The guest bathroom is finished and it looks fantastic! I am so happy with how it turned out! The best part is that the green cement hex tile is even better than I imagined. You may remember I was trying to figure out which way to lay it, and I think the layout I decided on works well with the layout of the room and gives a focal point to the room.
I am SO in love with this floor. 
Do you remember when I redecorated our Master Bedroom last spring? Well I’m partipating again in another One Room Challenge and I’ve decided to start it on the very first day that our bathroom remodel is completed. Whew, I may be crazy.
I’m planning to redo our guest bedroom, to try to compete with our new guest bathroom. There are two key differences for this room, I’m working on a very strict budget and it’s DIY. I have a few ideas that I’ve been bouncing around my head, so let’s see what I can come up with. The guest bedroom at Ewok (the nickname given by Ewok’s most frequent guest) is also my sewing/craft room. So it has to serve both purposes. Here is the space from about a year ago.
The above actually looks way more cluttered now, because I added a tv and shelves. I am now thinking that I like this wall better without the shelves. Hmmm. A fabric cutting area is a must and this really is a great place to do it. I think most of the above will be staying
This area definitely needs to be decluttered. I made the curtains out of this awesome coverlet that I bought in India. But, they just do not look great in this space. It is a cool fabric though and I hope to find something to do with it. 
This area above is actually super cute as is. But I am thinking of a bit of wallpaper above. The paintings I made of our beloved pets Moz and punch. Our current love bug is below, Winnie.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention this is also Winnie’s bed. She has pretty much claimed all beds, chairs and sofas in this house.
The major area that needs to be addressed is the flooring. It’s currently a very stained and sad beige carpet. I want to ditch the carpet and the replacement is still to be decided. We also use this area to watch tv, so I need to find a way to make it more comfortable.
Stay tuned to my blog for the next 6 weeks as I make over this space. And be sure to check out all of the featured designers and fellow guest participants in the One Room Challenge here.
The guest bathroom renovation has begun and I can’t wait to see it finished! Here are the choices I’ve made so far. It’s all coming together and the only remaining decision is the mirror.
The green floor tile is where this design began, as I shared in the last post. The green hex tile will be the main flooring, and the shower floor will be the smaller matte black hex. The shower wall tile will be the white subway tile, arranged in a linear pattern. And the countertops (I think) will be a light grey quartz. The lighting is from Rejuvenation and the vanity will be a custom floating sleek walnut vanity with a shelf below it. Our contractor, Fritz Carpentry, will make it so that it fits perfectly in this space. Here are some Photoshop mock ups with a few mirror options.
This round wooden mirror would work with the wood in the vanity and mimic the shape of the lights. 
The hex mirror would pull in the hex shape from the flooring. It’s gold, so it would also bring in another color. I am debating if I want to keep everything black (faucet and shower hardware will all be matte black), or bring in some gold accents.
This round mirror is very over sized and would bring in the gold.
And this gold one has a cool cat eye shape.
I was initially leaning towards the cat eye, since it was so unusual, but now I am thinking I like the round wooden one best. I’m also into finding a vintage or antique one to add some originality.
What mirror do you like best?
Our guest bathroom has been on the list of rooms to update and it just had to move to the top of the list for repair. Since it needed to be repaired (the shower hot water only works with a screwdriver), we decided to redo the whole thing. In pictures it doesn’t look too terrible, but in real life it’s drab and slowly falling apart and generally looking crappy.
Here are some before photos. This is actually an improvement. It was a dark, scratched vanity, and I recently painted it white, because I couldn’t take it anymore.
We are going to get a custom vanity from Fritz Carpentry and we are super excited about that. And the tile walls will be drywall so there will be the future potential for wallpaper here. The shower walls will be tile and I like all tile walls, but we are trying to save $ where we can. Tiling only the shower will be an easy place to save some dough. Plus without tile walls, it’ll be easy to switch around art work. As you can see above, I never even got around to hanging the prints, because hanging things on tile is a pain in the ass. 
The tub area above to the left will be a standing shower. What floor tile to use in this shower area is currently the dilemma. The shower walls will be white subway tile installed in a stacked pattern. I’m trying to decide if it should be vertical or horizontal. And the shower floor is TBD.
Below is the main floor tile choice. I was eyeing it up on the internet, and then I saw an Instagram story from Estrella Tacos and they had some left over for sale (discounted!) I snagged them up and they’ll be the definite star of the bathroom. 
There are so many ways you can lay this tile. This is one top contender. 
Or on the diagonal. I am thinking of just the original way though (the first one close up). I’ll walk through my designing process with this, so check back to see what I’m up to. And you can follow along on my instagram to see more up to date progress. 
What do you think of the green floor? I am in love with it and can’t wait to see how it all turns out!
