Spa Feeling for Bathroom - Amazing Transformation

Almost all the walls in the small bungalow we are working to renovate, paint, and clean will be in a lovely gold light yellow, with white trim – except for the bathroom – done with puttycolored brown walls (paperbag perhaps?), with a brownie purplish grey trim. It looks great! It is so modern to go with the tiles around the Jacuzzi in the same colors. It is positively AMAZING what some filling, spackling, sanding, and a fresh layer of paint can do for a small, older bathroom.

Over the bathroom basin we are installing a mirrored 3 light vanity fixture to go with the 1930’s engraved style mirror I picked up from Lowe’s for $34, and framed with a gray picture frame ($24.) to match the grey trim. I replaced that one with the one shown in this photo for about $68.00 and used the other mirror in the kitchen.



This toned down grey and brown treatment for the bathroom has a very modern spa feel to it. Coupled with the new light fixtures (which one visitor to the house termed “classy” ha ha!) and a new lighted fan should emphasize the house's many water features - it’s koi pond out front and backyard gazebo housing a large wood hot tub (4 people comfortably). It always feels like you are being gently boiled by some good witch when out in the gazebo soaking after a long day working.

A great rule for staging a house for sale is:

“perfect -- where you look, and where you touch”

in otherwords it is worth your time and effort to detail those places in house where you first look and then are likely to touch. Kitchens and bathrooms are the most likely to be grungy and also are very important when refinishing a house to sell.



Both men and women are focused on the kitchen and bathroom of the house being livable and usable – upon moving in, and that means immaculately clean and perfect. It is true that smaller places require more time to detail, and small bathrooms are extremely important to detail out with spackle, sanding, and painting. Nothing should draw attention to itself and the focus should be gently directed to the room’s best features – in this case the giant Jacuzzi tub.

One interesting thing I corrected - with this house’s bathroom the light shines directly down on the door showing every bump and surface irregularity. If the door was new or had not much use and fewer levels of paint it would be easy to make it look good, but of course this is not the case here. The solution? Paint the inside of the door brown-grey to go with the trim! It hides the many flaws of the door and still maintains the modern spa appeal.

As part of the spa look we took the old standard mirrored cabinet from over the sink and painted it several layers of semi-gloss pure white. In the back of the cabinet I cut out and placed a piece of the toile wallpaper and set the shelves back into the cabinet, and placed it onto the wall above the toilet. The toile is a sweet visual surprise to anyone opening the cabinet!

What’s next? Painting the wall sizing for the wallpaper in the stairwell and small hallway, where the new bowl shaped African trading bead inspired light fixture illuminates the area in a warm glow. Completing the trim and corners in the last upstairs room.

Bowl shaped lighting fixtures have a certain positive Feng Shi aspect to them, of encouraging freeflowing energy and also wealth, as the bowl is full of light. As the top light fixture in the most private recess of the house, I think it is an excellent choice for many reasons.



Yesterday we also had a tourist – a woman who works as a children’s advocate who came to see the progress – it is interesting to see that as a project comes closer to completion people can begin to visualize what the additional goodies, like wallpaper will mean to the completed project.

Jeanette also helped keep us focused on the right design path – when we found a lovely nude painting, and spoke briefly about including it as part of the staging she said “what part of French Country Hobbit” is this?” Good point! – it may be perceived as inappropriate by some buyers and it does not suit the mood of the presentation. So we stick to the original design!

Renovation
Seattle

Progress on FaceLift of 1930's Bungalow

Jeanette's house renovation is going much faster with a larger team - an architect, a landscape designer, a goldminer wintering south in Seattle (no kidding!), and a few more friends are stopping by to lend a hand - we are focused on getting the house on the market before Christmas.

The living room and dining room have the finish coat painted completely twice - second time by the excitable dance paint and joke team of Sara and Jay - there are small corrections on the trim here and there. The laundry room needs the eggshell white trim to be done, but the walls are done (I took the racks down over the washer and dryer and spackled prodigiously). Plain looks good - wouldnt it be wonderful if we could live like this in a plain uncluttered manner?

Eggshell trim and flat wallpaint are the perfect combination for an older house that has had a lot of use. Then there is also the perfect $10 armchair I purchased on a whim at the secondhand donation place for temporary seating at the house because all the furniture was removed; it is so popular someone is always in it, including the fat gray cat, Nermal. We plan to recover it for "Day of Show".

On the bathroom I started yesterday by mixing up a grey slightly purplish trim paint and light brown wall paint to match the putty - gray colored tiles - covering more of that pasty orange tooth-fairy colored paint. I removed the small mirrored medicine cabinet from above the sink and placed it over the toilet, replacing it with a 1930's style lightly engraved mirror instead. The rings for the shower curtains are matching mirror pieces in the same engraved style - time to find a shower pole thingie of the correct width and length.



Then someone (perhaps moi?) will sand the bathroom door frame, fill it and paint it the gray color which matches the bathtub grout - both sides of the door will be white semi-gloss. I am using matchstick blinds for the window next to the sink but am not sold on them - the shower curtain warms up and livens up the bathroom with a relaxed Italian ornamental look with tone on tone grays and browns, and a little simplicity of the Japanese hot tub feel. Sort of unusual for a small bathroom but the huge Jacuzzi tub and large gray tiles dominates the room so it works best to emphasize it.

Next up is to complete the south bedroom painting with the wonderful golden yellow color and white trim - the new lighting fixures couldn't be better. Then the closets at the top of the hallway are to be painted pure white semi-gloss. The walls in the hallway that our architect friend David spackled extensively will be painted with wallpaper prepping paint and size, and I hope this week to have the wallpaper installed by Liz our professional - we'd all feel better about getting one story of the house completely finished. After the trim in the bedroom and the stairwell are painted white then the rugged off-white carpet can be laid.

