putty to fill any nail holes and caulked all of the boards to ensure everything was seamless and perfect prior to painting.

Accent wall up and prepped for paint.

After months.....errrrr more like a year of Samplize paint samples up on the walls, I had narrowed my final color choices down to two Sherwin Williams options - Pewter Green or Rosemary. My indecisive self actually let my son and hubby pick the final color and they both voted for Rosemary. It's honestly a tiny bit lighter than I was hoping for, even in this small windowless room. But it's a true earthy green, that is just beautiful.

Now it was time for all the finishing touches. I knew a gold framed arched mirror was a must in this space and I was so happy to grab this one for such an affordable price, from where else but Amazon! The light fixture was a bit of a "splurge" for my usual budget self at about $250, but I just loved the style and finish of this George Kovacs honey gold light. I just had to have it for this new moody space. It's hard to photograph in the room, but as you can see by the stock photos - it is truly such a beautiful piece. I had done a couple floating shelves in our old power room and really liked that look. So off I went to find some modern, chunky, floating shelves that worked well with our white oak vanity. Of course, Amazon delivered once again! I purchased these gorgeous, high quality shelves for under $100 and am so happy with how they turned out. Plus they were so simple to install thanks to great craftsmanship and instructions. I mostly pulled decor that I already had on hand and stole some things from other areas to style the shelves. A few ceramic vases, a framed quote, a candle and reed diffuser on a pretty marble tray. I then hung these gorgeous butterfly prints I had purchased from a local Oregon City artist over the summer. They just needed these thin gold frames to finish them off. Finally I added a little starburst framed mirror that's been looking for it's perfect place to shine and the room is complete. I'm sure I'll find things to add along the way, like some great hand towel and maybe even a small rug...but for now I am pretty happy with what a huge transformation this was, for about $600 for all supplies and most of the decor.

So glad to have this project done. Now let's see how many more indoor projects can I cross off the never ending list, before the nice weather returns and my focus goes back to all of the outdoor projects. :)

No dead plants here…

I am beyond happy to report that at least some of my plants are still thriving and happy even after a few weeks of 100° + temps in the PNW. I finally gave in and switched to faux plants on the front porch, after a few years of unsuccessfully trying to have live plants. Nothing ever did very well, it was probably a combo of too much shade...and more than likely not enough water. Yes, I sometimes forget to water my plants. OB loves to call me out on it and tell me to "quit bringing home more plants" that I'm going to kill. That's when I quickly remind him that if we had that sprinkler system installed, all of my plants would be just fine. Can you tell I'm beyond ready to tackle that project?! 🤣 For the sake of my plant investment of course. But for now, these adorable little faux cypress trees will just continue to thrive no matter how much I neglect them.

I just love how they look in these faux concrete pots I found on Amazon, these are such great quality and very light weight. In fact, I love them so much I bought this set of three for the back yard, by the shop too. Trust me when I say they are even better in person! (Plants in these pots below are not faux, let's hope they survive.)

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The Shed Glow Up

We've been in some serious need of extra storage for all the yard tools and random "stuff" around here. Our garage is already bursting at the seams with our ever growing car collection and it's quite hard to keep it neat and tidy when you're trying to store everything + the kitchen sink in there. I guess it's technically a kitchen cabinet from the original farmhouse, but don't even get OB started on that. So I had been on the hunt for a reasonably priced used shed for quite some time. We'd gone out and looked a couple, but the feat of getting these sheds out of their current location was going to be far too much work and far too much risk. Finally this one popped up, although it was a good 45 minute drive and needed some work - it seemed to make sense at only $1k. We hired our wonderful handy neighbor Paul to transport it and I got to dreaming up my design plans. Our entire home is a combo of black and white, so after a little back and forth I decided black would likely be easiest to keep clean and a bit lower maintenance.

The shed when it arrived....

My vision for the shed design...

It was finally time to get started and little did I know this would be the weekend that OB handed me the nail gun and walked away. Yes, he actually handed me a power tool and left me to my own devices. I'm still pretty shocked about this myself. Anyway, I started by adding shelves and organizers inside the shed - areas to hold the big yard tools and smaller ones to organize my small garden tools, gloves, stakes etc. I felt absolutely confident and so ready to embark on my first "construction project". So a few days later I started by adding some simple board and batten siding to the shed, as it was just lacking that extra oomph that it desperately needed. This project ended up being much easier than I expected and added SO much to this little old shed. Materials were only about $100 for wood and caulking, so rather inexpensive for such a big improvement.

With siding and caulking complete, the shed was ready for paint. But first, we had to address that brown roof. OB was certain it would stand out like a sore thumb, so we ordered a gallon of this Behr Roof Paint and he went to town spraying a couple quick coats on before we tackled the body of the shed. I am not going to lie, I definitely had my doubts about painting a roof! But this really looks great, nobody would ever know it wasn't black to begin with. And no way you could ever tell it was painted. It truly looks awesome and for $40, it was a no brainer on a shed that we didn't really want to re-roof just for aesthetic purposes.

We continued with spraying the body of the shed, luckily with left over paint we had from redoing the garage last summer. We recently purchased this inexpensive paint sprayer from Amaazon when we stained our fence, we are very impressed with what a great job it's done so far and for less than $300 it was a steal. The shed instantly started taking on a whole new look, we loved the new look so much that we opted not to add any white trim as we had initially envisioned. But of course I had to throw in a solar barn light and some brass hardware for the full effect. We took a break for a few weeks then added the final touches - a little front stoop and some solar lighted boxwoods this past weekend - and now it's finally complete. We are SO happy with the transformation and our garage is already staying cleaner. Win win! (We'll have to address that brown grass next year, as we hope to get our DIY sprinkler system installed in the fall.)

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