Bathroom 2

Because of our home’s layout, we don’t have a bathroom on our main floor, so this upstairs hall bathroom is what we expected to be our go-to bathroom when guests come over. Before we got our hands on it, the bathroom had two doors: one to exit to the hallway, and the other to our bedroom. But now that we have our own bathroom, we had no need for a doorway to this bathroom from our room, so we closed it up which gave us a bit more wall space in both of the rooms. And, fun fact: what we thought was a white bathtub is actually a blue bathtub that the previous owners painted white. We found that out as we were re-tiling the floor. We would eventually like to redo the bathtub surround, which is a project for another day but a white shower curtain covers up the oldness quite nicely for now. 

{The before. A standard single-sink bathroom. This picture was taken from the then-doorway to our bedroom.}

And the after:

{Caleb plumbed out a second sink so that both Mason and Camryn could be in the bathroom together without attacking one another. We know our kids and their needs. Where the linen cabinet is was where the door used to be. And we settled on this vanity, which is ok. We currently live in a world where you buy what is available, and it’s not necessarily what you want. New flooring, new mirrors, new light fixtures, and we have a functioning bathroom, folks. Except that we are pretty sure the the shower might be leaking through the ceiling in Jacob’s bathroom, so we fixed it by not letting anyone use that shower.}

And not to be forgotten: the toilet that lived in our hallway for several days during the reno. These are the things memories are made of!

Fixing up fine.

Because it seems to be impossible for Caleb and me to not put our mark on the homes we live in, we dove in head first to renovating our new—but old—family home that we bought in October. 

It’s a cute 1500-ish square foot tri-level house that was built in the 1970s. It’s right down the street from the boys’ school, and Cam has gotten district permission to stay at her current school through fifth grade, which is less than a five minute drive away. The neighborhood is full of huge trees that canopy over the streets in the summer and provide tons of shade and climbing opportunities for the kiddos in our backyard. After leaving a house that was triple this size, I can say that I have zero regrets living in a “tiny” house. It takes no time at all to clean, and the kids each have their own bedroom with plenty of floor space to stretch out. We are still close to our previous neighborhood, and the boys have no problem biking to see their crew of friends. We have settled in nicely, and this house is a great place for us in this moment. 

It would have been perfectly fine for us to live in this house without making changes, but that’s not us so we quickly got to work in every room. Making it ours has been a full-time job, nothing we didn’t know going in to it. And, I will say it again—after saying it before in different homes—that was fun, but I don’t think I need to do that again. If you know us, you know this is a chronic lie. Being the force behind the renovation is exhausting, and time consuming, and not really all that fun after the excitement wears off. And I’m sure our kids will remember their youth as a string of times that their parents were busy laying tiles, or knocking out walls, or building something to put somewhere. But to be able to take credit for the design and execution of everything in your home is probably what drives us to do it. Or maybe we are just too cheap to hire things out. Either way, we are on the tail end of the interior work—just in time for the weather to warm up so we can go outside to tackle outside things. 

We had several projects rolled out simultaneously, but the first project we completed was our master bathroom. There is no before picture of this room, because it was an 8x5’ walk-in closet. But because we also had another closet in the room, we decided an en suite bathroom would be a necessary upgrade. Here is our new bathroom…

Having only 40 square feet to work with is complicated, especially when you are looking to make a full bathroom. We knew we could only have a single vanity, so we optimized storage by finding a vanity with as many drawers as we could. After living with it for several months, I have no complaints. Maybe that will change when Caleb goes back to work full time and we are fighting for sink space. There is an octagonal-shaped window in the room, which is great for letting light in but not so great for shower design. The placement of the window was such that a larger shower would cut the window in half, so we had no choice but to go with a much smaller shower stall. It is what I would guess to be the size of a phone booth, and isn’t optimal for leg shaving.  But it opens from the corner, which saves a ton of space and the design works with our taste, so good enough! We kept the hardwood floors, because we love hardwood floors and the floor to ceiling tiles make the room feel much taller. 

To snag some more storage, we went with a medicine cabinet mirror. Not my favorite, but unless you know it’s a medicine cabinet, you don’t know it’s a medicine cabinet. Shelves provide some much needed additional space for toiletries—and clearly fake plants. 

We had one snag with this project: not all of the floor has house below it, so the cold winter temperatures caused our shower pipes to freeze. We are lucky that happened before we had closed up the ceiling below it, and now we have a permanent heating duct running directly to those pipes to keep things toasty in the winter. To save 5k in labor, (yes, that much. We had two estimates) Caleb and his dad plumbed everything themselves. We intentionally left the pipes exposed for longer than necessary to be certain nothing leaked. Plumbing is not a trade Caleb has much confidence in. But so far so good! 

