Bathroom Renovation - Vanity Makeover

*Please excuse the awful quality of the photos in this post. Lighting was awful and most photos were taken at night.

We finally made a tiny bit of progress on the bathroom renovation! 

 

Here is the recap of the journey so far:

Bathroom Renovation - Before and Demo

Bathroom Renovation - Shower Saga

Since October, essentially no major progress was made. Dan and I painted the walls and ceiling (huge task) and we finally got in touch with a contractor in mid-December. He said he does "soup to nuts" and could complete the rest of the renovation for us the second week of January!!! Bahahahahaha! That's funny, here we are the last week of January and just one part of the task is underway.

We still have a very long way to go but the sink/vanity is 90% finished. Here is a look at the recent project.

The vanity in our main bathroom is not a standard size and fully replacing it would have required a custom build or splitting the sinks into two vanities. We decided only the counter and sinks really needed to be fully replaced and we could simply paint the vanity to have it match with the new bathroom.

Initially, Dan and I thought we would have to go hunt for a counter without the least idea of how to do that. But once we got in touch with an actual contractor, he said he would do that. Thank goodness! Once the contractor had ordered the counter and sinks, we spent the next week rehabbing the vanity. It was a lot of work sanding and priming and painting in every spare evening, but we got it done and we are really happy with the end result.

Vanity before: Dark wood, dirty cream-colored counter/sinks, and silver colored faucets. The counter was in rough shape - discolored, staining, scratches, and cracking. We tossed the cruddy medicine cabinet.

Step One: Remove hardware, drawers, and doors

Step Two: Sand.

This was a huge and messy task that took an insane amount of sand paper and time. Not pictured are all the drawers and doors that had to be sanded as well (on both sides).

Step Three: Two coats of primer.

Step Four: Two coats of paint.

I know it doesn't look like much difference between photos, but trust me. Coverage of the old dark wood was improved with each coat (we had to do four coats total). Sorry it's a bit sloppy with all the towels and bathroom stuff in there but we were still using this bathroom during the process and I got lazy about moving stuff for photos.

Don't forget, all the doors and drawers got two coats of primer and two coats of paint as well!

 

 

Step Five: Contractor returns to demo the old counter and install the new counter with under-mount sinks and black matte faucets. AHHHH, so pretty!

 

Step Six: Install towel bars and reinstall doors, drawers, and hardware.

 

I added cabinet pull bars to the middle false drawers under each sink. Previously we didn't have a place to hang hand towels except on the drawer knobs (which was ineffective). Initially, I ordered small towel bars but they were too bulky. It was Mandy's idea to try a cabinet door pull installed horizontally. It was a great solution and achieves exactly what I was hoping for. However, it took 3 hours to install the two simple pulls. Just the usual for us, nothing with this bathroom has been easy. But, they look great!

I'm SOOO happy with the quality of work this contractor and his team did with this counter and so refreshing after the complete crud show with the shower. Next up is the floor, toilet, rerouting the plumbing for a soaker tub, and umm...new drywall patch and a better paint job. I expect this renovation will be completed next October. Stay tuned!

Choose Your Ivy Vibe

This girl, she has PERSONALITY and style! Give her a hat or a costume, and she transforms!

Book Nook | Scholastic Winter Haul

Evidently the shipping and manufacturing woes of this pandemic have hit Scholastic hard. I ordered from the October flyer on November 4. It was guaranteed delivery before Christmas. It arrived last week. Wow. It took over two months to arrive!

A couple books I ordered were intended for our Christmas book nook shelves but they never made it in time, so I'll have to save those for next year. Fortunately, Snowball Moon, The Wish Tree, and The Thing About Yetis are featured on our shelves for the winter theme.

 

The Fancy Nancy book wasn't the one I ordered. I was supposed to get an interactive Disney Junior how-to-tell-time book that Kip was really excited about. I contacted customer service and they supposedly shipped the correct book. I expect to receive it some time this summer (I kid, I kid...but seriously!)

 

While I'm still a big fan of the flyer and the price of these books, I am disappointed in how long it takes for them to arrive and the quality. I love hardcover books and all of these are paperback with staple binding. They won't hold up for long, but I suppose that's what you get for $3-$5 each.

