Powder Room Reno Reveal!

So here it is- the powder room reveal! I know we promised you all this reveal over a week ago, but life got busy and we didn't get a chance, however I know that just helped with the anticipation...right? :)

In the end, we went with a "white" theme for this bathroom. To be honest, it made things easy (we both love white spaces, decor, etc) and in such a small space it made sense. We did try 2 light coloured testers on the wall, but neither of them seemed to be just right.

So we settled on white walls, cabinet and an interesting stone for the top. The accessories we kept simple, focusing on chrome and thats really all we needed for this space.

Lets take a look back at the before photo first:

and here is the after:

Much better! We had to work with the floors that we currently have (although we hate them), so that meant keeping the colours and palette simple. We also didn't want to choose a countertop that clashed with the floors.

We went with a basic vanity base from Lowes. From there, we chose a stone remnant that we liked and had it cut to size. We purposely did not make the stone go all the way to the wall on the sides. Reason for doing that? One day when we can replace these floors, we want to be able to slide that vanity out of the powder room and once the new floors are in, put it back. Cutting the top that way, will allow us to do that. A lot of people thought we were crazy for doing that (we had to fight with the installers!), but in the end, they loved the look of it, as do we. We also thought cutting it that way, made it look like a piece of furniture, which we prefer.

The stone we chose is a granite called "White Reef". We liked the cream, white, grey and green tones to it, and it seemed to blend well with our floors, which was another bonus. The stone will be easy to care for and the slab that this remnant was from, was actually 3/4 inches which we thought worked well.

We installed a new toilet and sink as well. The sink is a Kohler that we ordered from the same place we got the stone. We have the same sink upstairs in our small bath and love it, so that was an easy purchase. The mirror was stolen from our upstairs bathroom, and the towel bar and toilet paper holder are from Home Sense. The picture frames are from Ikea and to fill the frames, I quickly painted some initials (I, C and M) for now. The shelf above the toilet we bought at HomeSense, but modified with some trim and painted it the same colour as the walls..

The white colour we chose is Simply White by Benjamin Moore (everything white in our house is painted this colour), and it makes the room feel so much brighter.

Overall, the space feels much cleaner and fresher and I can stop feeling embarrassed about sending our guests in there!

Here's one more look at the before and after:

So there you have it!

Here is our Source List:

Countertop: Graniteworx- granite called "White Reef"
Sink: Kohler- Graniteworx
Vanity: Lowes
Toilet: Lowes
Faucet: Lowes
Light fixture: Lowes
Mirror: (stole from upstairs bathroom- purchased at Urban Barn sale years ago)
Soap dispenser: Jonathan Adler (gift at a Marilyn Denis show taping!)
Garbage pail: Walmart
Toilet paper holder and towel bar: HomeSense
White towels: Home Sense
Shelf above toilet: DIY project/HomesSense
Chrome Kleenex box holder: gift
Flower: HomeSense
Picture Frames: Ikea

Paint Colours:

Wall Colour: Simply White - Benjamin Moore
Trim Colour: Simply White - Benjamin Moore

If you want a refresher on how we got to this point, feel free to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of the powder room renovation. Also, if you have any questions on anything that we forgot to list, please feel free to comment below!

We hope you enjoyed our nice bright, white space!

Melissa and Ian

Powder Room Reno Part 2

We left you with this:

and we've come a long way since!

Next step was to choose a wall colour and add in the vanity. The wall colour was going to be picked based on the colours that were in the countertop that we chose. The countertop is a granite called "White Reef" and it has a bit of white, cream, grey and green to it. My initial choice was to paint the room "Simply White" by Benjamin Moore (the colour of all of the trim we've painted in the house), but Ian wasn't on board.

So we decided to look at colours that were light and bright but that would go with the counter. After painting 2 testers on the wall, I convinced Ian that "Simply White" might look the best and he agreed.

We chose to go all white, based on the fact that we wanted the counter to be the focal point and didn't want anything else in the room competing with it. As well, the space is small and we wanted it to feel clean and bright.

