So close to a finished ensuite

Firstly look at my pretty basin!

It was Wednesday when the plumbers came back to fit off the ensuite. Also that same day the shower screen was installed.

There was one hiccup though. Because the tilers put such thick grout under the tiles, the pipes for the shower mixer didn't stick through far enough to put the mixer on. So Dave had to cut through the new, freshly painted wall behind it and move the noggin foward a bit. That was depressing and took hours because the noggin was nailed in and the nails were so close to the pipe we had to be super careful we didn't cut the pipe. But it is done now. We turned on the shower once we fixed the pipe and water spouted out the join in the shower rose. So now we need to wait until the plumbers come back during this week until we have our first shower. However the basins and toilet are all working.

 This morning David hung up my Pottery Barn mirror and it looks terrific.

As you can see in the below photo, we are still waiting for Dave's brother to do the drawer fronts for the vanity. Not sure why he didn't turn up. I guess it is a brother thing.

 

At the moment, we just have a suction toilet roll holder for $10 from Bunnings until we save for something decent.

 In the below photo you can see the shower screen.

 Finally I bought some light globes for the wall lights.

 Today saw Dave put our new entrance set on the laundry door. It will be great to be able to go straight from the laundry to the clothes line instead of walking through the house and out the back door and down the side of the house.

 He even went old school carpentry on the striker plate notches.

 I love the look of these handles.

I went to Ikea yesterday and bought the farmhouse Domsjo sink for the laundry and the yummy black tap and the base cabinet. Hopefully the plumbers can fit this off during the week and I will actually be able to move the washing machine out of the bathroom and into the new laundry. Wow!! What will that feel like? I have been doing laundry in the bathroom for ages now, I don't remember what it is like to have it in it's own room.

We also sold our old baltic pine floorboards on Ebay tonight and made $460. That just paid for my Ikea trip. Also sold our old plaster sheet lifter for $150. I am trying to sell 3 old internal doors too so fingers crossed that they sell. Every little bit helps.

Have a great week everyone.
Cheers,
Nat

Tip for cleaning engineered stone benchtops

We have had our kitchen for about 10 years. It has an engineered stone benchtop in a Glacier colour. It has been wonderful; up until about 3 months ago when I started to notice some staining around the most used area.

I tried many things to remove these stains (many wear cup marks from my tea cups) but nothing helped and I think the metho even made it worse because after that it started to stain even more.

Today I tried something new. Toothpaste.

Here is the before shot.

I used plain Colagate toothpaste that we use on our teeth everyday and an old cloth.

I had already done most of the cleaning in this photo so the bench looks ok here.

Here is the after shot. Note that I have only done up to that join so you can see the difference in the two areas.

Here is a closer shot of that area. I might say that it did look worse in real life than in these photos.

Needless to say I am so thrilled that I no longer look at my bench in despair and it now looks fresh and clean again.

Cheers,
Nat

Door trim

 Last night Dave added some trim to the doors in the new laundry.

Tick! One more item off the list.

Also he did the last architrave on the back of the bathroom door.
Obviously still need to fix the plaster where the old door was.

Cheers,
Nat

Marble vanity top

Tuesday was a pretty exciting day for me.

Firstly I arranged for Dave to drop past Pottery Barn after work (because he was working not far from there) and pick up a mirror to go in the new ensuite. I have been looking for a mirror for months now and I just couldn't find anything that was a) the right size and b) the right style. Then I saw this new one on the Pottery Barn website (which was there a few hours ago but seems like it has been taken down now. There was only 2 left in the store and I bought 1 so maybe they are all gone already) and thought it looked great. The size was perfect and it was $404 so not too expensive. Dave managed to get about $40 off it by signing his email address up.

You may have seen this on my Facebook page.

 

Lucky I got Dave to pick it up because when I saw the size of the box, it wouldn't have fit into my car.

Here is the picture from the website:

The colour is called Silver Gilt but it almost has a greenish tone to it. It wont match the taps but I think it wont clash with it either.

Then, late morning, the miracle arrived. And it was beautiful!!

Dave's brother came after work and they installed it. It was a fiddly job because the tilers did a too good of a job and the tiles were too close. So they had to file the tiles back which took a while.

 The drawers and sides are being installed on Saturday, but at the moment it looks like this.

 

And the pretty lights look so nice with the lining boards. I still need to buy globes for them.

The plumbers are coming early next week to fit off the toilet, basins, shower and taps. Then I think On Wednesday the shower screen is getting installed. Then we are ready to go!!! I can't believe it. This weekend I will make sure that I have painted up the windows in there and do any other touch ups and polish the wall tiles.

The other project was the walk-in wardrobe. It is now in use and full of our clothes.

 It just needs new carpet but that will happen later.

I think that Dave wants to start building the deck off the back of the house on the weekend. He already bought some of the timber for it and has the decking boards being held for him at the Urban Salvage.

 Can you see the light at the end of the tunnel? It seems to be coming into view.

Cheers,
Nat

Ensuite lining boards and wardrobe

Another week has past in This Little Yellow House. It is meant to be getting close to winter here but it is unseasonably warm. It was even tropical at 6am this morning on my jog. I would love the weather to continue like this all year.

So last weekend, David lined the ensuite walls with pre-primed lining boards. Here he is after cutting some to size and sealing the cut ends with paint.

 Here they are beginning to be installed. The worst thing about using these pre-primed boards is the horrible smell. And it is still lingering around even after one coat of undercoat.

 

Dave took the day off on Friday to watch our son run in the district cross country race, so he used the rest of the day to do a few more things to the house. Also the electrician came and installed the fan, downlights and wall lights in the ensuite (yet to by globes for these)

 He made ups some frames for the shelves in the new wardrobe out of pine which I then painted white. He got some melamine (one was a free off-cut, yay) to use for the shelves on top. I bought a Malm Ikea 4 drawer dresser which I put together and Dave attached to the wall and skirted up to it so it looked a bit more like a built-in.

 We also re-used the old shelves which we had in the wardrobe and cut them back, and attached them to the side wall. Dave bought some blackbutt timber and lined the front of the shelves to make it a bit of a feature. He loves it. Also the electrician installed a new pendant light (Kmart bargain) as there was no light in the old cupboard. It still needs some carpet but that will happen when he replace the whole bedroom carpet in a few months.

New walk-in wardrobe before the mirrored sliding doors were put back on.

That is about it for now. Just waiting for the marble to get made for the vanity. It was meant to be in last week but I think the stone guy had to go to hospital or something. Hoping he is better and the marble will be ready soon.

Cheers,
Nat