Bathroom Renovation

Before and After photos of the Bathroom

Before:

This is also the only before photo we have from when the previous owners lived here. Not much has changed in this bathroom since they first bought it minus new tile and maybe the paint. If that's a new tub I'm not convinced. The walls were white, the drawer hardware was awful and falling apart too. The lights were atrocious neons too.

After:

We went with green and white which complemented the slightly salmon tile. The green is a little bit brighter than we expected, but it looks good to us at least. My shower curtain even matches with some pale grene leaves. Our towels will match one day. :P


The lighting makes a huge difference in here. Andre had to do alot of handy work to get it right. After taking the cover and removing the neons, the wires were on the far side of the box. This means he had to construct a new hole in the center to run a wire so the light would be center.


I just happened to find this at a local artisan's show. It was made by a husband and wife team. He cut the metal and she would paint it. Then he would make the carved design which on this is a flock of birds. It just so happens to have the perfect green to match the walls. I wish it photographed better. This does not do it justice.

Don't forget the nice hardware update. This is just a temporary redo for here. At some point we'll probably renovate the entire thing with new tub, toilet, and sink cabinet. I wish there was room for a big tub, but we'll see. That'll be another year.

Master Bedroom Renovation

Our Master Bedroom Before and After Photos:

Before with a Country feel:

We only have the before photos with the previous owner's furniture, but you can see how big a difference some paint and updated furniture can change a room.

The color looks like a light blue, but when we moved in the big trees outside had leafed out blocking most of the light during the day. The room looked like a seafoam color or as my brother in law called it 'pool color' which sadly fit.

This picture still makes me laugh knowing you can see the toilet from the bed. We keep that door closed...

We put up a high chair rail with 'No More Nails', but since our walls are slightly crooked we had to use a few for where there were wall gaps. The top of the wall and ceiling is a light taupe brown with a much darker brown below. During the day it looks rather dark from our shade trees, but at night it's rather warm feeling and cozy. After painting Andre sanded and nailed floorboards and then revarnished them. They look almost like new again with some shine.

After with a Traditional Modern feel:

Sometimes the upper color looks almost like a light, pale mauve color. And we finally got our new furniture several weeks after living in the spare room. We took down the vertical blinds which they painted to match the seafoam room. The closets were the nice seafoam color IN & OUT. Thankfully it's now fully white like it should be.

It's nice to have all the woodwork be white again and not seafoam.

It's nice to wake up and not see the toilet... :P Originally the doors were not painted. We sanded them down and gave it a good prime and coat.

And this is the most recent picture of the master. We got a golden bedspread to match our curtains. We also decided to put up our triptych painting that Andre's cousin's wife painted which was gifted to us by Andre's parents. It brings in a splash of color.

Around the House Spring 2010

Spring has really been showing itself and it's almost summer now. My hyacinth and crocus have come and gone and I only have 2 tulips left.

I've really grown attached to my Forget-me-nots (myosotis) which is one of the many plants my mother in law has gifted me with. They've thrived so much where they're located in front of my last two pink tulips. The flowers are so delicate with a pretty light blue and the occasional lavender one.

It's funny to see this photo. This was taken of our house about a week before we closed on it. The garden bed in front doesn't lookt he same at all. It just looks like bushes to cover the lower window and you can see the side of the house where there used to be nothing. Asides from the gardening, we added a hand rail so people wouldn't fall the 4-5 feet to the garage level.

and to imagine all these huge rocks were buried in that garden bed all over.

My front garden bed has been doing so well since rearranging it last year. These boulder rocks were mixed all in the bed and we had to dig them out. I removed a rosebush and another blooming bush and the golden bush had a sister which is now right behind it trying to survive. Allt he plants are new plants asides from the golden bush, a type of spirae. There's iris on the far left sprouting next to the blooming phlox, the myosotis in front with what's left of my crocus and hyacinth around it, the tulips, some sedum which blooms yellow star flowers in front of the hydrangea plant, and some geraniums and 1 lonely but surviving jack-in-the-pulpit plant in back. There's also an astilbe that's barely visible among the new mulch behind the hyacinth leaves. The astilbe and the hyacinth were the only plants bought here. My mother in law gave me so much to do last year with all her plant gifts.

This bed did not exist last year when we bought the house. I had too many plants and nowhere to put them. It's a mix of soloman's seal, the tall leafed things on the far right from my neighbor, some lily of the valley from my neighbor too but you can't see them. Half of the rose bush from the front garden is here. It split in 2 and seems to be surviving with a few leaves. There are also more geraniums and some day lilies. I'm very proud with how this side looks.

I love my little tree circle. Maybe in the future it will expand to some other shape if my hubby allows it one day. It's still trying to come together. The squirrels tore up and dug up everything I planted there last year when I created the circle, but a few things survived including 2 baby hosta, some wild violets, and some mystery plant. This year I bought some pretty violets on the right that are purple and yellow and white. On the other side is a "Caramel" Heuchera which the squirrels butchered, but new baby leaves are already sprouted. It's recently been mulched and hopefully the squirrels will dig in it less. Got to love finally being able to put out my solar lights, but I think they have too much shade.

