Tile Floors and Tile Showers

Since the last post, we have accomplished a lot in out basement bathroom project...

Matt tiled the shower walls. We used four boxes of white subway tile. We spent about $100. Not too shabby!

On a side note, my cat is a photo-bomber...

It looks divine! Matt did such a great job.

For the floor we chose tile that looks like wood. We thought the Montagna Rustic Bay looked the most realistic, so went with this tile. We used three boxes for our floors. All together the floor cost was about $120.

Matt also did a great job on the floor tile. The funny thing about this is the tile box suggested you don't lay these tiles in a 50% brick pattern. They suggest you use a stagger of about 33% brick pattern, or a herringbone pattern. Nope, we broke the rules! We did the unthinkable. I think it turned out beautifully! Matt also finished the electrical and installed the two wall sconces (you can only see one in the picture).

After going back and forth between grey and white grout for a while, we finally decided to do white grout. Matt spend hours grouting the shower.

All the meticulous attention to detail, his hard work paid off. The shower walls look fantastic!

It only took us about 45 mins to grout the floor. The grout we used for the floor tiles is called New Taupe. It is a chocolatey brown color. It goes great with the tile.


Last night we bought the toilet, so we will be working on that and building a vanity. After those things we need to put the door in, wall trim, and adding the plumbing for the sink. Until next time...

Building A Basement Bathroom

For the past few months we have been building a basement bathroom. We are doing this for a few reasons:

1. I work downstairs. This is where the creativity magic happens. I HATE running up stairs to use the facilities. Especially if I am covered in paint.

2. Matt and I have ADD- we needed/wanted a project to work on this winter. I'll be honest though, I was the driving factor in this. Matt is a trooper to keep up with all my hair-brained ideas.

3. See #1

Here is the customary BEFORE shot. This is how this spot has sat for the past 3.5 yrs. (minus the junk I moved.)

When we had our house built, we had our home builders rough plumb the basement for a bathroom, laundry room and a kitchen. We got to pick where we wanted all the plumbing to go. Unfortunately, they plumbed the bathtub in the wrong spot. After watching a couple of youtube videos on how to move basement plumbing, Matt set to work. We purchased a special cement cutting blade for our circular saw, marked cut lines and cut the cement. BEWARE of the cement dust cloud that will form...WEAR A MASK! Thankfully, we only had to move the plumbing a foot to the south.

After the cement was cut, Matt had to chip out the cement piece by piece. Once the cement was gone, he had to dig a foot of gravel out to get to the pipe.

Here is a picture of the framing for the bathroom. We purchased the tub from Lowe's and Matt installed it.

Drywall... ICK!

Since our house has textured walls and ceilings, we had to match the bathroom walls/ceiling to the rest of the house. Matt found a brush thingy at Home Depot that made the same effect on the ceilings. To do this, he stamped the brush in the watered down drywall mud and stamped the ceilings.

For the walls, he used a HAWK to stamp mud on the walls like so...

Then he went over the mud with a trowel to smooth it down. It took a minute for him to get his rhythm. He had to scrape the mud off a few times and start over. We let the mud dry for a few days, then we sanded everything.

Last Saturday we painted! I love the color Chocolate Froth by Behr. I have used it in the past. The problem: it is basically the same color as our ceiling. I didn't realize this until I started painting. If I could go back to when our house was being built, I would have had them paint everything white. Instead we had them paint everything cream. We didn't want to pay $3,000-$5,000 to do two/three tone paint throughout the house. We figured we could paint it ourselves (and we have) and save a bunch of money. SHOULD'VE, COULD'VE, WOULD'VE... For right now, I am going to leave it the color it is. Since this room is small and dark, I am limited on the colors I can paint the walls. This way, it's neutral and I can accessorize with color.

I found the floor tile I want at Home Depot. I think the white subway tile for the shower walls will go with it beautifully!

I even like the herringbone pattern. We'll see....

