Home Address Number Growth Chart with Paint Chips

On Monday, I showed you the new Time Zone Bathroom Art but there was another project lurking in the corner that you weren't able to see from the photos.  I'm sure everyone has seen a billion growth charts all over Pinterest.  Well, our kiddo's bathroom wouldn't be complete without one!  Before ripping out the vinyl flooring and replacing it with tile, and before we painted the walls, we simply just marked right on the wall the kid's growth progress.  It was a fine temporary solution, but we don't plan on living here forever, so I wanted something we would be able to take with us easily.

Silhouette Challenge: Time Zone Bathroom Art

First, I'd like to take a minute to thank all of the Veterans who protect our family and our Nation on this Veteran's Day.

So, it's been a really long time since I've mentioned the kid's bathroom.  We have been busy dragging our feet putting the finishing touches on everything.  That's real life.  It happens, and it's amazing.  Unless, of course, you were holding your breath waiting for this bathroom art that I just finished for the kid's bathroom.

I decided I wanted to use clocks somehow.  I found these inexpensive clocks at Target for just $6.99 each.  From there, I was stuck for a couple days trying to figure out what else this bathroom needed.  I liked the idea of keeping it less rubber ducky or under the sea theme and more educational.  Which, realistically, I doubt the kids would ever even notice the walls anyway.  That's real life, too!

After a little searching around, I couldn't believe I came across (and didn't already know!) about a cute blog called Dream A Little Bigger.  It was there, that I found a ton of hard work already done for me (and you!)  Allison already traced out all 50 states for our Silhouette-ing pleasure!  I couldn't have been more thankful to have found this gem!  You can get them all here!

I had to resize them all a bit to fit into a better scale with the rest of the states.  This took way longer than I would have ever expected, but it was so worth it!

Of course, so many states fall into weird half-in-half-out of time zones.  I didn't stress about it too much.  I typically just moved the whole state into the time zone that most of it fell into.  It definitely wasn't as messy of divides as I expected.

I used craft paper from Jo-Ann's to cut out the shapes using my Silhouette Machine.  I then, Mod Podged it all onto painted scrap wood I found in our lumber pile.

The strip of wood below the states is also a scrap I was able to paint.  I tricked my husband into hanging it for me.  He simply drilled it into all of the studs on the wall and I was able to go back and fill in the holes with wood putty, sand, and re-paint.  The hooks are from Home Depot and I tricked my husband into centering them up under each board.  I'm a firm believer wisher that the kids will be able to hang up their own towels soon.  We even hung them lower than usual to accommodate the little ones in our lives.

This is the first month I've had the privilege of participating in the Silhouette Challenge!  I couldn't be more excited to be apart of this wonderfully creative group of ladies!  If you're interested in joining, we'd love to have you!!  Simply fill out the new member request form, and Lauren from The Thinking Closet will get you squared away!

If you're looking for more creative Silhouette projects (and I know that you are!), check out these amazing ideas below!  Be sure to leave them some comment love and have fun discovering some new (to you) blogs!

Janice

DIY Ironing Board Hanger by The Turquoise Home

Santa's Christmas Countdown by Tried & True

Nautical Anchor Pillow Tutorial by The Thinking Closet

Christmas Card Ornament with Free Cut File by unOriginalMom

Thanksgiving and Christmas Dual Sign by Architecture of a Mom

Itching to Etch by Get Silvered

Snowman Tag ~ Silhouette Challenge by Whats Next Ma

Thanksgiving Sign by Chicken Scratch NY

DIY Horse Silhouette Pillow by Rain on a Tin Roof

Sketching on Fabric by The Sensory Emporium

Paper Leaf Garland by Lil' Mrs. Tori

DIY Blessing Board - Silhouette Challenge by One Tough Mother

Christmas Pillow by Create & Babble

Glass Painting with Reverse Stencils by Givemeapaintbrush

Chalkboard Thankful Tree by Cutesy Crafts

Bottoms Up! MYO Wine Tag by From Wine to Whine

'Happy Holly-days' Tags for the Swap by An Elegant Touch...

Thank You for Dinner (Card) by Everyday Paper

Advent Star Christmas Countdown by My Favorite Finds

Geometric Fabric Bowls by Please Excuse My Craftermath...