Spring sports. Let’s go!

Never mind that the current weather has more of a winter flavor, it’s time to hit the field and track!

Jacob is running track for his middle school after never having run anything ever. Last week they had a practice meet. He ran the 400, 4x200, and 4x400 and did the long jump and triple jump. Although he is not a naturally fast runner, his relay teams did really well, and he made it around the track in the 400 at a speed I am sure I could never maintain! But where he shined was long jump and triple jump. I am pretty sure he was the only one with the correct hop, skip, and jump mechanics, and he had the longest long jump of the day at over 12 feet! I’m excited to see how he does as the season moves on!

Mason’s baseball team played in their first tournament this weekend with a game on Friday in what can only be described as pouring snow. Fun. Because the weather has been crummy to date, the team hasn’t had many opportunities to practice in the field. They looked a little rusty but had some stellar plays including a rundown that Mason initiated as catcher that was on point! Though they were the one seed going in to bracket play, they were knocked out in the semi-final round. Not the start they were hoping for, but they are all baseball ready now and looking forward to a great season! Mason was making contact with the pitches and looked solid behind the plate. Time to build on that! 

{Mason stepping up to the plate with a classmate standing beside him as catcher. Slight height difference.}

 

Chalk Fest

One of the main reasons for our Florida trip was to go to the Chalk Fest, which happened to line up perfectly with spring break this year! We have been twice before, but each fest is completely different with the exception that when you go on Friday you get to see the artists begin their work, and by the end of the festival the pieces are complete and look nothing like they did a few short days earlier. 

{We got to make our own chalk creations!}

{The shark. It’s been there for several years, but was recently redone.}

Some of our favorites. And their transformations from beginning to end. 

{It’s crazy how different this one looked upside down.}

Some 3D pieces. I love how your mind tricks you!

{Our favorite 3D art. When not looking through your camera, the painting didn’t look 3D nor did it look like it had the shine of the glass. I can’t wrap my head around how artists are able to create these!}

{Same painting. And completely unrecognizable upside down!}

Some of us went to Florida.

But one boy didn’t want to go, and one dog couldn’t go, so one parent had to stay behind. They went to Iowa.

So about Florida… it was fantastic. Warm. Sunny. The opposite of home. We hit up the beaches, logged tons of hours in the pool, and ate at all of our favorite places. The week flew by, as vacations should. 

We arrived to 90 degree heat, so we headed directly to the pool for our first afternoon. Not a bad start! But then we go sun burned, and some of us complained that our skin hurt. But we remembered it could be worse: we could be at home stuck in sleet and snow and cold. So we quickly got it together and hopped back in the pool. 

{Lots of red skin. But that means you are in a warm and sunny location. It’s all about perspective!}

{I got conned into a night swim. But with 90 degree water and 80 degree air, it’s not a hard sell!}

We went to all of our favorite restaurants: Pincher’s, Sharky’s (twice!), Yummy’s (twice!), the airport, and Farlow’s. My parents sure know how to host! 

{Jacob wanted to try crab. So King Crab it is! I’m not sure which he enjoyed more: eating the meat or the process of getting to the meat—hammers and crackers as utensils? Yes, please!}

{Eating at the pier. Tell me it’s windy without telling me it’s windy!!!}

{Sunset dinner on the beach means you eat as fast as you can so you can duck out to run around on the beach while the adults finish. Enjoyable for everyone!}

{Breakfast at the airport. Still young enough to want to make ridiculous things out of wiki-stix while waiting for the food.}

{Our last dinner of the trip at Farlow’s. They have amazing food, and a pretty fantastic tic-tac-toe menu spread…}

 

{We took a walk to the playground for tradition’s sake. These kids have nearly aged out of the equipment!}

 

{The kids found this slow moving fella outside my parents’ condo. All fun and games until the gecko drops its tail in fear and you are left with a twitching appendage in your hand. Yikes!}

{We found a friend of Camryn’s who happened to be on our flight home!}

{See you next time, Florida!}

March Bits

 The pieces of our March puzzle.

 

{Caleb had a birthday. And got a new wrist sleep support. Cheers to 41 years, old guy!}

{Camryn got some new nails for her birthday, so we had an impromptu mani party before school.}

{So that fancy picture of Camryn I took last month… turns out that I took the same picture many years ago. Twinning!}

{I went to Florida with these two. More on that later…}