Building Our Nest

Kelly is hard at work finishing up the final final touches on the downstairs bathroom today, while I am at the very quiet reference desk at work. While he finishing things up, I thought I would post the pictures of the bathroom renovation in process and all the things we did to beautify this space.

First of all, the before pictures…

This really wasn’t a pretty space. The cream paint just looked dirty, and the 3 foot high paneling was cheap and wasn’t installed well.

The floors were a horrid vinyl tile, again shoddily installed (bad installation was a theme all over the house for the previous homeowners…) and they just looked filthy.

The tiny window was showcased (that’s sarcasm…) by cheapo blinds.

In fact, until we started the renovation, we had no idea that the window had a few hidden treasures of its own! First of all, that there was an original blue stained glass window panel still left in one of the panes! And secondly, that the window actually opened! And opened up – into the wall. We have a pocket window, y’all!

You can see part of the blue pane of glass

In fact, the only thing this space had going for it was the nice light fixture and the cool looking exposed wood slats, which eventually gave me the idea for the design.

I don’t normally go for “cottage-y, beach-y” design, unless it’s actually in a cottage by the beach. But the exposed wood boards were so cool and are definitely a beach cottage staple. I had been reading a design blog called “The Lettered Cottage” and the designer, Layla, had a few rooms which sparked off the inspiration for our renovation.

First of all, she has an addiction to tearing down drywall and exposing wood planking!

Secondly, she painted these gorgeous horizontal stripes in white and tan.

(Notice also the exposed wood planking on the ceiling!)

So I thought to myself – we don’t have to expose the wood planking – ours is already there. So let’s take advantage of this feature and combined the white and tan stripe idea with the exposed wood! (And add in a little beadboard wainscotting and trim while we’re at it.) So that, my friends, was the inspiration for the renovation of this tiny, dingy, but full-of-potential space. More renovation pictures to follow in the next post!