Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Frugal Redecorating

We've been toying with the idea of moving. Well, I've been toying with the idea of moving. We've been in this house for 26 years. That's a lot of time to make memories and a lot of time for things to accumulate. However, we bought a cottage last year that's three and a half hours away. The kids are grown up and out of the nest, so I'm thinking it would be nice to move to a smaller community that's still fairly close to the city, but also closer to the cottage.

I'm aware that fancy, modern bathrooms sell houses. We have done some updating over the years: we put in a Jacuzzi tub, a commercial toilet (the kind restaurants use - uses less water yet never clogs), a new pedestal sink and a laundry chute in the floor of the linen closet. We added more white tile to match the original over the tub (the original tile went only part way up the wall, so paint peeled because of steam). The tile is white, with black trim.

The floor is black and white tile, in a basket weave pattern, set in concrete.

So the first decision was, do we tear out the bathroom and start over completely? I even have an old buffet I bought for a bargain price thinking it would make a nice vanity.

BUT tearing out tile, especially the floor, would probably play havoc with the walls and ceiling of the bathroom we added beneath the main bath, as well as be quite expensive. Given the location of our house - we back onto a school and have a lane to the school beside us - I don't want to price our house out of our most likely market: families with young children.

So I decided that instead of tearing out what we have, I'm going to embrace the vintage look of the black and white tile and floor.

I'm also trying to use what we already have, or what I can buy on sale or used/recycled.

I'll start getting into the specifics of what I've already done tomorrow. With pictures!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What I wouldn't give for a house with two bathrooms. Even just a bath and a half would be geat. My brother-in-law used to tease my sister that her dream house would have a bathroom for every room, including the bathroom. Sounds good to me. Right now, my one tiny little bathroom needs a new floor, including some work on the sill and joists. We had the misfortune to get termites a few years back. They are gone now, but we've had other things come up, which keeps pushing the bathroom project back (like needing a new roof, vet bills, car repairs, etc.).

By the way, I would love black and white tile in by bath. Our house was remodeled back in the early seventies, and has harvest gold tile in the bathroom, and an olive green kitchen counter. I replaced the rusted out avocado green kitchen sink with a white one (purchased at the Habitat Re-Store for $5.00). Thats how we learned when the house had been redone, because the sink we pulled out had a casting date of 1972.

What we really need though, is a bigger place. A house that is fine for two adults, a couple of dogs and several cats is just too small when you add two kids.

Rosemary