I LOVE Style By Katy

As a creative artsy person it isn't easy to say this.. but I hate home decorating. I love the results of a nice home design, I just roll my eyes at the work. I just am not patient and and don't enjoy the process of picking out the stuff to make a room look nice. 

This stems from the fact that I never like the results and it seems like I always end up buying the wrong color, style, or whatever 15 times before I get to the right thing. So I don't. I end up with a room that isn't finished or is "finished" badly and live with it.

On the flip side, my sister Katy LOVES home decorating. She designed the decor of my old house and the results were stunning. But she has been uber busy with her children and life and work so I didn't want to bother her with my pathetic decorating needs.

But those days are OVER! Katy is now staying home with her young children and has started a home based business using her love of decorating and her savvy shopping skills. YES!!!

The process was amazingly easy. 

Here are some pictures of our first project together.

Take pictures of the space. I started with our hall bathroom. It is an eyesore with good bones.

I gave her my parameters. The fixtures couldn't be changed, the flooring is going to be changed in a couple of months to a dark ash grey color and I really wanted to keep the canvas that I liked so the colors needed to work with that.

After asking my preference on a few items, she sent me a design board along with all of the links to purchase the items from Etsy, Target and Lowe's. It was soo easy!

And so I began. Almost immediately I could see the paint was going to transform the room.

When I got to the new little shelves, I wasn't sure where to put them, so I sent Katy the picture with the options and she replied.

Done.

And while I loved the print that she suggested in the first place, I ended up getting another one that she picked out as an alternate because a different Etsy store was having a 20% off sale!

And there you have my hall bath makeover. 

Here is my spending summary:

Painting supplies for the walls, the cabinets (I went ahead and did a refresher of them since I was painting..) and the mirror: $55.

Soft Goods (including towels, bath mat, shower curtain, liner: $100

Hardware (shower rod, shelves) $40

Window shade: $20 

Accessories: $30

Total: $245 plus the $100 design board

Would I do it again if she wasn't my sister? YES!! I already have.

I can't wait to show you Lexi's bedroom. It is AMAZING!!

And here is my take-away... while it's hard to spend $100 on a design board that you can't actually use in your decorating. It is totally worth it! I have spent way more money on mistake decorating purchases over the years! A decent quality shower curtain is easily $40 and it doesn't matter the quality if it looks bad in the room!

So yeah, I'm sold.

Katy,I am so proud of you and what you are doing!

You can contact her at info.stylebykaty@gmail.com to start your own home decorating project.

The REVEAL!! A Refinished Bathroom makes all the difference.

I'm thinking that I just did a $10k upgrade on our house this weekend.

Really.

It made THAT MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE!!

I was planning on getting a new shower curtain and a rug, but we had a request to have the house
shown this morning and there was NO WAY I was going to say no to that!

So here it is!!

Yes, this is the same bathroom!!

Let's revisit.

A side by side comparison.

It's incredible! You don't even see it as the same bathroom!!

Now I just PRAY that the people who look at the house today appreciate my hard work and can look past the stink of the epoxy! But to make me feel good... let's take one more look at the finished bathroom!

Whatever it takes to give an old bathroom a new life.

Whatever it takes to give an old, outdated bathroom new life... or it could be called...

 

Whatever it takes (okay within reason..) to get this dadgum house to sell!!

 

This week, our realtor suggested that we really consider painting the bathroom.

 

I've thought about it at least a jillion times over the last 8 years. But, to do it, you have to have a couple of days for the labor and then the smell is sooooo soooo bad, you have to be out of the house for I would guess a week!! And you have to be able to let the stuff cure.

 

So, since we no longer live in the house...today was d-day.

 

Consider this to be tutorial should you ever want to take on a project like this.

 

1. clean. This isn't a quick clean, this is a full out, scrubbing every inch clean.  Get your comet and a scouring pad and scrub every surface that you are planning to paint. Rinse. Clean with lime-a-way. Rinse. Dry.

 

2. Using 400 grit sandpaper, go over every surface.

 

3. Wipe everything off.

 

4. Get a tack cloth and wipe down all of the surfaces. This gets rid of all of the last of the residue. It also leaves your hand nice and sticky. great.

 

5. This brings you to this step... see the pictures below. a completely clean ugly bathroom.

 



This took an hour.

At this point, I highly suggest deciding that your bathroom doesn't really look that bad and that if you only got new bath towels, everything would be much better.

If that doesn't work. Prepare the epoxy.

Note... once you have activated your base you have a six hour window in which to use the quart. It's just a quart, but my is it an expensive quart, so you don't want to waste it!!

 

6. Using your brand new 1 1/2 or 2 inch tapered paint brush (don't buy the cheapest one, but don't spend much either!) start painting the grout lines. Don't forget to "feather" your lines a couple of seconds after you paint them.. you don't want heavy paint edges that you have to try to cover later!

 

7. Take a break. Actually it's gonna stink so bad that you will know when 5 minutes are up because you will be light headed or dizzy or something... the instructions say paint for 5 minutes and then go outside for fresh air for 5 minutes. THEY ARE NOT KIDDING!! I actually used my timer on my phone and set it for 5 minutes. Painting this way takes FOREVER. But better to be safe than woozy!

 

8. After a couple of hours of painting the grout lines, go back and using either a little foam roller or your brush, fill in the tiles. I liked the foam roller, but the paint is thin... so it drips. bummer. However, in the end, I used the brush more, because I liked painting a little heavier with the brush.

 

9. Paint the tub.

 

10. Paint the sink.

 

11. Close your can of paint. Put your paint brush in a ziploc bag. zip it up and put it in the refrigerator. (okay, I don't know that I would do this if the fridge had food in it. Yeah, I would, but I'd double bag the ziploc..) Now, go away from the house. Like at least a block away.  Sidenote: When I pulled up into the driveway I could smell the epoxy!!

 

12. After at least an hour, come back and start everything again.

 

After more than 6 hours of painting, I used every drop of the quart of paint. I have 2 coats on a lot of the tile, and 1 coat on some. Tomorrow morning, I'll start again. ugh.

 

But for now, I'll leave you with the in progress pictures!!

 

Yeah. It's worth it. Dadgum. I sure wish I could have done this 8 years ago!

(oh.. and on the off chance you were not feeling sorry or at least a little sympathetic towards me for having to spend a GORGEOUS Saturday locked in the bathroom smelling epoxy fumes... I did this after getting up at 4:30am and running 15 miles.) 

I'd like a rockstar sticker now.

Thanks.

Hall Bathroom Remodel

With a Sunday at home with sick kids and a Monday off, I knew that it was time to get one of my new house to-do list items checked off.

 

And so, Sunday I painted the hall bathroom. All day. It's amazing how long it takes to cover a few partial walls. One of the reasons it took so long was that the walls have a heavy texture that I had to really coat.

 

 

(side note: hey man, I gotta say... my legs look long and skinny. what? cool. Thanks Doug!! You are the new resident photographer! and yes, I am wearing my house shoes....)

 

On Monday morning, I took the doors out to th enclosed patio and painted them in very short, very cold bursts. The doors took 3 or 4 coats a piece to look decent and probably could have taken another to look really nice.

 

 

And here is the partially finished project. I still have to get the doors on the cabinets, make the curtain(currently its a sheet hanging on the rod..) and get some artwork. But I am thrilled with how bright and fresh the bathroom feels.

 

Now if I could just get the girls to keep it clean!