Master Bathroom Remodel Part 1

 It's been a while since I've had a post.  I thought I would share part of our Master Bathroom Remodel.  I say master bathroom because it's attached to the master bedroom, but don't let that fool you...it's SMALL!  Our decision to begin renovating this room didn't come by choice.  We actually had some tiles fall off in the bathroom shower because it wasn't sealed properly.  With significant water damage, the drywall just deteriorated causing the tiles to fall off.  Don't judge us too harshly on the before pictures, some are pretty gnarly, but here's what we were working with.

What this photo will not tell you, is the shower door would hit the toilet when you open it.  There is a wall that was built just to the right of the shower door.  Behind that wall was a bench seat that was built out of tile making our shower basin pretty small, 32"x32".

This is as far as the shower door could open, you would have to turn and go in sideways to get into the shower.

I told you the pictures were gnarly.  We found lots of rotting sheetrock under the tile.

Another thing that has always bothered me about this shower, was the globs and globs of caulking and grout in the corners and along the shower basin.

During destruction.  Luckily some of the walls came out in whole sheets.  On the back wall, I found more sheetrock (see the green piece of wall in the photo below) under the first layer of tile and sheetrock.  To the right of the shower door was the bench seat and a tile wall, guess what was behind that tile wall??  Another tiled wall.  The photo below also shows a gap between the shower basin and right wall, that's where the bench seat was located and took up about a foot of space.

This bathroom is small enough as it is, and there are way too many elements in it making it feel even smaller.  The first step to rectifying that problem was to get rid of the small wall and bench seat.

We also decided to put in a new shower basin that we found online on Amazon.  The new shower basin is 32"x44", giving us about a foot more of shower space.  We could have went a little longer, but because nothing is square in the bathroom, we thought we better not chance it and have it not fit.

Another thing we noticed when we were taking out the old shower basin and drywall was that the drywall was installed behind the shower basin flange.  After doing some research, the flange to your shower basin is supposed to be anchored directly into the studs.  This could have caused some of the water leakage that we were experiencing because it did not have a good seal.

Okay, time for some shopping.  I went to Lowe's to just look around and see what my options were.  Since this renovation was unexpected, and because of my thrifty nature, I wanted to do this as cost effective as possible.  I looked into tile board, which is super cost effective.  Basically, all you do is use adhesive on the back, after cutting it to the correct size of your wall, and glue it to the wall.  Then, you use this vinyl trim to complete the look.

That was until I saw some vinyl on sale.  I've never used vinyl before.  I used tile for my backsplash in the kitchen.  Apparently, they make vinyl you can now grout.  Sounds pretty easy to me, and it looked pretty on the display at the store.  I went ahead and got 6 boxes of this vinyl (30 per pack), it's peel and stick, which makes life even easier.

This vinyl came in 2 different colors, a black version and a white version.  Brock liked the darker, so that's what we went with.  What I wasn't thinking about when purchasing these, was the shape.  I have never used anything that wasn't a square or rectangle shape.  I have a feeling hexagon will be a bear to put on the wall (and have it look symmetrical).

Also, picked up some grout.  Hoping 1 is enough, but I have my doubts.

I found this gem under the 2 layers of drywall, my family and I decided to leave our mark on the house too.  We even made it a bit of a time capsule by putting a COVID-19 recommendation.  Hopefully, that gets a good laugh in 10 years.

I went ahead and picked up a couple pieces of drywall.  We already had 1 at the house.  Make sure to use drywall with color so that you know they're mold resistant.  I always remember these being green but all I could find were purple.

We removed the old subflooring and put in a new one that was 3/4" thick.  Our basin required a mortar bed.  My wonderful dad helped me with that part because I had no clue what I was doing.  The basics to that though, is that the mortar bed acts sort of like a pillow.  It's to keep your basin level.  For example, before the mortar bed, when I was cutting the hole in the subfloor to accommodate the drain, the basin would teeter back and forth when I was walking on it.  We made the mortar mixture pretty dry, we didn't even use half a bucket of mortar to make the bed.  Looking back, we probably could have made the mortar mixture a bit more watery...we made it the constancy of wet sand.

After we got the shower basin on top of the mortar bed, we anchored it down temporarily (using large washers and screws) and allowed the mortar bed to sit for 24 hours.

After 24 hours, the shower basin was secured to the studs by drilling a hole in the flange of the basin and securing it with a screw.  I made sure to do this on the sides of each corner.  You can see on the right side of the basin (where the bench used to be) we had a gap.  We used 2x4's and ripped them to fit to create a small wall.

Our bathroom was setup in such a way that we couldn't bring the whole piece of sheet rock in, so we had to cut a few inches off the bottom of each panel so we could fit it in there.  The smaller panels were added later.