Paper Carnival by Home At Eight

Silhouette Cameo Tutorial: Dual Sided Business Cards by Black and White Obsession

In Case of Emergency Baby Bag Tags by Tossed Salad Life

Christmas On My Mind by Creative Turn

Jingle all the Way! by My Paper Craze

Christmas Lights Garland by Making Home Base

We Are Thankful by 4 You With Love

Seattle Skyline Silhouette by Sowdering About in Seattle

DIY Stenciled Mugs by Coley's Corner

Additionally, I linked up to these great parties:

The Inspiration Exchange {No. 25}

So Many Scattered Projects

Are you the type of person who is able (and loves) to read about a half a dozen novels all at the same time?  You might read one while you're eating breakfast and another before you fall asleep at night.  Well, I'm not that type of person.  It makes me feel scattered and spread too thin.

I have that feeling though right now but it's because of too many projects around the house!  Let me tell you about a few.

You may remember me telling you about the kid's bathroom?  Well, we worked on baseboards... We got those painted, nailed to the walls, covered the nail holes, sanded, & painted them again.  We also painted the ceiling in there as well as the walls themselves.  (I just did the second coat of paint on the walls yesterday!)

Seems like things are moving along but just taking forever!  I still need to pick out new faucets that won't break the bank, towel & toilet paper rods, we need to figure out the lighting situation, put up a new exhaust fan & switches, plus, I'd like to re-do the vanity... It'll get done eventually.

On top of working in the kid's bathroom, we also decided it was a great time to cut down 8 more of our trees.  Yes, they're dead... Yes, we're planting new ones as fast as we possibly can.  In fact, we have two sitting in pots that are dying to get planted.

Here's where we took out 8 trees:

Unfortunately, I didn't take a before picture because we were running on limited time and needed to get right to work.  But, I did dig up a picture from this blog post to give you somewhat of an idea of how dead these trees really were!

Kid's Bathroom Tile Renovation Details

So I've given you a couple sneak peaks of what we've been working on, but I wanted to back up a few steps and show you exactly what we've been dealing with.

Without further ado, I present to you our bathroom before, untouched:

The floor is (was!) a vinyl linoleum which is a fine option for some folks and can truly look good if you pick the right color, quality, etc.  Unfortunately, this linoleum was making us cringe every time we walked into this bathroom.  There were several spots that were peeling up plus, the pattern and color was just not our thing.

Friday Find: Kid's Bathroom Ideas

I left you last time with the sneak peak of what has been consuming our time the last two days.  Well, I'm happy to report that we are done tiling and grouting.  Unfortunately, the really "fun stuff" is yet to come.  You know, putting baseboards back up, painting the walls, changing out the exhaust fan, lights, faucets....

Martha Stewart suggested sewing a loop of ribbon to a towel to help kids hang them up.  This could be a great idea for the long wall in our bathroom?!

Sneak Peak: Tile Job

I promised a sneak peak of what has been keeping us so busy the last two days (while my mom is hanging out with the kiddos! You are the best, Gigi!)

Running a half marathon today (to train for the full marathon in October!):

Power tools & a way to stay "hydrated":

So Simple Bathtub Table

I've been wanting a "bathtub table" for so long now. (What are those things called?!) Anyway, I finally just decided to build one.

I was able to do this project for about 12 bucks. Yes!! Those are my favorite kinds of projects! 

A Spotless Shower

We have a tile and glass surround shower that we custom built.  The greatest challenge is keeping the tile, grout, and glass clean.  The upkeep is very minimal as long as you take the 2 minutes after every shower to squeegee the glass. (You can find the squeegee we have, here.)  I never thought I'd want a shower that I couldn't just walk out of and continue my day, but this hasn't really put a damper on my day.  Maybe it's because our shower is so beautiful now? :)

Well, my other weapon of choice to keep this place spick and span is to keep a dishwashing wand in there filled with the only approved cleaning solution that our glass company endorses.  

Spring Cleaning: Master Bathroom Closet

How is it that areas of the house always seem to get out of order just when you think you've tamed them?  I have this love hate relationship with our linen closet in our master bathroom.  I love it as soon as I clean it out and organize it.  I hate it when I have to do the dirty work.

This is what greeted me as I went to get a new towel this morning from our closet.  It's wanting to be organized with pretty white baskets and everything.  But things are just out of control!

Bathroom Renovation: The Final Reveal

I've dragged-on this renovation series long enough.  The day for the final reveal is finally here.  This bathroom is so much more functional for us now.  We can't tell you how much more enjoyable it is to have a place to go every morning that doesn't feel like a drab cave.

Here are some before & afters to give you a better idea of how huge of a change this bathroom renovation ended up becoming.

