Black is Beautiful AND we got a new rug!

Remember this photo from the treehouse tour of the upstairs?  Well, you've already seen the before-and-afters of both the dining room and the living room, so today I thought I'd give you a quick look inside the half bath project.

The upstairs powder room is located just off the living room, near the front entrance.  You can see it in the photo below; the door is open.

Not much to see here, folks. It's a teeny tiny bathroom that has a sink, a toilet and a linen closet.  And yes; I already told you there is grey carpet on the floor in there.  And yes; I know that is disgusting. But hey...let's just focus on the positive, k?

Talk about a taping nightmare.  What you're looking at here, people, is the ceiling.

As the paint went up I was terrified.  It was a total splotchy mess but it was too late to turn back so forward I marched.  No worries though.  4 coats of black paint later, we were all smiles around here.

Found this vintage painting for $15 and knew it was going to be a hit against those black walls and the celadon zig zag rug from West Elm.

Black and beautiful!  Here she is, friends, and she looks great!

The gold mirrored tray and cute little pill box are vintage and the Sydney Hale Co. candle is a little slice of Heaven that I was gifted from Twig & Willow. I highly recommend the cedarwood + vanilla scent; it is absolutely divine.  Still working on the accessories for this space.

I do love the way the West Elm zig zag rug color ties into the vintage floral artwork.  AND it hides a lot of that horrible grey carpet.  Win! Win!

Here's the view from the bathroom looking out into the living room.  Now of course, it's totally blown out due to all that sunlight bursting through the windows...amateur mistake...but you get the point.

And I know we're talking about the half bath today but how about a little love for our new living room rug too!  I recently ordered this Beaumont Adileh Natural Rug from Rugs USA.  It is so SO lovely.  Even prettier in person.

 I love that it looks like a vintage Persian without the $3500+++ price tag.  We went with the 'natural' color but we were super close to going with the 'spruce blue' which looks really pretty too. Because our entire upstairs area is so neutral and white, the living room really could handle a vibrant rug.  Instead though, we opted to stay with something neutral because, remember, at some point I plan on replacing these sofas and I didn't want to limit myself due to a crazy vibrant rug color.  In this rug, you can see some black & shades of grey, as well as some really faint apricot tones.  So far I am loving it but let me live with her for awhile; I'll do a full review in a few months and let you know how this bargain beauty is holding up. 

In other news, this is happening.  

New and improved garden wall pics coming soon!

The San Gabriel House :: the bathroom

Hiya, people.  I've been in creative overdrive lately and have quite a few projects I'd like to share. Before I can move forward with my newfound gung-ho diy/decor blog enthusiasm, though, I feel like I need to tie up a few things.  I know I've been a little all over the place with this here blog.  One foot in...one foot out... I've wanted to write but haven't really been sure about what I've wanted to share.

I'm still not entirely sure but, at the moment, I'm feeling inspired.  I was looking through tons of pictures last night and reminiscing about some of our old home projects.  Such good memories... We were covered in dust and dirt for months.  We had sore muscles and were operating on no sleep but we were happy as clams.  I really just don't want to forget any of it.  So bear with me as I finish documenting some of the past so I can get to the present.

I've told you a little about the San Gabriel house already.  If you're here for the first time, you can read about our den and the kitchen remodel here and here.  We didn't stop there though.  Take a look at what we did in the main bathroom.

Now I wish I had been better at documenting things back then (and now).   If only I had thought to get better "before" photos.

I really DO love wallpaper.  Even crazy funky fabulous orange flower wallpaper.  But this wallpaper was peeling all over the place and had a flocked/velvety texture.  Can you imagine all the germ-y grossness that was stuck in there???  I die at the thought of it.

So one day, this happened...

Good times...  As usual, we were on a super tight budget for this project.  We had plans to tweak and re-use the vanity but I sourced new lighting, tiles, the tub & toilet, sinks and faucets; I found almost everything on Amazon and Overstock.com.  The mirrors we ended up going with are ones I found at Home Depot for about $59 a pop.  The shower curtain is actually made of curtain panels I purchased from Cost Plus. Truly, we got amazing deals on everything.  We did spend a fair amount of money on the floor tile but it was such a small space that it didn't break the bank.

Here is my original inspiration image for the bathroom vanity.

And here is what I had to work with. Actually this is a "mid" reno photo. At this point we'd taken all the doors off and (believe it or not) cleaned it up a bit. Eventually, we built a towel shelf in that middle section, applied primer, a ton of glossy black paint and new knobs. Oh, and we purchased a piece of granite for the top; I don't think it was more than $200 though and that's on the high end.


Once the vanity was handled, things really started happening...

And when it was all said and done, we ended up with this pretty lil' number!  So bright.  So relaxing.  For under $2000 we had ourselves an almost completely brand new bathroom.

Sorry about my photo skills...  The wall color and granite were closer to what you see on the left there.  And here's a closer look at the vanity.  It really did turn out great.


And there you have it, folks.  B + B's new & improved old bathroom.  There was a lot of blood, sweat and tears in the process but in the end we could take a nice warm bath and it was all worth it. :)