Finally!  All the sheet rock is up and we are ready for mudding!

Side Note: We are only renovating the shower at this time.  We plan to go back later and tear out the rest of the sheet rock, the flooring, vanity, sink, mirrored medicine cabinet and low hanging lights.  To the left of the sink (not pictured) is a small closet that, at one time, had a door on it.  It's nice to have shelving but it's another one of those items that takes up unnecessary space.  The closet is set back about a foot from the wall (the wall that the sink and toilet are currently on).  Our plan is, when we remove the closet, to move the toilet in there.  Right now, you have about a 1.5-2' walking space between the toilet and the wall.  I really think it would give it a much bigger feel and make navigating the bathroom much easier if it was set back where the closet currently is.  I would also like to put in a longer vanity.  With the room being really narrow, I don't want a vanity any bigger than 19" deep, but I think a 44" length would be perfect!  Surely, something that long would have plenty of storage space so we won't miss our shelving that the closet provided.

After sanding the drywall, it was time for the vinyl to go up.  I'll be honest, we wanted to quit...BAD!  We started at the bottom, knowing that the dimensions of the wall were a little bit off from the bottom to the top.  I did some awesome calculations that would leave me almost a half tile on either side of the back wall.  What I didn't want is to have little slivers on the sides.  So we put up the vinyl and began the next row...guess what?  They had little slivers.  We tried several different ways and no matter what we did, little cuts everywhere!  After spending majority of the day scratching our heads, and ruining half a box of vinyl, we decided to pack it all up and return it to Lowe's.

Fast forward to 10pm that evening, I wanted to give it one more go.  We decided to start in the middle (of the back wall) this time and just be happy with however it came out.  Even if it wasn't perfect, it's still better than what we started with.  We tried to use tile spacers, but the vinyl was so thin that they kept falling out.  We ended up using a ruler as our vinyl spacer.

You can clearly see that some of the spacing was off.  Again, due to the walls not being square, we had to give somewhere.  I ended up using a miter saw to cut some of the smaller pieces.  Larger pieces I used a box cutter to score the back, then snapped the vinyl.  

Once they were all up, we began to have some vinyl fall off the wall.  We went back to Lowe's and got vinyl adhesive and that was a game changer.  After getting all the vinyl on, we began to grout.

We ended up with a small gap between the flooring and the shower basin.  Again, we are updating this bathroom slowly and plan to replace the floor, so we needed a temporary fix.  To fix this issue and save us some water issues, we put a couple pieces of trim on the shower basin followed by caulking it.  We also caulked around the shower basin and the inside corners of the shower wall (better to be safe than sorry).  We used clear silicone caulking for this.

According to the label, vinyl grout takes a whole 7 days to cure.  So now we have a waiting game.  I still need to attach the flange for the shower lever, and use a de-hazer after the grout is cured, but other than that..it's pretty much done.

Update:  I attached the flange for the shower level and used a grout dehazer.  I installed some shelving and an shower curtain and rod.  It's so nice to have our shower back!

Some before and afters:

Can't wait to do the rest of this bathroom!

Metal Milk Can

 I got this metal milk can from my grandma when she passed away.  It's been sitting on my front porch looking sad for a while.  I decided to give it some much needed TLC.  Here is what I started out with.

I used a paint and epoxy stripper and let it sit for the recommended amount of time.  The photo below is after completing the process twice of letting the stripper sit then scrapping it.  Turns out, this can had at least 3 layers of paint on it.

I did a third round of paint stripper and scraping using a metal wire brush.  I did get most of it off and decided to sand the rest.

Rustoleum makes a matte finish black spray paint that I decided to use.

I did 2 coats of spray paint and let the can dry over night.

With a Silhouette machine, I decided to make the can a little bit more personalized.  I'm pretty new to the Silhouette but I will tell you, it wasn't easy getting this thing on.  The vinyl was supposed to have a white circle around the lettering, but it started to take an oval shape so I tore it off.

The last thing I felt the can needed was a pretty bow.  I decided to do a double bow to make it look fuller.  I used about 2.5 yards of wired ribbon to do this.  It's not a difficult process as all, just tie your first bow and without cutting the ribbon, tie another smaller bow on top of the first bow.  Then finish it by cutting the ends all fancy.

And for comparison, here is a before and after.  The can is now sitting proudly by my front door.  Maybe I'll add some floral decor inside the can at a later time.  I think my grandma would love it.

Homemade laundry detergent - powder

Over the weekend, I made homemade laundry detergent.  This is my second time making it.  I'm excited to see how long it will truly last, because last time I split it three ways with my family.  So here it is, May 2019.  I'm going to try and record my weekly loads and average those out to see just how cost effective this may be.  According to my math now, it's not saving me any money...which is a bummer.

