Friday Update ~05/08/2015

This is the last Friday Update for a few weeks.  I will be out of town starting next week and I am going to take a break from the blog while I am gone.  I'll try to post some pictures and updates on my Facebook page but if you want to be sure to see pictures, follow me on Instagram!

FURNITURE

That large bedroom set I showed you last week are in the paint booth now.  All the tops were stripped, sanded and stained.  Yesterday, I started the clear coats for the tops.  The bodies have been sanded and painting will start today.  There is still a lot to do but I am hopeful that they will get done before I leave.

MASTER BATHROOM

The mirror came in this week and sadly, it has a few bumps and bruises.  I decided to go with the large Kensington Mirror from Pottery Barn and I am on the fence about sending it back or dealing with the few imperfections.

I originally wanted to go with medicine cabinets because I HATE things being on the counter.  Toothbrushes, tooth paste, etc need to be hidden.  Once the sink was purchased, I started to lean towards one regular mirror instead of two small medicine cabinets.  The sink is not huge and the medicine cabinets would be really close together and I think it might look weird.  I love the style of the Kinsington and the size is just right for out sink.

The vanity got one coat of paint!  Yesterday, I sat on the floor in the bathroom for a while just staring.   I put down a few flooring samples and the countertop sample to see everything together.  Sometimes things look great on paper and in sample size but once you start putting it all together, it doesn't feel right.  So far, things are looking good...or at least I think so.

MISC

After a few weeks thinking about it, I have decided to sale the buffet and china cabinet I found.  They are gorgeous pieces and I wish I had room for them.  Our house is small and they just aren't going to work for us.  I do not have measurements yet but if you are interested in them let me know.  I'll try to get measurements posted today.  There is also a matching dining table with 6 chairs.  I do not have pictures of it but will post them soon as well.

All 3 pieces are a set from a New Orleans store, Max Barnett Furniture Company.  Again, I'll post more pictures, measurements, and prices soon on my SHOP page.

Sorry for the bad pictures...the storage unit was dark.

These two are in good enough shape to be stained and not painted.  All the handles are solid brass and can be polished to a gorgeous bright brass.

Email me (fishermanswifefurniture@yahoo.com) if you are interested in any of these pieces.  I am booked through mid-July so let me know ASAP to get on the schedule.  

Have a great weekend!

Friday Update ~ 04/24/2015

Y'all.  Its Friday!

I know I missed last week.  The post was even typed up and ready, I just forgot to take pictures and get it finished.  Sorry.


FURNITURE

Right now I am working on a dining set.  It was painted by the client's friend.  She wasn't loving the result so she tried to fix it.  Now I am doing damage control times two.  The final look will be stained so I have been stripping and sanding off all the paint and furniture wax that was put on it.  It has stained beautifully and should be done this weekend.

Here is what they looked like before.

Sunday we are picking up a huge bedroom set that I am excited about.  She wants stained tops with painted and glazed bodies.  It should be a gorgeous makeover.


MASTER BATHROOM

The new vanity lights are ordered, the weird angle has been torn out and the new side replaced and the drawer fronts and doors have been sanded.  I am in the planning stages for our pull out laundry hamper.

Before the weird angle, paint, and wall paper were removed.

After.  Also, I brought in my sink the other day to see how everything looked and felt.

Now that the new vanity shape is done, we can put the new floor in and replace the toilet.  The flooring was ordered this week but is on back order so it won't get here until the end of May.  The bathroom work has really come to a stand still the past few weeks since I have been so busy with work, life and prepping for the trip.  I don't see much getting done in there until we get back.  I hope to get the vanity painted and the countertops ordered before we go so when we get back, everything will be here and available for us to finish up quickly.

MISC

Last week I posted about some cool iPhone camera lenses I have been using and I posted where we are visiting in Europe.  If you missed it, here are the cities we will be in.  Any tips and good food spot recommendations are appreciated.