Dave and I have both wanted a camper for as long as we can remember. And the time has come; this dream has finally come true! Meet our newest home on wheels, Lucille Jean!
We found her via craigslist. After many failed craigslist attempets, one finally worked! And the seller was the nicest guy in all of NJ. She had been living in NJ under a tree for the last 20 years. It’s a 1964 Shasta and is absolutely perfect! She needs some work, but we are already making some progress. You can also follow along on IG at @LucilleJeanTravels
She is in original condition and the set up is perfect for us. This end has the kitchen, and a small bathroom to the right. The original turquoise fridge is amazing!
I’m so excited to finally share this dining room with you. This dining room project has been going on for quite a few years. We moved into this house in 2012 and while going through my old blog, I saw that the wallpaper was installed 3 years ago. http://brand-eye.blogspot.com/2015/07/dining-room-wallpaper.html You can see from the old photos (at the end of this post) is that that the bones of the room haven’t changed at all. What is new is the flooring, built-in cabinets and counter, pendant lights, and a fresh coat of paint (Sherwin Williams Marshmallow).
One of my favorite things to do in the Spring, besides admire all of the beautiful flowers outside our home, is to bring them inside to enjoy. Right at this moment I have a vase of amazing white peonies right on my desk so that I can stare at them all day. Here is a little snippet of what I have brought inside.
As you can see, this branch was yelling at me to give it a trim. So I brought it inside after shaking off as much pollen as I could. 
It’s currently occupying this corner of our dining room. I’ll be posting a full reveal very soon of the dining room, but here are a couple of sneak peeks. How amazing are these lights? I have two of them! 
And here are the peonies in the ‘wild’ at the bottom of our driveway.
And here they are in the dining room. The wallpaper is actually the first choice that I made for this room redo, about 3 years ago. I’m so happy this room is finally finished! 
Click below for more photos of our gardens. Continue reading
Hi friends. I’ll be selling my wares this Saturday, May 26th at the Craftery Market. This is a really fun event at Linden Hill Gardens in Ottsville, PA. It’s worth going to just wander around the gardens and buy plants (one of my favorite past times), but add in a shopping experience with vintage, handmade and food trucks and it’s a must attend event. Go to the Craftery website to buy tickets (only $5), or pay at the door. Here are some photos from the market in the fall.
I was of course obsessed with this VW bug, which I think belongs to the garden’s owner. Fun fact, my first car was a 1974 VW bug. It was orange and it was fabulous and I wish that I still had it.
Here was my shop set up last fall. You may notice that painting on the bottom right. Does she look familiar? You can find her in our master bedroom makeover. It’s one of the many things that I initially bought for the shop, but decided to keep. 
Are you ready for the big reveal? If you’ve been following along, you know that I have been a Guest Participant in the One Room Challenge. It has been so much fun to put a time limit on decorating a room, and it was just the push I needed to finally finish our Master Bedroom. It forced me to make decisions quickly instead of pondering over purchases for wayyyy too long. So without further adieu, I give you the Mid Mod Bedroom. All resources are listed at the end.
The walls got a fresh coat of white paint. I choose the color called Marshmallow from Sherwin Williams. If you recall from a past post, I even painted the floor the same color. This room had carpet that had seen much better days, and I wanted a floor choice that would be quick and cheap. Painting the subfloors was the answer. It’s not a permanent fix, but will hold us over until we save for new proper floors. I want to use the same hardwood flooring that we recently installed in the dining room. Which reminds me, I owe you a blog post about the dining room!
The angled wall has been a hard area to figure out how to decorate, but I decided that it needed something vertical besides art to break up the horizontal lines in the room. I added a few white shelves to bring your eye up a bit and planted pothos in vintage planters that I already owned. They were living on a shelf in my craft room, but now they are a focal point in the bedroom. And pothos is a very hardy plant that should survive without a ton of light. The best part is that it grows quickly and trails. And those long pieces you can sort of wrap around anything. Once they grow longer I want to pull them over to the right, and will figure out what structure they can grow on. I saw this idea recently on instagram (@hunkerhome) and fell in love.
The bed decision was a hard one to make. Before this challenge started, I had already been looking for one for months. I don’t even want to think about all the hours I spent searching online for the perfect bed. The space is really small and a queen size bed JUST fits, but most of them are larger than the size of the mattress. I found this perfect bed from Article (linked below) and am in LOVE with it. I thought that having an open bottom would help to give the room more space, and it does. The one we had before had under bed storage, which was nice, but took up a lot of the visual space in the room.
The legs on this bed are amazing (and dare I say sexy). It’s also really great quality and made from solid hardwood walnut. It was even easy to put together.