This area needs some help. I recently created the little step down on the side but I'm thinking of putting a baby cedar in the whole behind the green gutter extension or Something. I can't decide what. Maybe another spirae and prune it to be more slender? I'm very happy with the little step down. There's more sedum above, with baby hosta below. I'm waiting to mulch the upper area since I don't know if I'm going to plant a few things there. My rose bushes, the only plants that were around the house when we moved in, are there and I might plant low growing plants between them...or maybe my tomato plants? Is it odd to plant tomato plants between roses? :D

More to come and it's only just Spring.

Spring in East Texas

There's one thing I dislike about Canada. It bugs me that winter extends into the time period that I'm used to Spring starting. So I really enjoy getting to visit Texas in the Spring. it was a bit early for Spring, but I saw a new baby calf, fields of yellow wildflowers, and I got to see the bluebonnets start sprinkling the highway roads. Thank you Lady Bird Johnson!

a driveby bluebonnet shot, sadly I didn't get any up close

a blooming redbud tree

a Dogwood Park

a very pregnant cow...if not, then bless her heart

To Weed or Not to Weed?

My hubby often laughs at me for letting a "weed" grow awhile to see what it is or looks like. I guess I need proof that it's a weed or it's just a fun little garden experiment to let a plant thrive awhile before it gets destroyed. Sounds evil that way. :)

As we all know, it's only a weed if it's unwanted. Last year I had been trying to discover what weird things were growing in the lawn and around the garden beds. My earliest discovery was in a large spot of lawn I found these pretty pink feather thin flowers sprouting from a big clump (see link below). It's called fleabane, but looks like really dainty asters. What do I do? I move the clump out of the yard and to the side to avoid the dreaded mower. Later in the year I found a smaller white version that I also had to relocate as my hubby laughed at me. Oh well..lol.

http://blog.catbirdnotes.com/__oneclick_uploads/2009/07/daisy-fleabane_07-14-09_03.jpg

Well I also found this mystery plant that's very low to the ground. It has green and deep purple leaves and I only have 3 small clumps of leaves that were slightly spread out. It was in the mowing zone so I never saw it bloom yet. Well it survived the mowing, winter and snow, and I plucked two leaves to try and figure out what it is again tonight. I am almost certain that it's a type of ajuga, possibly ajupa reptans (see link below) which is also known as bugle or bugleweed. It's grown as a ground cover and in the shade and can even be planted over some spring bulbs. I wonder how long I can delay my hubby from mowing the lawn this Spring so I can see it bloom before moving it elsewhere in the garden.

http://landscapeartisan.wordpress.com/2009/04/
http://www.reallywildflowers.co.uk/product/bugle/shop/ (it has a hyacinth-like bloom)

In other news, I think it's officially Spring. Why? Well 1, my lawn of snow is almost gone which is surprising since we had the largest pile up on the street from shoveling it ourselves. And 2, my bulbs in the back have been growing nicely and I think I might have the very beginning of a crocus bloom trying to make its way out of the leaves. Lastly, I heard a huge flock of geese heading back home. There were over 40 geese flying high and in a not so symmetrical V, but a V none the less. :) It was kind of nice since I heard them leaving in the fall, and I got to see a big bunch return. I wonder if it's the same geese...is that possible?

Is Spring Here?

It's been a warm, sunny weekend and a lot of the snow has melted off. Luna and Momo, the kittens, are back to wanting their daily outside fix now that they know it's not so blisteringly cold and windy. I stepped outside with them today because it didn't feel that cold at all. It felt quite warm with a slight cool breeze so I decided to survey the gardens in its upcoming 2nd year (almost). We moved into our house in June 2009 and almost everything in the "garden" (fancy wording for our boring, beginners backyard) was planted after we moved minus the roses and the shrubbery in the front garden bed which got reorganized as well. You got to love mother-in-laws that divide their plants like crazy for you. :)

So I stepped out and after being annoyed that the cats and dogs of the neighborhood are still gracing the flowerbeds, I noticed that My BULBS Are GROWING!!! Yes I was a bit ecstatic to see Something growing again. They are also my first attempt at growing bulbs. Sure the geraniums survived and their leaves are showing out from under the snow, but it's not necessarily new growth. It's good to know they survived though. So the geraniums survived in their cute little clumps, and the bulbs in the back yard are starting to grow. So I will soon see crocuses, hyacinth, and some tulips. They better bloom before my trip to see my parents or I'll be super sad. T_T

My russian sage is also starting to show new foliage which I'm happy about. I bought it because it was lavender and thought it was pretty, but it never did much growing so we didn't know if it went dormant or what. I'm so happy it's growing again. Now it's just waiting for everything else to bloom and leaf out. I don't even remember half of the names my mother-in-law gave me. I'll take pics of the bulbs soon when they've grown more.