The other team is moving towards getting the reading room complete which means hanging the new door - I'll stain that to match the upstairs doors. They will paint the reading room the same as the living dining laundry with the Home Depot Behr yellow (not much of it left now). I love their fine paint - it goes on like butter on hot bread.

The old dryed up paint drops are being removed with GoofOff where ever there is wood floor. Then wood putty will go on the holes and a bit of stain applied. Goof Off strips the varnish too - so I will oil it when complete and then gently talk the main team into letting me varnish lightly with something to restore the wood's glow.

I am glad I stuck to my gut feelings on the choices I made - remain with the 1930's feel when the house was built - keeping everything in proportion, somewhat small but bright, with fine details like the mirrors, and toile curtains makes it all look very put together. The light golden yellow in the kitchen is going to calm that room down quite a bit. I am still amazed by what even a little old fashioned style chandelier can do for an old house to give it personality and gentle sparkle.

I have my seamstress making curtains for upstairs bedrooms and they are about 1/2 done. I replaced that square mirror tile in the small upstairs toilet with a finished round white mirror, and combined with the round white light fixture Jerry installed, it is looking much more normal, and discrete.

I was looking at this month's copy of House Beautiful magazine and was not too surprised to see that my golden tone on tone color choices, shapes and styles, such as hanging curtains up against the low ceilings to generate a feeling of height, well placed mirrors, right down to Jeanette's grandmother's old French tapestry were in an article about how to transform small rooms into larger looking ones. I guess I have learned the designer's tricks well.

That place is beginning to glow and when we are finished someone will have a bright, artful, fun, easy to live in place with a fishpond in front and an enclosed hot tub off the back deck. I always feel better when I end the day with a good soak with some of Jeanette's custom made bath salts, like "Jazz", and when I am done I can go inside and watch the paint dry.

Renovation
Seattle

The Upstairs in French Country Hobbit and Petra the Parrot

The two doors are installed upstairs, and Dai, a friend and former electrician, has begun installing the new lighting fixtures, which although they are modern and inexpensive are in the style one would expect in a 1930’s bungalow.

We discussed painting the doors pure white, but the wood was so pleasant looking I went with a water based English Oak stain which a bit more on the yellow side, away from red. Since the colors upstairs focus on light yellows to enhance their sunny quality and secure feeling I feel this is a good match.



After I used the orbital sander to sand the surfaces of the doors, I directly applied the stain, and it went on evenly and looks great. Next step is to varnish the completed doors, and their new frames, as Warren the carpenter now has all his tools and can complete the outer frames and soon move downstairs to do the last two doors, one is a French style enclosure for a small closet.

I shot the "before" photos on Friday - better late than never!

I am finding I really like working on interior design to increase the value of a house and stage it for sale. The estimated increase in value is approximately $31,000. just by cleaning, painting, updating, and completing existing rooms, with curtains and appropriate furniture. Pretty impressive for a little more than a month’s work! The reason I believe this is because a friend of the carpenter has decided he and his wife would like to purchase the house! We will see if they get their funding.

Everyone is saying that it would have been nice to do this work and design prior to moving in, because all these wonderful changes would have been fun to enjoy. But enjoyment is not the same as money at stake and let's face it money is a real motivating factor to getting something accomplished.

What is surprising to me is that many people, even in business, do not understand that the grace of presentation can enhance and add value to just about any experience - a diner can be a lot more fun to eat at when the decor is fun and the place is simply really clean. A house is more fun to live in when it looks good and functions. Lighting is absolutely essential for livability and being able to control the amount of light is a component of that. Kids have to be able to see their materials to study and learn.

We have decided to locate another twin bed and give away the sleigh bed that is there because of the amount of work required to sand and paint it (kids marked it up and carved into it). No one has to actually sleep on the staged twin bed, it just needs to hold body weight and resemble a bed enough to show how it will look. A basic hollywood frame with some kind of handmade and painted headboard will work fine.

Painting and reworking an existing old pine chest of drawers is half complete, in a pure white paint, it is requiring filling from where kids knocked holes in it and sanding and 3 complete coats of semi-gloss, but it will wind up looking like a million dollars. I’ll be using the ol' soap on the wooden runners trick to get the drawers to slide easily.

We have the pillows, pillow covers, sheets with a delicate bouquet floral print, quilts, and modern fabrics and I can hardly wait to get the sanding and painting, and new fixtures installed, and wallpaper hung so the staging can begin.

I have found that goggles that do not allow particles in to my eyes work best for sanding as there is so much to be accomplished. I had corrective eye surgery and the small particles are too much!

Meanwhile I am still caring for Jeanette's Parrot, Petra, at my place. Petra misses the activity of Jeanette's place mightily so I will be returning her until painting in the dining and living room starts. I had no idea Parrots could "speak" so loudly.

When I was advising someone over the phone about web development she started "speaking" so loudly I had to remove her to the far bedroom and close the door. All she wants is some attention. I am so quiet, and love peace so much that I am a poor companion for a parrot of her outgoing nature.

Most of Jeanette’s stuff has gone into the transfer units sitting out front, so the house is becoming emptier on a daily basis. She has decided to visit Costa Rica and visit my old friend from Fairbanks, John Forbes who is planning on subdividing a property he purchased down there. His site is Costricajournal.com.

If Jeanette likes it she will move there – a vacation is a great reward for selling a house!


Renovation
Seattle