Looong absence, huh?  I’ve been working on a few small projects, but we’ve just had a really, really busy summer.

I finally finished patching and re-painting the bathroom ceiling.  For a couple years, it looked like this:

Shameful.

But you know, you get used to things like holes in the ceiling pretty quickly and just forget they’re there.  The hole was there because we had to fix some electrical work.  Then for a few months, it looked like this:

And in the mean time, I got SO tired of patching drywall.  That has been one of my least favorite parts of fixing this house up.  I was also testing colors on the wall there.  The darker color is what we ended up using on the ceiling (it’s the same as the powder room) and we painted the walls our favorite white.  Now it looks like this:

It feels good to have it finished! (If you missed it, see the practically free and dramatic vanity makeover here.)

We also hung the mirror back up vertically after I painted.  It’s a long story that I’ll tell you in the next chapter when we actually get this room done.

Here’s a reminder of the before, just because it’s so different:

Also, something big happened this week too: the Hubs’ company downsized and he lost his job.  The chances of finding new work in this area are pretty slim.  Which means, our work on the house might turn from fun things into finishing projects to getting it ready to sell.  Either way, it might continue to be quiet around here until we get settled again.

Unfortunately, this also means I will not be able to host the Undersized Urbanite contest this year.  The time and resources just aren’t there.  I’m really bummed about it, but it’s just not possible.

I’ll be back as soon as we have either news or another finished project!

Click here to see the whole house tour

The post A small bathroom update appeared first on Little Victorian.

We seriously needed to update the bathroom vanity. It had been bothering me for quite a while…the bathroom was the first room we started remodeling when we moved in, and we went with a sink set from IKEA. 

They don’t sell it anymore, but it was everything you needed: sink base, sinks, faucets, and a great big mirror/shelf unit, and it was really inexpensive.  So that’s what we got.

I changed out the handles a while back, and while it helped, I still was dissatisfied with the look of the cabinet as a whole.  So I did this:

Just adding simple trim to the front was a serious update for the vanity.

This is how it was before:

The trim was made with 1/4″ x 2″ poplar trim pieces from the home improvement store.  The pieces were measured, and each end was cut at a 45-degree angle for a more professional look.  The cuts were made with a small miter box.

If you have a miter saw (highly recommend this one if you’re doing small projects), that is the best and fastest way to cut the pieces. If not, a miter box makes it quicker and easier.

Make the cuts one at a time to be sure they all fit snugly.  To make sure I had the proper lengths, I held each piece in its place on the vanity with double-sided tape after I cut them. 

Once they were all good, I removed them one-by-one and put them back up with super-strength glue.

After applying the glue, just press hard down the board to make sure the glue is spread out and it will be a tight fit. Hold for about 30 seconds.

After gluing the trim on, caulk all the seams and corners, and then fill any holes left from previous handles or knobs. 

Since this vanity is laminate, it got 2 coats of primer.  Then paint.  Then the handles.  And now we like it much better.

The handles got moved up to fit on top of the new trim.

The trim pieces only cost $12, and the quart of paint cost $10, so it was a really inexpensive vanity update too. (The handles were purchased previously, for just a few dollars from IKEA.)

Print

Add shaker trim to cheap bathroom vanity

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 4 hours hours

Dry time 1 day day

Total Time 1 day day 4 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Cost $22

Equipment

• 1/4" x 2" poplar trim pieces Measure for the lengths you need
• Miter box If not using a miter saw
• Construction glue
• Paintable caulk
• Wood filler

Instructions

• Remove handles/pulls/knobs from your vanity.
• Measure your trim boards. The easiest way is to line up each piece where it will go on the cabinet, starting in one corner, then make a pencil mark on the back where it overhangs so you know where to cut it off. Do that for each piece now.
• Using the miter box (or a miter saw if you have one), cut the corners of each piece at a 45 degree angle.
• Use construction glue to glue each piece of trim to the face of the drawers or doors, following the instructions for your glue.
• Use wood filler to fill in any holes from the previous hardware (if applicablle).
• Using paintable caulk, put a thin bead of caulk everywhere the new trim pieces meet the door/drawer. (So, along each edge.) Dip your finger in water and smooth out the bead of caulk. Let it dry according to the package instructions.
• Prime and paint your cabinet as needed. If it's laminate, I recommend 2 coats of primer.
• Add new pulls/knobs/handles.

Save it for later!

Pin it to Pinterest

The post Easy Shaker Trim to Update a Cheap Bathroom Cabinet appeared first on Little Victorian.

Guess what I’ve finally done.

In case the title didn’t give it away, I finished the bathroom shelves.

Originally, I hung the top shelf way too high and it looked kind of silly, so I lowered that by about 6 inches.  The original plan was to stain the wood, but they got painted a warm, medium gray instead–you’ll see why next week.

