DIY

DIY, DIY on a DIME, Home Improvement

A Tiny Piece of Paradise: Budget Bathroom Reveal

Good Morning Y’all from my own personal cozy cone. This morning greeted us here in South Carolina with the most blissful chill. The air is crisp and full of endless possibilities, and I am happily sequestered in my living room in front of a raging fire, wrapped up tight in my buttery-soft pink sweater with a hot cup-a-joe. Literally my definition of paradise on earth. I think my true Libra self is most at peace in the fall. When the trees boldly start showing off their colors with no abandon, I know it is MY season. My favorite season of all.

 I had vacation this month, which equated to me working a whopping 6 days, and let me tell you… RETIREMENT is for me, people. I am just kidding… sort of. I have literally had the best month and I have gone NOWHERE. My butt has stayed happily in Clinton, South Carolina for almost 17 days straight and it has been just the respite that my soul has needed. No planes. No road trips. No travel. Nada. It sounds crazy, but when you are on the go for a living you really just need time to press pause on that. To stay still instead of moving. Easier said than done when you are an antsy-pants like myself. 

That being said the past 17 days have been anything but idle. I cleaned the house (surprise surprise it already needs to be cleaned again. You would think we actually live here or something *rolling my eyes for effect), hand-stitched countless, tiny leaves for a baby mobile I am making (for my COUSIN – before y’all start that gossip chain), and I painted and installed board and batten in our third bedroom, with a lot of help my family… Emphasis on the A LOT. My poor Dad probably stifles a sigh every time I send him an idea for the house because he knows that will mean he is along for the ride. Along with all that crafty goodness, I was able to get many many other things done that I have been letting simmer on my own personal back burner. So I would call that a win. 

John and I have officially lived in this little house together for a year now, and I have to say it is quite the charmer. It really had the bones, to begin with, but man… have we put our own little spin on things. Every little project we do has the place feeling more like “ours.” I have been waiting patiently for the perfect time to reveal our latest project and I think we are there! So without further adieu, Ladies and Gentleman, I give you the tiny bathroom! No REALLY. The tiniest bathroom you have ever seen. This was honestly the room that gave me the most anxiety when we were thinking about buying the house because the footprint is “fun-size”. Yet somehow, they managed to fit a toilet, sink, and shower in there! The perfect trifecta!

Do you want to know the irony of it? That teensy room that I was worried about the most is now one of my favorite rooms in the house. Now let me show you “the why”.

This was the only picture we got when we went to buy the house. It makes you feel a certain kind of way, doesn’t it… claustrophobic? Maybe? Like it’s slowly closing in and we need to GET OUT before it eviscerates into nothing! Yeah? You felt that too?

Before

And here was after we moved in. As you can see it is pretty much bare bones. We didn’t have a toilet paper holder for at least 7 months. That is one of life’s joys is getting up to pee in the middle of the night and playing “Marco Polo” with the toilet paper that doesn’t talk back.
Eventually, I would love to tile in here. I have been toying with the idea of penny tile or small black and white hexagons. I want to go with a vintage look. I love tile that looks like it has been there for 100 years.
Gotta love that plastic sheeting for a backsplash :/

After

TADA it’s a bedroom! MAGIC! Just kidding. I am going to give you a sneak peek of our bedroom so you can see the “flow.”
I kept the vanity the same color because I felt like it complimented the dark hues in the wallpaper well. I did change the hardware to a vintage glass knob that I used all throughout the house.
Hi there Lovely.
It took me a very long time to find a gold mirror small enough for this space. It couldn’t be wider than 16 inches, but I eventually found something. I got this pill-shaped gold mirror from Bed Bath and Beyond. In the future, I plan to change the sink hardware to a matte black, but for now… silver it is! I was doing this reno with a very small budget that had very little wiggle room. I hung Orainege wallpaper in this room from Amazon. I absolutely love the pattern, but I will say the quality was more like contact paper. That is great for cleaning the bathroom but it is very difficult to hang. It took me several tries to get it right. The coloring in different batches is also different, so if you decide to order you need to order all at ONCE. Believe me, I learned this the hard way.
I found this beautiful reclaimed wood shelving on Etsy.
Do you recognize this light? Instead of buying a new one I took it down and spraypainted the hardware gold. It saved me close to $100!
I painted all of the trim in this room a bold blue-gray. I had some leftovers from an accent wall I did in the guest room and it pulled out the blue in the butterflies in the wallpaper so I just went with it. It was a bold choice… One that John wasn’t quite sure of, but we both loved the finished result.
“Marco!?” “Polo!”
I ended up taking a piece of wallpaper into the Sherwin-Williams store in town and having my wall paint matched to the creamy color in the base of the wallpaper. It has a very vintage feel and I love how it turned out.
“The End”

There you have it. A tiny transformed bathroom that no longer feels like it might just squish into nothing. And now I must sign off. The dogs have just about had enough of my writing for today, and my house currently is nestled under a mountain of fuzz from the decapitated elephant they keep fighting over… You know. We just live here 😉

Until next time,

XOXO,

Pill Shaped Gold Mirror $55

Reclaimed Wood Shelving $67.50

Wooden Light Switch Plate $14.99

Wallpaper $27.99 – I used two rolls to do that one wall

Glass Knob for Vanity $3.49 I got mine on a half off sale!

