homeownership

Over the summer, B and I bought our first home. We moved from our downtown Cleveland apartment into an inner-ring suburb, and the three of us moved in right at the beginning of September. Since we bought the home, we’ve done quite a few things to make it our own, including:

removed all the wallpaper
repainted every room
removed some carpet and tile and refined wood floors on a floor
put in nearly all new light fixtures, fans, etc.
removed some unnecessary ceiling fans
took down a poorly repaired ceiling and built a new one
installed a new concrete driveway
put in a new front porch

Those are just some of the things we’ve done – I’m sure there are more. B would know more since when I say “we” – it was mostly him or his family who helped out. I can’t thank them enough!

Anyway, I don’t know if we technically did buy a real fixer upper, because I don’t watch enough HGTV to know what qualifies — but I wanted to share with you some before/after images and info of one of the rooms we updated – the upstairs bathroom.

Here is what the bathroom looked like when we bought the house – sorry for the blurry photo.

We didn’t like how dark it was (I like dark paint, but typically more in the bedroom personally), and the vanity was outdated. The hot and cold water handles on the shower also kept falling off and B wasn’t a fan of them. And, believe it or not – there was A CEILING FAN in the bathroom! (I wish that I had snapped a photo of that!)

So what did we do?

Took out the ceiling fan and then took down the whole ceiling.

Painted the bathroom. We chose the Sherwin-Williams color SW7732, lemongrass. B picked out new handles for the tub. He also built the wall up behind the shower (you can see the framing above). And, last but not least, a new vanity!

Virtu Gloria 36" Single Bathroom Vanity, White, Brushed Nickel Faucet, Mirror contemporary-bathroom-vanities-and-sink-consoles

Photo by Beyond Design & More. See more contemporary bathroom vanities and sink consoles designs

There’s a long story that goes with the vanity … long story short, we originally picked out another one but this one fits better. But let’s just say we tore the vanity out in August and didn’t have a new one in until late October …

So here’s a before and after shot that shows it still in progress. You can see the wall is built up, the ceiling is in and there’s a new light above the shower. You can also see the original old hot and cold water handles.

Annnnnnd – here’s what it looks like today, new vanity, new paint color, ceiling fan GONE, ceiling finished, new lights, new window treatment and new shower handles installed!

What do you think?

Some questions for you:

Have you ever seen a ceiling fan in a bathroom?

Have you redone a bathroom before?

B and I hosted our first gathering at our home this week! We decided to have some friends over for a low-key New Year’s Eve – complete with food, some drinks, and a few babies/toddlers.

The day started with some COLD outside play for FW. Confession – I didn’t leave my house at all that day because it was so cold, so while B and FW were outside (FW was outside for all of 5 minutes or so) to shovel, play, etc. I was inside helping to prep everything.

We did some decorating had tons of food! We finally got to use our dining room, too, which was great – it’s a room that we’ve done a good amount of work to since moving in (painting, putting in a new ceiling, taking out the fan, getting a new light fixture, plus a rug and furniture) so it was so much fun to share it!

We had a ton of food to share – most of it isn’t even pictured! But B and I made pepperoni bread, pizza, baked ziti, eggplant parmesan and Lidia’s Brussels sprouts. We had friends bring over some delicious dips and charcuterie.

Oh, and of course I made some desserts. In addition to the graham cracker toffee that I’ve now made 3 times this holiday season, I also made some peanut butter cup cupcakes and mocha cupcakes.