Here are the ingredients I used:

(all detergent items were purchased in store at Walmart)

• (3) Purex Stain Fighter + Bright Booster 1 lb ($1.97/each) 
• (1) 20 Mule Team Borax 65 oz ($4.47/each)
• (1) Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 3 lb ($4.12/each)
• (1) Baking Soda 4 lb ($2.24/each)
• (2) Zote Bars ($1.12/each) - I bought 4 of these and only ended up using 2.  I also bought the pink version.  Honestly, not sure on the difference between the pink and white Zote soap (the price was the same and the labels didn't say anything different either).
• (2) Suavitel in wash laundry scent booster fragrance pearls ($3.97/each) - I bought the blue fragrance which was field flowers

I also made 2 investment purchases, the 2.5 gallon container and the 2 tablespoon scoop.  You can find these items on Amazon here:

• 2.5 gallon storage container
• 2 Tablespoon Scoop

I used a small bucket and lined it with 2 trash bags.  I doubled up on trash bags just if in case one got a hole, I didn't want detergent spilling out all over the floor.  Toss all of your ingredients into the bucket aside from the Zote soap.  The Zote soap you will grate into the rest of the mixture, as seen below.  Then, you will hold the open end of the trash bag closed and roll the mixture around on the floor.  Do this until all the ingredients are pretty well mixed together.

After all was said and done, this recipe made approximately 3 gallons of detergent.  Total cost? $63.44, this is all inclusive (except tax)...the container, scoop and the laundry supplies (even the extra ingredients I didn't use).  Next time, if I were to do this, buying the correct amount of ingredients and no container and scoop I would be spending $26.92 not including tax.

Okay, so let's take a look at the math.  This made approximately 3 gallons of detergent.  I'll be using 2 tablespoons per load.  There are 256 tablespoons in 1 gallon.  Take 256 and divide by 2 (because I am using 2 tablespoons/load) and that equals 128 loads for 1 gallon of detergent.  Since I made 3 gallons, I will need to take my 128 loads and multiply by 3 which equals 384 loads of laundry.

Let's say I do 10 loads of laundry per week, meaning 40 loads in 1 month (384 loads divided by 40 loads of laundry per month).  If my math is correct, that would mean this detergent should last around 9.5 months!

Total cost per load?  If we skip all the initial start up fees and just go with the dollar figure I'll be spending from here on out I would be spending around $0.07/load.

I typically buy Purex (liquid 150 oz for $8.36/each), it says it does 100 loads for each container.  I always use enough to go up to the fill line in my washing machine, so I'm not sure this figure is completely accurate.  If we do a little cross multiplying and dividing here to see how much it would cost using this detergent for the same amount of loads listed above, our answer would be $32.1(384 loads multiplied by $8.36 divided by 100 loads). Meaning we are saving about $5.18.

Saving money is saving money but I'm not completely sure it's worth it.  I'll be able to say for sure once I've been using it for a couple of months.  I want to see how if affects my laundry machine, if at all.  I want to see how many loads of laundry on average I do in a week.  How it does with sensitive skin and how it affects our clothes.

I'll be updating again hopefully in July.  Please check back or let me know if you've ever made your own laundry soap and what your experience was.  Thanks and have a great day!

Resin serving board

I've been seeing many tutorials on these serving trays.  So I thought I would give it a try.  My sister supplied me with a slab of wood from her yard.

Supplies Needed:

• Slab of wood
• Color dyes (I used a powdered fabric dye, looking back I would not choose to use these again, instead I would use an acrylic paint which you can get super cheap at Hobby Lobby).
• Leather cord
• 8 oz Easy Cast Epoxy (purchased at Hobby Lobby for $12.99)
• Mixing cups and stirrers (I just used styrofoam and plastic so I could throw away after I was done using)
• Hair dryer

What I started with.  Lucky for me, my sister already cut the slab of wood into the right shape and did a bit of sanding.

I did some additional sanding to the top, bottom and sides in a finer grit (120 & 220 grit sand paper).

After sanding, I drilled a hole in the handle using a drill bit.  This will allow for the leather cord to be tied to for hanging.  I then placed painters tape on the back of the serving tray, in hopes of preventing the epoxy from sticking to the bottom.

I then trimmed off the excess painters tape.

Combine the epoxy (resin) according to the manufacturers directions.  Be sure to use different stir sticks each time.  After separating the epoxy into different containers, you will mix in the colorant.  This is where I would use acrylic paint instead of a powdered fabric dye.

As you can see in the picture, I placed a piece of plastic down on my kitchen table because things are about to get MESSY!  I also used two plastic cups to hold the serving board up off the table.  You will want to do this because the epoxy is self leveling, meaning it will drip over the edge of your serving board.

