Closet Makeover

This is all the proof I need that my husband loves me and wants me to be happy...at least until the next round of pregnancy hormones hit. I used to have three closets at the Bachelorette Pad in Texas. Yes, they were all full. It was glorious. Then we moved to Mount Vernon and bought this really cool old house...maybe you've seen it? Like most old houses, the closets were an after-thought. We bought a small Closet Maid system from Lowe's to tide us over. I hung up the clothes I wore the most, then stuck everything else in Rubbermaid tubs and stacked them 3 high.

See the exposed wall on the left? That's where Remi, my 90 lb Valentines day present, chewed through the sheetrock.

 Awesome feat of organization, huh? But, no more. Super amazing, sweet, and freakin' talented husband has made over my our closet. We knew we needed more space, which mean demolishing a pretty good portion of the wall on either side of what was already there. This is all the crap (drywall, wood, etc.) that had to come out:

We wanted a built-in look, so he decided to use cabinet-grade plywood to construct it. By the way, we are HUGE Lowe's fans if you can't already tell, but if you need lumber, I highly recommend giving Home Depot a try. The plywood was exponentially cheaper there. Here's the assembled form:

Sides, half of the back, and what will eventually be a cubby system.

Upper cubbies for linen storage, lower for foldable clothing

Husband built it in our bedroom, then slid it into place. And by "slid," I mean that he used a very large hammer to convince it in there. There it is, slid all the way back into our recessed closet space.
Then, he made his own veneer to face the front with. Yup, you can buy veneer, but it's thin and crappy, so he just made it himself using leftover wood and a table saw. Awesome, huh?
Then I stained it with our Minwax Bombay Mahogany, which I went out and bought more of, just to realize that I already had an extra can sitting at home the whole time. Duh. But we wound up using part of the second one, so it was ok. And we'll probably have to buy more of it before this house is completed. Husband is seriously obsessed with the stuff- he says it's the perfect combination of Cherry and Espresso, which sounds pretty tasty right about now, but I'm also 8 months preggo and it's lunchtime, so you can just take that with a grain of salt.

Coat 1 of 2 of stain

We bought a plain old dowel rod and stained it to match, too. And Voila! Our gorgeous closet:

Ok, so maybe those aren't all of our clothes. And we still have to border it with the trim pieces (we were going to put doors on it, but no way am I covering up my custom closet!) And the floor still needs refinishing, the bedroom walls need to be painted, and at some point we're going to have to put storage baskets in those cubbies or make something suitable. but, you get the idea.

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We Got a Facelift!

I changed a few things up on this page...really liking the chartreuse and grey. What do you think? Do you like the new look, or was the old one better?

Leave us comments below and let us know what you think, please!

Roman Tub

Originally, we only planned to take the light colored Pergo out of our bathroom, since it clashed with the hardwoods throughout the rest of the house. But, after ripping up the flooring, we discovered a rather inconvenient leak underneath the shower. Which meant ripping out the shower. I was pregnant with our daughter at the time, so husband figured that having a tub might be nice. He also figured if he finished it out really prettily, it would make a nice "push" present and give me a place to spend the first several hours of what would surely be a long first labor.

So, he drew out the shape, poured the concrete for the form, and framed it in:

I'm not sure how much the concrete weighed, but it was enough that we had to add extra supports to the floor. Remember the friend with the truck? He was with us through thick an thin on this project, too. I had pics of him building, but since he won't let me post anything that shows his posterior, you'll just have to use your imagination :) His wife also kept me company MANY a day when the boys were working on this.

Once the form was built, we slathered it in this stuff called Laticrete, which acts as an impervious membrane between the water and the concrete form. You can also use it to isolate cracks in anything that needs to be water tight, like a pool. It isn't the cheapest, but a little goes a long way and it really works.

We used a "China Multi" slate that we specialty ordered from Flooring Connections in Anacortes.

And a pop-up drain from Lowes- the only one they had:

 And Price Pfister fixtures that I got very, very lucky on cost-wise through Ebay:

That's the tub- complete with grout spacers, of course.

We considered tiling the outside of the tub with the slate, but felt we needed to lighten the room up a bit, so we opted for beadboard and painted it bright white.

Next up, hanging the mirrors above the vanity and staining the hardwoods. Once that's done, we'll put a thin piece of decorative molding where the floor and beadboard join.

DIY Double Sink Console

This is the vanity that came with the house. An Ikea special that was meant for a kid's bathroom, which worked great for me at 5'2", but was kind of a pain in the lumbar for the husband.

We'd talked about replacing it for a while, but debated whether we needed two sinks. I personally love bathroom vanities that look like furniture with sinks plopped on top. Like this one, which became the inspiration for our console:

photo credit; Pottery Barn

But, I'm way too tight with a buck to shell out for one of them. Fortunately, they aren't that difficult (though they are time consuming) to make.
We started out with this old sideboard that I bought at a local thrift store for 45 bucks. The only issue was getting it home, since we drive a very small sedan. We actually wound up walking it home on a homemade furniture dolly, which was made more comical by the fact that we were brand spankin' new newlyweds and still trying to figure out how to work together. It was a very long 5 blocks, but fortunately our marriage survived.

Awesome picture quality...sorry.

The two deep cabinets on each side were perfect for housing the sink plumbing and that still left three generous sized drawers for toiletry and towel storage.

Then, we needed sinks. The cool pre-plumbed ones that look like weird bowls were kind of pricey (are you noticing a pattern here?) so we picked up these two porcelain pasta bowls at Target for 20 bucks each and husband drilled a drain hole in the bottom of each. That's what a sink is, right? A porcelain bowl? We decided to inset the bowls a bit, so that we wouldn't be stuck choosing a swan-neck type faucet.

Unfortunately, the suckers wouldn't fully drain. It turns out that a sink is a porcelain bowl that has been shaped to actually drain at the bottom. Duh. Back to Lowes. We found overmount Aquasource sinks that worked perfectly for about 40 bucks each.

This was the scary part-hacking up a perfectly good sideboard.

The faucets we picked up at Home Depot for 68 dollars each. They're "Toomba" by Glacier Bay.

photo credit: thehomedepot.com

Here's the fun part: actually plumbing these things in. This is where having an enormously talented and very, very accomodating spouse comes in handy. This definitely was not a quick task, and I am eternally grateful that I married someone who has the know-how and guts to slice through sheetrock and sauter copper pipes.

Here's the result:

I am going to cry when we have to leave this behind.

And here it is with a few finishing touches:

So, the approximate cost of our double sink console, minus the "oops" with the original bowls:

• sideboard $45
• Aquasource sinks $80
• faucets $136
• plumbing sundries about $100 (cheaper if your bathroom is already plumbed for 2 sinks)
• grand total:about $360 (much, much cheaper than buying one pre-made)