The wooden items below are antique and were used to mold cigars! I bought them at a local antique shop a few years ago. I actually initially bought them as a gift, but loved them so much I kept them and bought a different gift for the couple. Does this make me a bad person? Maybe. (Sorry Brian and Morgan) The small wooden art on the right we bought last year while on vacation in Santa Barbara. I always try to buy art or something for the home while on vacation to remind us of the fun trips. And now it’s our daily reminder to find and buy a camper! If anyone has any leads, send them my way.
The painting below was bought at a flea market. It actually was in my shop for a bit, but I decided to keep it. The rug below is in my shop now, but I think I have to keep it too! The stool was a craigslist find, but is DWR.
Below is the view from the dining room into our bedroom. I wanted the colors to flow and work with the wallpaper in this room, and it definitely works!
I took a trip to IKEA and found these awesome glass triangles. They work great to corral my vintage jewelry collection. The ring was from a shop in Colorado and I am in love with it. The bakelite bangles are from flea markets.
The area below is my makeup and jewelry area. I switched the knobs out. It actually used to have handles, but I filled a hole on each side so I could use knobs instead. The size of the handles was really hard to find without spending a small fortune, so I opted for these. They were $14 for 10! 
I have had this mirror below for many years. It belonged to my Grandmother and was part of her bedroom set so I am happy it found a home in this room. I am using it as a full length mirror, and even though it is on the smaller side, I am only 5’1″ so it is long enough for me. The wooden frame worked perfectly with the rest of the wood in the room.
The rug above is also from my shop, which I may also have to keep. And the turtle I just found last weekend at an antique shop in Asbury Park. The black planter is Target.
I already owned the wall mounted light above, which was an estate sale find. And the art above the bed was an auction find. It is an amazing antique, hand carved piece. There is a close up shot below. Both of these things I bought with the intention of selling in my shop, but they were just too good and I had to keep them. While writing this I am realising that this is sort of the theme of this room. Almost all of the decor was stuff I had already bought and LOVED too much to sell. I guess I am really bad at this whole vintage shop thing, because I want to keep all the good stuff.
The art below was from an antique shop in Adamstown, PA. If you are looking for antique shops, this is the spot. It’s only about an hour from Philly and has a TON of shops. And if you go on Sunday you can hit up two flea markets, Renningers and Shupps Grove (Shupps is also open Saturdays, but Renningers is not). The chair was a thrift store find that had been kicking around our house for a while. It reminds me of my grandpa, because he used to have one similar to this that he would read the paper in every day.
The lamp above is from IKEA and I loved the large scale of it. And it even has a USB port in it, which I didn’t even realize when I bought it. It did seem to be pricey for IKEA, but then once I figured that out it all made sense. This allowed us to have one less cord hanging off of here for a phone charger. The side tables are Homegoods.
The dogwood in our yard made a special appearance this week, just so it could look amazing in this room. I know it.
Here is a close up of the hand carved wall art. This piece is ah-mazing. You really have to see it in person to appreciate the beauty and patina of it. I’m obsessed.
And here are a few shots with the blue bedspread which we already owned. The colors in the room are neutral enough to work with a variety of other colors. This will be the fall/winter vibe.
The rugs were an Overstock find. Besides the bed, these were the hardest decision. There are so many rug options these days and they really determine the direction of the room. Since the painted floors are a temporary fix, I didn’t want to spend a fortune on a rug. These were super duper affordable and neutral enough to really work with any direction I may want to go in the future.
Resources:
The total spent on this room was just over $2000. But remember, a lot of this I already owned, so it wasn’t a gigantic blow to the finances all at once. My advice to you is if you ever see great pieces while shopping, just buy them. Especially buy them if they are vintage, because you know you will be kicking yourself if you don’t. One day you will find the perfect spot and thank me.
So what do you think? I would love to hear your thoughts on the room!
Also be SURE to check out all of the other bloggers here on the link up page.
Hello again. I haven’t been blogging this consistently for years! How are you enjoying seeing my progress each week? This One Room Challenge is definitively keeping me busy and I am so glad that I have a goal date to get our master bedroom in shape. If you are new to this room, you can see the past posts here:
Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4
You can see all of the guest posts here. Last week the dilemma was what mirror to hang. I have collected a lot of mirrors over the years, and wanted to use what I already had. This one was a clear winner in the looks category, but I didn’t think it would be big enough. Well I had my husband hold it up for me and it turns out that it is tall enough for me when I step back a couple of feet. There ARE advantages to being really short. So this is now my new ‘almost’ full length mirror. This mirror has a history that is important to me, so I am glad that I am using it in our bedroom. It was the mirror to my Grandmother’s bedroom set. I had the dresser that went with it for a while, but when we moved to this house it didn’t fit so I gave it to a friend.