So the room was painted "Simply White" by Benjamin Moore and the vanity was installed.

We also added in a new light fixture about the vanity:

So we'll leave you with that for now.
Stay tuned for the final reveal post coming up next!

Melissa and Ian

Powder Room Reno Part 1

So here is what we started with:

It wasn't horrible. However, it was a a bit stuck in the 90's and not really our style. The sponge paint on the walls was going to be the first thing to go. Along- with the super old toilet that gave me the heebie-geebies.

So we started taking it apart...with a plan and a small budget in mind. We planned to overhaul this space for under $1000.00 and I think we did it! More on that to come later.

So first things first. We took out the vanity and had to move the pipes behind  it. We moved the pipes that we coming up out of the floor, so that they were coming out of the back wall. We did this so that we didn't have to cut a hole up into the bottom of the new vanity.

Once we did that, we had to fix the drywall on the back wall and add tiles back onto the floor where the vanity had been.

Since the vanity was going to be going on top of the tiles, we weren't worried about chipping out the half tiles and replacing them with full tiles. We just wanted to make sure that there were tiles under the vanity as the vanity is raised off the floor and some tile will be visible.

Once the tiles were grouted, Ian removed the baseboards and fixed up the drywall:

It was his first time doing drywall, so we figured a wall that would be covered up with a vanity was a good place to start! However, I think he did a pretty good job for his first attempt!

Next, we put the baseboards back on and added some chair rail (because we apparently, really like adding mouldings to rooms!)

We then removed the ancient toilet and prepared to prime the space:

And the priming began:

and once it was done, it was already a million times better than what we started with!

So that's where we'll leave this post at for now. Next we'll talk about picking a wall colour, vanity and all of the other choices for the room! Stay tuned :)

P.S. Dont forget to enter our Giveaway! There's only 3 days left!

Melissa and Ian

Powder Room Makeover

First of all, we want to thank all of you for the lovely response we received to our last post. We truly, truly appreciate all of your support and can't wait to share so many of these projects we've been working on for the past while, with all of you. So thank you all, xo.

Something else we've been up to (along with all of the other projects going on) is to finally paint and renovate our main floor powder room.

The current state of this bathroom is not the greatest. I mean, it functions fine, but the toilet is old, the sink is starting to slightly rust and Im not even going to address the colours, since once you see it you'll know its not our style:

Plus we sold the toilet paper holder and towel bar on Kijiji over 2 years ago and haven't installed a replacement, so its not that convenient for our lovely guests that come over :)

It's definitely one of those rooms that we've been itching to make over since we moved into this house. Its another project we plan to finish before the baby arrives and since its such a small room, and we already have a few of the things we need, we figured we could fit it into the budget.

Ian challenged me to design the room on a budget of $1000.00 or less, and I'm determined to do it.

My inspiration for the power room is this room I found on Pinterest:

Source

We love the colours, the feel and it will go nicely with the hallway and the other colours in our home.

Although I'd love to do something with fancy tile and all kids of other things, its not in the budget and I need to find a way to make the room interesting without spending a lot. I think installing a chair rail will definitely help with that!

I created a quick inspiration board to lay out all of our ideas:

As you can see, we're still unsure of lighting options (I've posted 2 options), however most likely we will need to go with the long pendant since there isn't room on either side of the mirror for sconces...boo. We do have that long crystal light installed in our small upstairs bath though, and we love it, so it should do the trick.

There aren't really that many things we need for the space. We already have the new toilet, mirror and paint, so the vanity, lighting, fixtures and accessories are all we need.

For the paint we've chosen "Antique Sterling" by ICI/Duluxe paints (its just a bit darker than what we have in the hallway) so we know it will match well.

So on with another project...aiming to have this one done in the next few months, so we'll be updating you on the progress as we go :)

Melissa and Ian

p.s for those of you wondering about the stairs...they are still a work in progress! Hopefully I'll be able to update you all soon with a pic :)

We're at it again....Bathroom #3!

Sooo...you might be thinking, how are they STILL renovating bathrooms? Have they not already done two?

