Rambling Renovators: February 2009

Pea in a pod

So cute. The Noonie by etsy seller lala's pequenos

Is it possible to fall in love with an inanimate object? Because I do. I LOVE THIS TILE FLOOR! The hard texture of the stone and the heat from the radiant heating underneath...its enough to make this pregnant woman swoon.

The bathroom is looking all schmancy - even better than we expected. The vanity is going back in today. We picked up the door yesterday and just have to prime and paint it, paint the hinges in a nice matte black, and install the door. And then, then, we can do a proper bathroom reveal. I know you've all been waiting patiently for that :)

Building For Baby

What a difference a week makes :) We've made great progress on the baby's room. HandyMan has put in the filler panels to make the wardrobes look like they're built in. And he built the banquette too! Now we just have to find some metal mesh to face the front and still allow the warm air from the radiator to flow through.

There's still alot to do... painting and installing the baseboards, installing the closet doors, getting the curtains and bench cushions made. We're also planning on putting a shelf above the window to hold baskets of toys and such (you can always use more storage in a kid's room!). And then there's all the fun stuff - hanging artwork, filling the drawers, putting up a mobile and the lighting. Hope you're liking your new home so far, Baby HandyLuster! We're loving putting it together for you.

Baby Steps

Today is a holiday here, Family Day, and what better way to spend it than working on the baby's room. Our weekend has been a flurry of trips to Home Depot and Lowes for materials to build the banquette and filler panels to make the Ikea cabinets look like built-ins. Dumb mistake on our part... we could have saved ourselves alot of trouble and cost by pushing the wardrobes into the corners of the room and having a longer banquette in between. The window would have looked off-center - but once we install the curtains you won't even notice the difference. Ah well, live and learn.

We're scrambling to get it all done - wardrobes installed, banquette built & painted, filler panels built and painted - before carpet is installed on Thursday. HandyMan is working so hard... I fall in love with him even more when I see everything he's doing for this little baby :) A few pics of our progress:

...the Ikea wardrobes and the rough banquette frame. You can see the pale yellow walls and blue ceiling too.

...the closets. I can't wait to fill them with Baby HandyLuster's tiny outfits!

... and a close up of the wrapping paper we backed the closets with. We went with something a bit more subtle & sweet than what I originally considered. We found the paper at The Paper Place; they have such a wonderful selection of papers.

It's all starting to come together - and so quickly too! Seeing the room and feeling the bigger movements of the baby more lately...its all seems much more REAL. Ohmigosh - we're having a baby in two months!!!

Waiting, waiting...

I realize posting has been light around here lately, but there’s not much to report. The glass for the bathroom has been measured but won’t be in until next week, the door is somewhere en route to us, and the basketweave tile is sitting in our hallway waiting for the tile guy to find some time in his schedule to install it (I thought it was a recession around here and we’d actually have an easier time getting the trades in. Guess not!).

On the baby’s room front, we’ve got a first coat of paint on the ceiling and walls. Our berber carpet from Home Depot will be installed next week, which means we have to move our butts and get the Ikea wardrobes assembled and the banquette framed in this weekend. Home Depot also offers two free carpet cleanings so I’m planning to have a steam cleaning (no chemicals) right after installation in order to speed up the off-gassing. Since the carpet is in a baby’s room, we thought better to be safe than sorry (and its free so why not take advantage of it!). But I know how you all love pictures so I’ll leave you with these little snippets of things going into the room. Where they end up, you’ll just have to wait and see…

baby's room - by wanderluster on Polyvore.com

Pecha Kucha @ Interior Design Show 2009!

No reno work today.... because HandyMan and I are off today to host a Pecha Kucha at Toronto's premier design event, the Interior Design Show! What's a Pecha Kucha? Its a fast-paced presentation featuring 8 of Toronto's hottest designers, artists, and architects. Each presents 20 slides, each slide for 20 seconds. Its quick, dynamic, and unpredictable :) Our emcee is Arren Williams, stylist/editor/reporter whose work you may have seen on TV on CityLine or in print in Canadian House & Home and Style At Home.

We're lucky to be working with IDS and bringing the Pecha Kucha concept to their event for the first time. If you're in Toronto and a fan of design, most definitely make a trip out to IDS this weekend!

P.S. We return to our regular reno schedule tomorrow. Can't wait to get some paint up on the nursery walls :)

P.P.S. I was so so so close to getting my design idol Sarah Richardson as a presenter for this Pecha Kucha. I won't stop doing these things until I finally get her to appear at one, lol.