 

Check out our Scholastic Fall Haul here.

 

We picked up a few other books from Amazon and the grocery store to fill our our shelves for January. 

 

 

Red is Best is a book Mandy and I remember from when we were kids. Where do Fairies Go When it Snows is similar to Where to Diggers Sleep at Night. Some Snow is...talks about all the different types of snow. A Loud Winter's Nap is part of a season series we've been collecting - the illustrations are fantastic. 

Weekending it

Ohhh, it's the time of year again. My annual rant about the doldrums of winter. I do it without fail, round about this time when the holidays have faded and the temperature outside stays consistently frigid and my mood tanks into the negative temps as well. This year it feels a bit worse than usual. Many out-of-town family members are sick, and even though they are on the mend, it is still stressful. Every day is a worry about whether we will get that dreaded close contact call from Kip's school or someone in the house presents as sick. All of that on top of everything else. It's hard to say "better days ahead" when we are nearly two years into this. I know a lot of people don't care. But I do. It's hard for me.

Anyways, when I feel in the doldrums my brain itches for something to do. A creative outlet. Sometimes I find one, this year I can't. I have so many house projects running around in my head but they all require time, money, motivation and skills. I don't have any of those. I have very tender tentative hopes that our bathroom counter will arrive this week and Dan and I have been slowly attempting to rehab our vanity all weekend. Let's just say, sanding is such a small word for such a monumental task.

And then, yesterday my tooth broke. Yep, you read that right. An essential molar. And now I have to get a root canal and crown. My first ever.

MURPHY'S LAW, PEOPLE!!! What's next?

I'm trying to look up and for that, I turn to my camera roll. 

I want to be Ivy Bean.

Ivy and Elmo

We aren't quite sure how Ivy's love for Elmo started since the kids do not really watch much Sesame Street. I think it is because there is another little girl at school drop-off who carries around an Elmo doll. Suddenly Ivy took to Kip's Tickle Me Elmo (which he has never cared about until Ivy started caring about it). Mandy ended up getting Ivy a little plush Elmo of her own so that she could sleep with it and Kip would stop taking his away from her. And well, that little red monster is her best bud now.

Big Elmo kissing ornament Elmo

And she gained two more Elmo friends as gifts for Christmas!

Snip-its of School - Holiday Festivities

Some of my most favorite memories of being a kid are the classroom events and holiday activities at elementary school. The school that Mandy and I went to really had some awesome class parents that put-on some super fun class parties. I even remember making a gingerbread house in Kindergarten. I vividly recall my icing bag exploded and there was frosting all over my little house and tray. I was about to get upset but a room mom came by me and said "oh wow look at that blizzard, you got so much snow!" and it cheered me up and she helped me make a mistake into something special. 

Kip's Pre-K teacher did a great job making all the holidays super special. Here are some photos I was able to get of Kip's activities this fall. 

Thanksgiving turkey hats! They also made their own butter and ate it on corn muffins.

Kip was absent during the Hanukkah celebration, but the class made latkes (potato pancakes) and played with Dreidels. 

The week of Christmas, all the Pre-K classes had a Polar Express Day!! Everyone wore pajamas, they made a train in the hallway and sang songs, and got to eat treats and watch the movie. Kip loved it.

Then they had their Holiday Party which my friend and fellow class parent and I got to plan and participate in. We only got one hour for the party so we didn't get to do everything we planned and had a heck of a time finding all the supplies and goodies we needed, but the kids didn't seem to notice and had a ton of fun. We did milk carton "gingerbread" houses with graham crackers and decorated ice cream cones like Christmas trees for a snack. We had planned games as well but we ran out of time. All the kids went home with loaded goodie bags.

Despite the masks, extra protocols, absences and testing, and all the unpredictability of attending school in a raging pandemic, I am SO grateful Kip has been able to attend school in-person and enjoy his experience. And I am beyond happy that his school and teachers have done the best they can to make things as normal as possible. Fortunately, Kip doesn't know anything different so it all feels normal to him.