Yes, yes we have.

But quite honestly, we just love renovating bathrooms SOOO much that we decided to do this one for fun. Did you even sort of fall for that? Didn't think so. The main floor powder room is the one bathroom that probably bothers me the most. Not because it was the worst of the 3 (it was probably in the best shape), but because its not only us that uses it, which means we can't hide it from the world.

So whenever we have guests and they need to use the washroom, I cringe at the thought of them walking in there and thinking...wow, Ive just stepped back into 1990.

For starters there is no towel rod or paper towel holder. You'd think we could get our butts in gear and put something up, but we figured this would force us to complete this bathroom sooner. Not-so-much. Secondly, the toilet is bad. Like seat falling off, and its just not a good scene. Lastly, the fixtures are gold/silver and rust. Not as in 'rust the colour', rust as in 'super-old-and-not-in-good-condition-rust-falling-off' rust. For those of you who've used this bathroom you're probably thinking its not "that" bad, but I know a few of you out there who are probably relieved to know that those were not our decor choices. NOT our decor choices :D

So over the past while, Ive been collecting "pinspiration" sources of powder rooms that have inspired us. We're starting to think about ideas and here's what we're liking so far (all photo's are courtesy of Pinterest and can be found on our board here):

Mirrored pieces:

source

Pastels... (Im a BIT obessessed with anything mint green right now- and always):

source

Wallpaper:

source

Touches of gold:

source

Rustic and warm:

source

Vintage touches:

source

Coloured vanities:

source

Truly in a small space or powder room, I think you can break the rules a bit. Feel free to use colour, wallpaper (as there's no tub or shower to we don't need to worry about moisture issues) and fun accents.

As you can see from the pictures, our thoughts are still all over the place. We're still working on a tight budget here, so we'll definitely be doing this space on the cheap as well. Hopefully we can come up with some creative ideas for this one ;)


What would you do in a powder room? Have any of you wallpapered, used fun colours or tiles in a small space like this?

Sourcing, Sourcing...

Ever since we posted our Master Bath Ensuite reno back in February, we've had countless people emailing and asking us where we got everything.

We've actually added a few things to finish off the bathroom since, and felt it was finally time that we could give you all a list of where we got everything.

I have to be honest and let you know it took months for us to source all of this...soooo you can thank us later when you spend half as much time sourcing your items based on this list. You're welcome :)

Where to begin....we're going to start with the Tile.

We've actually already posted a detailed source list for where we purchased all of our tile, which you can find here, but to break it down:

Tile:
Floor Tile- Tile Master

Shower Floor Tile (Marble Border)- Tile Master
Shower Floor Tile (White non-slip tile)- Dante's Tile
Shower Tile (White wall tiles)- Dante's Tile
Shower Tile (Glass mosaic tile on walls)- Tile Master
Shower Tile (White chair rail on walls)- Dante's Tile

So there you have it. We went to Home Depot and various other places to find tile (our smaller bathroom tile was mainly from Dante's and USave- who we highly recommend for flooring), but for this bathroom, we found the best prices and styles to match our vision at Tile Master and Dante's.

Now for the larger items :)

Tub:
Our freestanding tub, was purchased from Costco.ca. Ive actually given you the direct link to our tub- the Jade Capri Soaker Tub.

Floor Mount Faucet:
We also purchased our floor mount fauct, the Jade Fontana Freestanding facut from Costco.ca.

They had amazing prices and honestly we liked the shape of the tub the best. We found a lot of freestanding tubs, but they were either too expensive or didn't fit our space or style choices.

Toilets:
The toilet (we replaced EVERYTHING in this bathroom), was from Lowes. When they first opened in our town, they had a Grand Opening sale where American Standard dual-flush toilets were incredibly cheap. We contacted our good friend (who happens to be a plumber) to see if they were any good. We were told they were a great purchase, so we ran out there at 6:00am when they opened to buy the maximum amount per person. We ended up with 4, to replace every toilet in our house. They ended up costing us just under $400.00 for 4 (on sale), but we managed to get a rebate from the city, for replacing our old toilets with new ones. We got a rebate of $180.00, so in total, we spent around $50.00 per toilet. Total score.