Next up, tiling the shower! Stay tuned...

Vinyl Notebook Cover

My niece received this vinyl notebook cover for her birthday last year. I thought it was adorable. For Christmas I decided to make my own and give them to the girls in my Primary Class. I found this great tutorial that helped me make these covers a reality.

Vinyl Notebook Cover Supplies:

-Vinyl (I get mine at fabric.com)
-gluestick
-binder clips
-sewing supplies
-old sewing pattern
-composition notebook (I got mine from Dollar Tree)

First thing you want to do is to measure your composition notebook and add .5" to each side. The final measurement for my cover is 16.5" x 10.5". My two side pieces measure at 4.5"x 10.5"

I wanted to add a heart on the cover, so I cut a stencil with my Cricut, traced the heart on the back of the vinyl and then cut it out.

I found a great tip on another tutorial that said to use a glue-stick on the back of the vinyl in order to get the cutout to stay in place while you sew it onto the cover. Obviously, I followed the tip and it worked great.

Before I placed the heart onto the vinyl, I folded the vinyl cover over the notebook, lined up the vinyl edges and clipped the vinyl to the notebook like so. Once I had the cover lined up, I glued the heart to the vinyl in the place I thought it looked best.

Next, find an old pattern and cut a piece and place it over the heart. **Take it from me, you CANNOT sew on vinyl. You can either use this old pattern method, or you will need a walking foot for your sewing machine. I did not have this special foot, so I had to find another way to sew on vinyl. I happened to watch a youtube video that suggested using an old pattern. My mom suggested using tape on the bottom of the foot, but when I tried it, it didn't work.

I sewed around the heart with a zig-zag stitch.

I wanted to personalize each notebook, so I printed their names on a sheet of cardstock and "laminated" them with clear contact paper.

I then sewed the name-tag onto each cover.

You will also need to cut a pattern piece for the cover and two side pieces.

I sewed around the cover with a straight stitch.

This step sucks... ripping off the pattern tissue.

Lastly, I inserted the composition notebook into the cover.

So Cute! I also bought some cute pens from Oriental Trading to go with the notebooks.

The girls were so excited to get these. I hope they enjoy them. With the new year, they moved to another class, and I got a new calling, so this was a goodbye present as well as a Christmas present. I will miss them.

Oh Christmas Slat Tree!

For the Christmas craft show last month, we made some cute little pallet Christmas Trees.


Oh Christmas Slat Tree Tutorial:

First things first, find some wood and cut four boards for each tree to the desired height and length.

Finished tree measurements:

Big Tree: 12" H x 11.25" W
Each slat measures 2.5"H x (bottom slat to top slat) 11.25", 8.25", 5.25", 2.25" Wide

Small Tree: 8" H x 7.25" W
Each slat measures 1.75"H x (bottom slat to top slat) 7.25", 5.25", 3.25", 1.75" Wide

You also need to cut a backbone for each tree. It should measure the length of the tree. We also added another little board on the back of the backbone to add stability.

After you have nailed the slats to the backbone, cut the sides of the trees at an angle.

This will basically form a triangle shape.

Here is a view of the back. Notice the little piece we added to make the trees more stable.

Next, I painted the trees. At this point I hadn't decided to paint the backbone/trunk yet. In the end, I painted the trunk brown and also disstressed the paint.

To finished the trees off, I printed a cute little "Oh Christmas Tree" tag and tied it to the small tree.

So cute!

And to think, I wasn't going to decorate this year...

Merry Christmas and Happy Crafting.

Christmas Boutique

At the last second, I decided to sign up to do the Christmas Simple Treasures Craft Boutique. I sold a lot of pillows and a couple of Thanksgiving pallets, but tragically I didn't sell any of my wood crafts. But that's ok, because now I don't have to remake stuff to decorate my house for Christmas...

I have a couple of tutorials coming, so stay tuned for that. You can purchase the pillows in my etsy shop.