Etsy Love

More things I'm loving on etsy:

Bookplate and Silhouette print from nelladesigns; quilt by aniandtrio; tags by sweetbeets; print by tollipop.

Lessons Learned: The Bathroom

With the bathroom renovation almost done, its time to reflect on some of our Lessons Learned. There’s not much I would have done differently with this project as all in all it went fairly smoothly. But here are some tips which you may find useful in planning your own bathroom renovation:

Space planning is key. The more rooms we renovate, the more important I find this aspect to be. With renovating, its very easy to get caught up in the décor and frills, but really, all the luxe fabrics and stellar finishings in the world can’t cover up a poorly planned space. Focus on function first. Think about traffic flow, sightlines, efficient use of the space. How can you lay out a space to make it feel bigger? How can you make it feel open and airy without resorting to taking out a wall? What do you want to stand out in a space (the awesome view out the window?) and what do you want to hide and minimize (the toilet?)? The answer to these questions can greatly impact the design and layout.

For our bathroom, I wanted it to feel light and open. This meant emphasizing the window; using open-legged furniture; not ‘blocking’ the view from the entry door; and keeping to a simple, clean cohesive palette. We tucked the toilet in the back corner, and put glass above the half-wall so light bounces around the room. We’re also putting in a half frosted door so light spills from the bathroom out into the hallway.

Don’t be afraid to bring in the pros. HandyMan and I are DIYers, always eager to tackle things on our own. But for this job, I’m glad we called in the pros. Yes, we were motivated by a tight timeline, but even we had to admit there were things in the room that even we had no idea how to do. The plumbing was a bit tricky and installation of the new dual-flush toilet was a pain in the butt. We’ve never installed a tub or hooked up a tub drain either. We even had a tile guy do the floor – the room wasn’t square, we were dealing with expensive large marble and basketweave tiles requiring lots of cutting – so yeah, best to get the pro in!

Tile design is harder than the installation. Even though HandyMan has tiled bathrooms, entryways, kitchen floors, and walls before, we approached this tiling job much more differently. Because we were using a very simple white subway tile, the challenge was to keep it interesting. I learned from the pros that mixing sizes, shapes, and a little bit of colour would do the trick. We spent time putting together a mockup board. We figured out the tile carpet design (again, another key feature in the space) and wall tile options. In the end, I think we ended up with something much more thought out, interesting, in keeping with the period look, but still simple.

One other thing to think about before you grab that first piece of tile: determine your starting point. For us, it was the tile that sat right above the tub. We wanted it to be a full piece of tile (we didn’t want any rough cut and possibly uneven edges visible right from the door) so that determined where our rows fell horizontally around the room. To space things vertically, HandyMan took a bit of trial and error to make sure we didn’t ended up with small slivers of tile at the corners. Because this first row of tile determined all the rows around the whole room, it was important to get it right! Funnily enough, we ended up with a problem where the wall tile meets the floor tile – we planned for just one 1/2x6 grey strip atop a 6x8 tile, but that left a whole 1.5” gap to fill. We solved it by adding two additional rows of 1/2x6 white strips… using the white instead of grey kept the bottom from feeling too heavy, and provided a nice change in texture. With tiling, sometimes you have to plan on the fly!

Not everything is a showstopper. This is especially true in a small space. Pick a few highlights and spend money on them! For us, this was the window and the floor. So we tore out the old ledge from the window and replaced the trim. We’re also going to prettify it with a new roman blind. For the floor, we splurged on marble tile and marble basketweave. They’re sure to grab your attention now!

And that’s the bathroom in a nutshell. It’s a small space where so many things can go wrong and small changes can have a big impact so take the time to plan and end up with the bathroom of your dreams :)

Pretty Paper

I wish I could post progress on the nursery. But I can't :( HandyMan and I have been hit with a mix of colds, vertigo, Braxton Hicks contractions, fevers, and stretching pains. Makes for a very unproductive few days. I've had to content myself with some low-key tasks like framing a few prints for the room and doing some online shopping.

I'm currently on the hunt for wrapping paper. We bought some Ikea PAX wardrobes which will flank the window. I thought it would be fun to cover the back wall of the wardrobes in wrapping paper - a bit of unexpected colour when you open them. I considered using wallpaper, but I wouldn't need a whole roll. Plus, the smaller scale of the prints on wrapping paper are better suited to the narrow wardrobes.

Here's a few options I've found on Paper Source. Not sure where else to find pretty wrapping paper...any suggestions?