So, like I said, we ended up with American Standard toilets from Lowes, I think these here are comparable to what we have.

Shower/Sink Fixtures:
For this bathroom, we wanted to go with fixtures that would last and be of excellent quality. We also didn't want to break the bank. Another thing to consider was fixtures that wouldn't date quickly. We decided to go with chrome (after our debate, which you can read about here!), as it was affordable, easy to clean and matched the look we were going for.

We purchased all of our shower fixtures from Mark's Supply. They offer wholesale products with a 20-30% discount from regular retailers. We chose the Moen (as it was the most afforable for us, and we liked the style the best) for the rainfall showerhead, handheld showerhead and valves. We also purchased our sink faucets from Mark's and again went with Moen (so the styles matched with the style in the shower).

Mark's Supply were great to work with and we would definitely go back to them again. They have a large showroom as well, so you can see and feel how your choices would work.

Vanity/Sinks:
The vanity that we chose was also from Costco.ca. They feature the company our their site that we purchased from, but not the actual vanity. The company is called Studio Bathe, and we took a trip down to their showroom to see everything they had before we made a decision. If you check out their site, ours was the 75" white, but they have a lot of choices.

The great thing about the vanity, was that it came with the marble top, 2 mirros, as well as the undermount sinks and drains. It also came with faucets, but we opted to purchase our own style (they only had 1 option available). We also received the mirrors as part of the package, but purchased our own.

Mirrors:
Its funny, because so many people ask us about the mirrors. The mirrors we purchased at HomeSense, but the outer frames on them were black, so we spray painted them white. I had a bunch of pictures of us doing that, but it was a bit of a mess so I decided not to post it. You can also purchase them at Home Depot. Ive found the link here.

Glass:
We chose to do a fully enclosed glass shower, with a transom above the door. Our reason for doing this was not only esthetic, but also for function. We liked how the glass looked going fully up to the ceiling, and the transom provides an outlet for steam to escape, but also gives us the option of a steam shower if we wish to do that.

We purchased the glass from "Fulton Glass" a small company, that did a great job, and offered us the best price. I mean, glass is glass right? We made sure to get the right thickness and double checked all the details with the other companies to see if we were getting the same product, as basically we were. They unfortunatley dont have a website, but you can just google the name to get the information.

Lights:
The sconces flanking the mirrors were from Rona, and the potlights from Lowes.

Chair Rail and Picture Frame Mouldings:
You can read all about how we did it here, but we purchased the chair rail from Rona, and the wood for the picture frame mouldings from Lowes.

Paint Colours:
Lower Wall: Simply White by Benjamin Moore
Upper Wall: Misty Moonstone by ICI Paints (now Dulux Paints)


Accessories:
For all of our accessories, we searched around a lot, but here's our list:

Chandelier: HomeSense
Towels: HomeSense
Flowers: HomeSense
Small Mirror on Vanity: HomeSense
Glass Jars for Cotton Balls, etc: Michaels
Picture frames (not shown): Ikea
Rugs (not shown in pictures): Home Outfitters
Curtain Fabric: Tonic Living

Since these pictures were taken, there are a variety of changes we've made and this ensuite is pretty much complete :)

Once I put the photos into the frames on the walls, I'll be posting some new pictures.

I hope this helps all of you who wanted to know where we sourced everything. Keep in mind, that for almost every item we purchased, we waited for sales, used coupons or deals and managed to get the items for a price that fit into our budget. This took a LOT and I mean a LOT of extra time, but it was worth it in the end. Even the day when we raced across town on our lunch to get fixtures on sale, or spending countless evenings going through flyers and websites :) Good times, my friends, good times.

If there's anything Ive missed on here, please feel free to email us at livingbeautifully1@gmail.com and we can try and provide you with the source for the item.

Are any of you currently working on a bathroom or Master Ensuite? If so, how is it coming along?

Happy Renovating!