Before: Fiber glass shower stall... After: Tile & Glass, natural light

Exiting the bathroom.  Into master bedroom, linen closet on the right.

Bathroom Renovation: Part Five

When we left off last, we were in a rush to get the tiling done so the shower glass could be installed.  I'm happy to say that we met our deadline.  You can see that there is still some tile that needs to be done.  We had to leave that unfinished so the glass could be set down into the groove of the granite.

Here are the finishing tiles! And a new exhaust fan!

Spacers removed, grouting done!

Time for primer.  We love Behr's paint & primer in one.  (And it will be what we end up using on the walls.) However, since we had brand new dry wall on the far wall, we wanted to be sure it took the paint properly and had a consistent application throughout the bathroom.

Bathroom Renovation: Part Four

Tile Laying.  "It's not incredibly difficult.  Just time consuming."  This is what were were told when we took a class on tiling.  It's true.  It's not a difficult process.  You just have to be patient, but work quickly.  You have to pay attention to details, but realize that tiling is not a perfect process.  There will be areas that you (and only you) notice when you walk into the room.  There will probably be slivers of tile.  But you just have to try to plan to have those hidden.  Like in our case, we put them all under the vanity.  The other piece of advice we received was to spend the majority of your time blueprinting and planning out the tile laying job.  I think we laid this floor 3 different ways (25 times) until we finally decided on how it is today.

There were so many instances where we doubted ourselves... sweat dripping down (post-partum tears in some of our eyes).  But at the end of the day, we made it work!

Ok, to be honest, I didn't believe that it was going to work until after we grouted.  All of our little mistakes just melted away after grouting. It's a dirty floor still, but there wasn't much sense in deep cleaning it since the to-do list with this bathroom was still growing.

Bathroom Renovation: Mood Board

Ok, I couldn't resist!  Here's the mood board for the master bath! Just wait until you see it all put together! We'll see you tomorrow morning with some tile laying details!

Bathroom Renovation: Part Three

After the dust settles from demolition... There's more dust.

This is the last of the "dirty" posts.  The next one will be all of the pretty stuff where it actually looks like we're making progress.  Remember where I said that this is a painfully longer process than you would ever anticipate?

It's hard to tell, but a lot has happened!  We installed insulation to act as a sound barrier between our bathroom and a bed room on the other side of that wall.  The dry wall is also hung on that wall, too.

Bryan is working on building a "knee wall"for the shower.  You can also see in the picture below another example of where my original daydreaming blue tape would have ended had we not decided to just knock out a little more wall.  Well worth it.

Ah, the power of blogging.  See how effortless installing that knee wall was?  I can promise you it (and everything else in this bathroom) took way longer than you would ever imagine. Unless you've taken your own bathroom apart.  Then, you know what I'm talking about!

This is where we ended up taking that opening to.  It's flush with the back of the vanity wall.  And this is the initial drywall repair.  You can see at the bottom of this picture that we also decided to place an outlet down low.  This will be inside the vanity so we will be able to charge toothbrushes and Bryan's electric razor.

Bathroom Renovation: Part Two

Demolition. We were never so happy to see this bathroom go.  Then, reality set in.  We need to put this all back together again.  My parents have always said that any good renovation will take twice as long as you'd expect and cost twice as much as anticipated.  This was certainly true with our master bath.

Bryan had to remove the shower in smaller sections because the doorway was too small.  Plus, there wasn't any easy way to get the shower pan up.  This was such a dusty, dirty process.

Piece by piece we were able to remove the shower stall.

You can see here where we ripped up the linoleum floor throughout and a big chunk of the shower stall that was cut out.

Finally, the shower stall is gone.  We also took down all of the drywall on the far wall so that we could install insulation between the bathroom and the bedroom on the other side of the wall.

Bathroom Renovation: Part One

Oh my! This bathroom! It's perfectly functional.  Just... not very functional for us.  We almost didn't buy this house because of this bathroom.  It was that bad.  Well, I guess it wasn't the bathroom itself... it was mostly the shower.  You'll see what I'm talking about! Keep scrolling!

The blue painters tape was just from me daydreaming.  I put that up trying to imagine what it would look like to not have a wall there anymore!  Can you see that beautiful window above the tub? It's quite large.. you just can't see the whole thing from this angle. Anyway, I was wanting all of that natural light to be able to hit every inch of that bathroom.  Including the shower. (You should have seen my husband's face as I'm explaining how I want walls to be taken down!)

Looking in from the doorway from the master bedroom.

This is still from the doorway of the master bedroom just looking at the right side.