Yoda started soccer

And a few mornings ago I asked him how he slept and this was what he said:
"My dream was a long story so I don't have to tell you it."

Camping Before and After

Before

After
(he isn't posing, he just couldn't keep his eyes open) 

and a photo-bomb

Our Mini Bathroom

As much as I would like to do more, I just have to call this bathroom finished.  

Behold, our little bathroom...

This is the view to the left as you walk into our bedroom.
I thought of many solutions to the sink-in-the-bedroom problem:
build a wall, room divider or screen, a curtain?

I thought about ripping out the vanity and finding a pretty dresser that we would plop a sink into, so it just looks like a dresser in the corner, and less of a-sink-in-the-bedroom, kinda like this:

source

But when I finally found the dresser that would be perfect, I chickened out and decided I wanted to keep it as my dresser.  So I was looking for another solution and found this idea:

source

It kind of has a spa-feel and it seemed like the right mix of a doable project and 

pretty enough to sit in the room.  Obviously I didn't do exactly what she did here, it was just my inspiration. 

Here's the complete list of what happened in our bathroom reno: 

~Floating shelves above the toilet

~Sonya painted this bathroom like 5 years ago, but with all the changes it needed a new coat of paint, so I did that again.  I also painted the wood trim white in the bathroom. 

~Greg installed a new toilet

~Our interesting plumber installed a new shower valve.  The older one was super weird and ugly.  Now we have the same shower valves in both bathrooms, they look nice and work really well.

~Our friend who did the tile in the other bathroom did the tile floor in this little bathroom, too.

~Our tile-fitting friend also re-did the caulking all around the shower, I had been meaning to do it for YEARS!  The shower tile was new and nice enough to leave it as is. 

~I built drawers and drawer fronts into what would otherwise be unused space in the vanity.

~Built the slatted shelf in the vanity, it's surprising how much storage we gained with this whole transition.

~I used a mix of baskets from around the house, goodwill, and stores to get the right amount of storage.  The one I LOVE is the little wooden box that I built in high school wood-shop class.  I had totally forgotten about it, but the family that I gave it to 20 years ago decided that Mimi should have it.  She can have it, just not right now!

~I painted the vanity (inside and out) with chalk paint (I'm now a believer)

~The butcher block counter-top lends a bit of warmth to the room.  I sealed it with waterlox. I also tore out the backslash and repaired the wall around the sink.  My hope is that it feels less and less like a sink that way.  I wouldn't do this in the kid's bathroom or in a kitchen, but this bathroom gets very little use and it's mostly Greg and I, so I think the walls are safe.

~Greg's friend came over one night to help install the sink and butcher block--we have great friends! 

~I wanted a different mirror for the kid's bathroom, so I pulled this one from there and into our bathroom

~I painted the toe kick/molding under the sink brown to make it blend into the carpet (hopefully) and then added feet to the vanity.  (you guessed it, more of a furniture feel, less of a sink vanity feel)

~I'm pretty proud of my work, but one thing that isn't so easily noticeable is the door.  It used to swing INTO the tiny bathroom.  So one day I spent the whole day tearing out the door and frame and flipping it.  My hands were very sore and cut up.  I had no idea what I was doing.  But it makes a HUGE difference having the door swing into our big bedroom instead.

~I took the hooks from the kid's bathroom and put them in here.  Before we had, like, 1 hook!

~We kept the old faucet to save money, I wanted this bathroom to cost very little, and it did.  The one splurge was the sink.  I went with that pretty rectangle one.

~Oh! I almost forgot!  while we were taking everything apart, I found that there had been a very small leak and there was mold.  ugh.  So I ripped out the bottom of the vanity and rebuilt all that too.  (at that point I was wishing I had torn out the whole vanity and installed the dresser after all!)  I also repaired the leak in the faucet.  That made the whole process much longer.  But I learned a lot! 

Someday we will:

~tear out the carpet and install hardwood floor!

~get a prettier shower door!

~different light fixture?

~perhaps a different mirror?  

We are happy for now, because we've come pretty far:

 Fall 2014

  and this is Fall 2012

 silly shelves for sure! 

Now on to a new project!

Meet Jane

In the 3rd grade, the students have a Wax Museum.  The kiddos learn about an important person and then dress up and pretend to be a wax figure of that person. Mimi's choice was Jane Goodall.  She had a lot of fun learning about her and even more fun dressing up like her.  Out of nowhere if she heard the number 80, Mimi would suddenly say, "Jane Goodall is 80 years old" or if someone mentioned Africa or anything about chimps Mimi would say, "Jane Goodall knows all about that." 

Here is Mimi doing her thing while Nana and Grandpa listen in...

 Here she is enthusiastically telling us all about her life and contribution to society. 

 When they were finished talking, they were supposed to return to their pose.  

For reference, here is the real Jane...

 And when someone pressed their 'start' button, they would start talking again.  It was pretty amusing. 

 *photobomb*

Just for kicks, here is Parker when he dressed up as Benjamin Franklin back in 2012.