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DIY, DIY on a DIME, Home Improvement

The Painted Bungalow: Living Room Reveal

Raise your hand if you have been absolutely enveloped by the craziness of life lately… If you aren’t raising your hand right now – call me stat*. I need to know what you know! My life lately has been constant GO GO GO with a side of “okay… GO.” I swear I haven’t been to my house in an entire month. Thank goodness for roommates and husbands (only one in my case:P) to hold down the fort while I am on my seemingly never-ending trip. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. I have much-needed vacation time in October and I plan to do absolutely NOTHING but be home. Do some laundry, take time to garden, heck maybe I will paint the whole house if I feel like it. The world will be my oyster for an entire seven days and y’all I am here for it.

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DIY, DIY on a DIME, Home Improvement

DIY on a Dime: Budget Bathroom Makeover

Well good morning y’all from my striped Magnolia sheets. John literally was an angel of mercy today and let me sleep until the audacious hour of 1:00 pm!!! I know it sounds totally wild but I am pretty sure my body was in desperate need of some decent rest because I NEVER sleep that long! We did the math and I traveled more than 10 hours yesterday with work and the commute back to “small-town-USA,” otherwise known as Clinton, SC.

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The Painted Bungalow: Master Bedroom Reveal

Hello Lovelies,

It has been quite the whirlwind year for me. I have been managing life precariously, juggling going back to work with the airline, planning my wedding, and house hunting in Spartanburg, South Carolina, among MANY other things. To be quite honest I have been working my little tail off… As it turns out your girl is pretty high maintenance when it comes to weddings… go figure. Every time I finish a project I seem to have another idea. To be honest, I have been so non-stop busy that writing has been pretty much pushed to the back of my never-ending list. Until now.

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The Painted Bungalow: Kitchen Reveal

Well hey, y’all! I am being a true journalist today and I am coming to you from somewhere in the middle of Florida, typing away on our road trip back to my sweet Carolina home. I spent the past week in the Sunshine state applying for more jobs and just enjoying some beach solace. I can’t get enough of that little beach house y’all. There is a quote floatin’ around out there that says, “Love grows best in little houses just like this,” and that just about sums up how I feel about our little piece of paradise.

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DIY on a Dime: How to Craft a Christmas Wreath with Supplies from your Local Dollar Tree

Good Morning fellow homebodies. Here we are a week before Thanksgiving and I have already decked about every hall I can get my hands on. Full disclosure: I started right after Halloween. But don’t you worry I only decorated the inside and I have kept my blinds closed tight so the neighbors don’t think I am a total nutter – probably futile at this point ;)… What can I say? I am a freak for the ho-ho. I start early every year but this year I started WAYYY early. Only because, well duh, this year kind of sucks like an old, hair covered lollypop stuck to the bottom of a ripped cushion in a 1978 Pinto – It’s just that bad. So here we all are, stuck in our homes with nothing to do. So what do we do? We paint things, we eat way too many Tollhouse cookies, and we craft! And oh boy DO I HAVE a good craft for you?? So put down the cookie, throw on your sweats, sheath your beautiful face, and head over to the Dollar Tree because that is where you will source 98% of the materials for this DIY Christmas wreath. You can source 100% of the materials there if your little heart desires, but I will explain why I chose not to later on.

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The Painted Bungalow: Bedroom Reveal

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Hey there y’all! How about we have a show of hands of those of you who are just consistently overwhelmed right now… I honestly am at a point where I just don’t know what to believe. I don’t know what to take as a fact or what to take as a falsehood, and truly, that scares me more than any virus ever could. I have so much information coming at me from every direction. Wear a mask – Don’t wear a mask – Social Distance – Social Distancing will ruin your immunity – and so on and so on. Unfortunately, I don’t have any of the answers people. (more…)

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Old Houses. New Houses. Blue Houses. Two Houses: Renovating a Florida Beach Bungalow

It’s a very lazy Saturday morning here at the babe cave. I am here where I always find myself in the early morning, butt planted on the mini, gray loveseat in front of the window that always seems to find the morning light. This is my happy place in the morning. Especially when the rain is falling like it is now and I have a steaming mug of some kind of modern-day witches brew aka coffee, warming my hands. It’s been a busy week for me, definitely not in terms of work, because in the flight attendant world, winter is hibernation time. In the Summertime, I get called to work almost every day but in the winter, I sit, and I sit, and I sit some more. I don’t necessarily sit around, but I don’t get called to work if I don’t want to. Hence why I am here on a Saturday morning, watching the rain drizzle down my window pane and sipping on my coffee. I usually sit here and dream up about a hundred projects I can do around the house. If you are reading this and you really know me you know that home improvement is my thing. I loveeeee love love to do projects. (more…)

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Little House in the Carolinas: Half Bath Remodel

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Clear as day I can still remember the first time I came into my little house when it was actually mine. I had just signed the papers and I had the key in my hand, and I unlocked the door – for the very first time. It is an odd feeling: owning a place that seemed so unfamiliar yet my soul already recognized it as home. That was two years ago and though I can’t say that I turned this house into a home, because it felt like home from the beginning: I have slowly made this house into something that I believe to be beautiful – and that’s the whole point isn’t it? (more…)

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DIY on a Dime: Taking a Builder’s grade Island to the next level with Planking

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Okay guys, so I have been feeling very antsy for some type of project lately. Lucky for me I had a little VACAY time this month (thank the Lord!), so my Dad drove to Charlotte for what I like to call, “construction boot camp.” My poor Dad… thank goodness he loves me because I work him to the bone sometimes. I have had this little island dream floating around in my head full of house plans for some time, and that was one of the many projects that we completed this week. (more…)

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