Here’s what they looked like before:

As you can see, I also got the baseboard up and patched the gap between the end of the wall and the door frame.  Still have to add a cap to the baseboard and paint it, but it’s getting closer!

The post Bathroom shelves appeared first on Little Victorian.

Lately, many more projects are being started around here than are being finished.  It’s always something…  And it certainly does not have anything to do with me being overly ambitions.  Pfff.

A few things that are undone around the house?

And that’s just the bathroom.  The bathroom is currently a mess because the shelf we’re now using as a media center was holding all of our toiletries and towels.  Now the floor is holding them all.  I need to fix that this week.  But first, I need to paint the walls, install new baseboard and trim, then cut, stain and install the new wall shelves.

Oh, and finish patching, priming and painting the ceiling too.

On another note, in light of a few things I’ve learned about taking better pictures, the photos on our house tour page are making me twitch a little.  So I have a goal of taking all new photographs of the house and updating that page by the end of February.  See?  I’m not overly ambitions at all.

The post Undone appeared first on Little Victorian.

We have a…unique bathtub.  Not only is it horrendously peach, there are only walls on two sides.

Because a tub insert needs three sides, there was a knee wall built on the side by the door.  This also causes us to need two shower curtains, one for the side and one for the front.

Another thing that has been bothering me about the bathroom (especially after painting the tile) is that the curtains sat 8 inches off the floor, leaving 8″ of the icky tub color exposed.

So, I purchased a $5 tablecloth in black, cut 10″ off, and sewed it to the bottom of our current shower curtains.  I used the finished edges, so it was a 15 minute sewing job.  And it is so nice to not see any peach!

Tonight, we’re working on the lighting, then the baseboards, painting the walls, a couple odd projects and we’ll be done (for a while).

The post Adding length to the shower curtain appeared first on Little Victorian.

Okay, I’m sure that there really is a way to successfully paint tile, you will not learn that way here.  It’s not all bad though, I’m happy with our newly painted tile wall as a quick fix.

To go along with the icky peach tub, toilet, sink and floor, there was a line of peach tiles along one wall.  Below the peach tiles were dingy off-white square tiles.  Here’s a reminder:

The bathroom was remodeled around the same year I was born, hopefully I am aging better than that grout was.  It had turned a pretty unattractive shade of yellow.

Originally, I was just going to paint the peach tiles a different color (you can see that only the top strip is primed above).  But the more I looked at the grout, the uglier it got, so I painted the whole wall white.

Zinser will tell you that their primer sticks to tile without even sanding.  As Dwight Shrute would say, FALSE.  I sanded, put on two coats of primer, kept it warm and dry for 7 days to cure, and still, it won’t stand up to much contact.  Thankfully, there won’t be much contact with that wall.

But it does look so much better.

The plan is (in a couple years) to replace the tub in the bathroom.  When we do that, we also plan on replacing all the tile.  Because of that, painting was the only option that made sense.  It’s a temporary fix, and it works.

1.5 bathroom projects down, 12.5 more to go.

The post The best way to paint tile? Don’t appeared first on Little Victorian.

The powder room is complete!

It started out as this:

We only planned on replacing the toilet and sink at first.  Then there were some issues with the floor.  So since we were going to pull it up anyway, we got these tiles to replace the vinyl planks:

And then we found some mold behind the baseboard while preparing to install the floor.  So we replaced a wall too.  And it looked like this for a while.

But, since we were adding a new wall, it made building in a cubby above the sink easy.

If you’ve been following along, you know it was 100% DIY, from the marble tile floor to installing the thrifted ceiling light.  We had a meltdown setback after grouting the beautiful new floor, but were able to fix it cheaply and naturally.  We built the sink base from scratch out of reclaimed fence posts purchased at an architectural salvage store.

And we made the vessel sink from a $12 serving bowl.

We painted the walls and ceiling, installed trim around the door (there was just a big hole when we moved in) and hung a mirror.

I’m crazy about this cute mirror, but it’s a little too small with a 15” diameter.  Normally, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but since the Hubs is almost a foot taller than me, he is at the very top end of the mirror and I’m at the very bottom…  The design should be a fairly simple DIY, right?  Maybe someday I’ll make a bigger version of it.

Originally, the room was lit by one ugly wall sconce.  But this room has the highest ceiling in the house, so we were absolutely going to take advantage and hang a light fixture in the center.  The geometric light was a salvaged bright brassy number for under $10.  I spray painted it brushed nickel and then sanded off the high spots to age it a little.

I’m quite pleased how much we were able to stick to the original mood board this time!

This little 3×6 room feels so much bigger (and less awkward!) than it did before.