After the colorant was stirred.  Why I would use acrylic paint instead of powdered fabric dye is because I noticed the powder didn't quite dissolve quick enough.  So when I went to pour the epoxy onto the wood, I had granules spread out all over the place.  The only color I used acrylic paint for was the white, which went on very smoothly and had full coverage.  Another note I would make to myself for a future project would be to use mostly white and use the other colors sparingly. 

I began by pouring the white epoxy onto the board.  Looking back, I wish I wouldn't have put the epoxy so close to the middle of the serving tray (I should have kept in back towards the handle).

Continue to pour out your colors.  There's no rhyme or reason to the technique, just pour them all out there.  I had 4 colors total, a red (that ended up looking purple), a dark blue, a light blue and white.  Once you pour out all the colors (it's ok if you don't use all the epoxy, you may need some later) use a hair dryer on high heat to spread, swirl and mix the colors.  It will create a sort of marbleized look.

Allow the epoxy to spill off over the edge.  If the edge becomes too transparent, you can add more epoxy. 
Side note:  It may be a good idea to wait a little prior to adding more epoxy on your edges because over time, the epoxy will get thicker and stay on a little bit better.  I wouldn't wait any longer than 20 minutes to add more epoxy.

I let the epoxy dry for about 2 hours and then pulled off the painters tape from the back.  I probably could have waited another hour but I didn't want to push my luck.

After 24 hours you can touch your project, however please note it's not fully cured until after 72 hours.  You can see on the back of the serving board where the epoxy spilled over.  I went back with my drimmel and sanded this off.

I then used canola oil on the exposed wood.  I think you can use any type of cooking oil. 

The wood really soaks this stuff up, so much that when you touch it afterwards your hands won't be greasy.  I oiled the top, back and sides of the board being careful not to touch the epoxy.

And last touch was to tie on the leather cord so the serving board can be hung for storage purposes.

I paired my serving board with some fancy cheese.

Hope you enjoyed this step by step tutorial.  Please leave any questions or comments below.

Raised Garden Bed 2019

One of my new favorite hobbies is giving my green thumb a go.  In the past, I've been known to scorch a plant or two.  I'm happy to report that each year I improve on my plant knowledge.  My biggest take aways from last years raised garden bed are the following:

#1 Don't plant too early or too late
#2 Don't overcrowd the garden

In regards to not planting too early, you want to ensure that the last frost has occurred in your area.  Being in the Midwest, Missouri specifically, this can be quite difficult to pinpoint.  I'm shooting for the first part of May this year, just given the fact that we had snow a couple weeks ago.  You also don't want to plant too late.  I promised my husband this raised garden bed last year for Father's Day and unfortunately I didn't end up getting it made until mid-July.  This meant that the plants I started from seed in February weren't planted outside until mid-July as well.  I came to find this was way too late to plant, although we did get a couple of cucumbers out of the deal.

I also learned not to overcrowd the garden.  By overcrowd I mean that I had two gigantic tomato bushes that towered over everything else causing my other vegetables not to get sunlight.  I also put cucumbers in this tiny space.  They climbed on to EVERYTHING making a canopy over the other vegetables, again causing them to not grow due to lack of sunlight.

Here's a picture to show just how full the bed was:

Tomatoes and cucumbers are overtaking EVERYTHING!

In 2018 I began growing my plants from seed in February.  This year I jumped the gun a bit and began in January.  I upped my inside grow game and purchased a heating pad.  The plants began germination in just a few days.  This year we tried to grow:

• Tomatoes
• Peanuts
• Carrots
• Brussels sprouts
• Bell Peppers 
• Cucumbers
• Watermelon

Sadly, my watermelon all died again.  I'm not sure what the secret to growing watermelon is yet, but I will keep trying until I get the hang of it.  Peanuts are something new to me and I have to admit, I had no idea that peanuts grow underground (like potatoes).  I'll be building separate planters for both the peanuts and the cucumbers before transplanting them outside.  To grow peanuts, all you do is take an unroasted peanut out of the shell and put it in soil.  Both the peanuts that I planted sprouted very quickly.  I read that peanuts usually produce around 40 peanuts per plant and will usually be ready to harvest in the fall.

We had a lot of success planting our tomatoes as a "bush".  To do this bury 3/4 of the tomato root and stem into the ground.  Have the plant leaves (top of the tomato plant) at an angle going upward out of the soil.  You will plant 4 tomato plants to for a cross shape.  Then you will place a tomato cage over top of them and they will begin to grow upward forming a tomato bush.

I am excited for the day to come to bring these plants outside.  More updates to come!

Want a raised garden bed of your own?  Check out my tutorial from last year here.