Total cost was under $500.  We didn’t save the receipts for an exact total, but here is the ballpark for each item:

• $150 for the faucet and sink
• $150 for the reclaimed wood
• $100 for the marble tile
• $50 for the stuff The Hubs put down under the tile
• $30 for the paint
• Everything else, we had on hand

There you have it!  2 years after the powder room was rendered unusable because of structural floor issues, it’s back together.  And in style.  We’re pretty happy with it.  What do you think?

The post Powder room reveal: 2 years in the making appeared first on Little Victorian.

Yay!  The bathroom floor is pretty again because we figured out how to fix the grout haze.

We wanted to try something natural before resorting to the icky chemical grout haze remover.  So we tried my favorite deep cleaner first: Method’s tub cleaner.

I tested it on a small section of the tile behind the toilet first and it worked perfectly.  It works like most other tub cleaners: squirt, scrub and rinse well.  And then rinse again.

I tried it first with a soft sponge, and it didn’t really help.  So I switched to a plastic sponge (the one below), rubbed it in very gently and the grout haze disappeared.

You can see in the picture above, in the back corner that I hadn’t gotten the edges very well yet.  The difference is subtle in the picture, but in person, it is HUGE.

Not only did we not have to wear gloves, open the windows and worry about getting chemicals on our clothes and skin, it left the powder room actually clean and smelling great.  Yay for natural cleaners!

So my beautiful marble tile is restored and I’m a happy camper again.  Tonight, we will be putting up the trim around the inside of the door and soon I will get to show you the whole room!

P.S. I upgraded our secret-stair-landing-storage space with a really cheap and quick update.  Check it out here.

The post No more hazy grout appeared first on Little Victorian.

This is a surprisingly easy DIY…not a whole lot of instructions needed.

Materials needed for vessel sink:

• a serving bowl
• a sink pipe kit (like this one)
• sink drain (like this one)
• a faucet if you don’t have one (we recommend a kitchen faucet like this one since they’re taller, prettier and cheaper than special vessel sink faucets)
• caulk (bathroom, kitchen, or outdoor so it’s waterproof)

Basic instructions:

1. Buy a serving bowl
   This is probably the hardest part! I wasn’t looking for specific measurements, just one that looked good and that you can fit your hands in (you will look silly taking bowls off store shelves and sticking your hands in them as if you were washing—just like I did for several months ).
   If you look at a pre-made vessel sink, it’s just a bowl with a whole cut out of the bottom.
   Please keep in mind that it should be something that is water-safe and can also hold standing water.
   Check the bottom of the bowl for any special instructions. For example: we currently have some serving bowls that say not to leave them submerged in water, clearly those would be a bad idea for a sink.
   I ended up getting this one at Target, but Home Goods or TJ Maxx would be great options as well.
2. Drill a hole in the base of the bowl. 
   What you use to cut the hole will depend on the material the bowl is made out of. Ours is porcelain, so we used a carbide grit hole saw (examples here–affiliate links).
   This was much easier than it seems like it might be.
3. Attach your sink to the vanity.
   Apply a bead of caulk (made for bathrooms and kitchens like this) on the underside of the bowl. One circle around the hole, and another circle around the outside edge (both on the bottom of the bowl).
   Line up the holes in the vanity and the sink base and put it in place. I recommend putting something weighted inside the bowl like a gallon of water to make sure the caulk cures flat and seals.
4. Attach your pipes and sink drain per the instructions that came with the fittings.
   A seal should come with the kit, if not, you can use plumbing sealant under the drain.
5. Install your faucet according to the instructions that came with it.

The Hubs did all of the work on this particular project since it really is one person job.

The bowl was from Target, on clearance for $12.  The faucet is from IKEA.  We had a hard time finding any we liked that were actually made for vessel sinks, and they were quite expensive.  So we went to the kitchen faucet department instead and not only did we like the looks better, they were nice and tall and they were cheaper!

If you have any questions about the process, I will certainly pass them on to The Hubs!

Hover over the image and pin it for later!

The post DIY vessel sink from a serving bowl appeared first on Little Victorian.

We’ve been working hard on the powder room. None of it is very pretty yet, but here’s where we are today:

We finished hanging the drywall and got the first coat of mud on.

We also built our sink base from old fence posts and ceiling beams from the architectural salvage store.  We’re pretty happy with it.  Of all the DIY projects we’ve done in this house, this is the first piece of furniture we built from scratch.

With a small section of the leftover fence post, we built a cubby into the wall to hold soap and toiletries above the sink.

Next up:

• The second coat of mud on the walls (today!) and then painting as soon as possible
• Laying the new marble floor tiles
• Turning the serving bowl into a vessel sink (that will get a whole post to itself once it’s done)
• Plumbing the sink and putting it all back together

We’re getting there!

Oh, and exciting news: I’ve been nominated for the Homies on Apartment Therapy!  You guys are fantastic!  Thank you so much.  Feel free to stop by and vote if you haven’t already. 

The post DIY vanity sink base appeared first on Little Victorian.