We are flying to Frankfurt to stay with our parents near Mannheim then my brother, SIL, husband and I will head to Munich.  From there my brother and SIL are going to explore Austria and other parts of Germany on their own and Blittle and I are going to France.  We will be staying in a country side B&B in Normandy then we will be in Paris.  Here are a few of the things planned:

• Castles and other cool landmarks with my parents
• Food tour in Munich
• Neuschwanstein Castle
• Museums and varies other Munich activities
• D-Day Beaches
• Mont Saint Michel and/or Etretat
• Caen, Bayeux, Honfleur and other coastal towns
• Walking around Paris
• Bicycle tour of Paris
• Eat good food

Have a great and safe weekend!

How to Remove Pressure Gauges from Shower Fixtures

Hey, hey, everyone!  Great news.  We fixed the hot water issue and have been using the shower!  LOVE. IT.  Obviously, we still have a lot of work to finish the entire bathroom but other than the glass door being installed, the shower is done!

Today, I want to share with you how I removed the pressure gauges from our new shower fixtures.

Our home has amazing water pressure.  It was almost painful if the water was turned up too high with our old shower heads.  When we started our master bathroom makeover, one of our concerns was losing that great water pressure.  All new water fixtures, sink faucets, bath faucets and shower heads, all come with pressure gauges that restricts water flow. If you look at the description of any new faucet or fixture, you will see a number followed by GPM (Gallons Per Minute).  It is about saving water and money which is nice, but so is having a great shower.

I decided to take the pressure gauge out of the standard shower head and the hand held shower head.  I did not remove the gauge in the rain shower head because it is meant to be softer.  Also, I had never seen that shower head in action so I wanted to hook it up as is first.  It does let plenty of water through so for now, I am leaving the gauge.  SIDE NOTE: In Texas (might be different in other states), the plumber will not remove the pressure gauge for you...at least they are not supposed to.  I believe, correct me if I am wrong, I don't think they can even install it if it doesn't have the pressure gauges.  You have to do it yourself.  Here's how.

SIDE NOTE:  Your shower head may have more than one gauge.  They can vary in size and colors.  Be sure to save your washers!  They will go back in after the gauge is taken out.

This is not hard but you do have to be aggressive.  It is crazy to be ripping something out of your new, expensive shower head but it is worth it.

These are the tools I used.

• Drill with small drill bit
• Needle nose pliers or clamp scissors (not sure if that is what they are called)

First, take the shower head out of the packaging and look at the connection.  You should see a washer and a plastic insert (your washer might already be out and placed separately in the packaging).  Take out the washer and put it somewhere safe.

In most fixtures, the plastic gauge will be under the washer.  Mine is purple in this shower head but is white in the hand held.


At this point you may be able to get it out with the needle nose pliers.  Just clamp onto to anything you can grab and pull out.  My gauge was stubborn and didn't have much to grab onto so I drilled a hole in the center of it.

This allowed me to get my clamps under it a little to have more to grab onto.  It pulled out pretty easy after I drilled the hole.

Check to make sure there isn't a second gauge in the fixture.

Once the plastic gauge is out, replace the washer.  That's it!  You are done.

Here is what the other hand held shower head looked like.

There were two pressure gauges in this shower head.

Once you have removed the gauges and replaced the washers, you are ready to install.  I will have an installation tips & tricks post next week.

Happy Thursday!

Friday Update ~ 3/27/2015

Hi all.  Last Friday, I talked about installing our fixtures and actually being able to shower in the shower.  We got the fixtures installed...but we are not using the shower.

First let's start with the fixtures.

They are installed and we have fixed any leaks that we could find.  I am working on tutorials for taking the pressure control gauge out of the fixture and tips & tricks for installation.  Look for them next week.  Here is what the bathroom looks like now.  (No my walls are not curved.  I used a wide angle lens so there is some curving in the picture....and sorry for the bad lighting)

I love it.  Everything is coming together!  We still need to install the arm/holder for the hand held shower head.

So we turned on the water.  Things were great.  I was so excited.  Then I realized the water on the left side was not getting hot.  I tried it through the rain shower and the hand held.  Freezing cold.  The right side was hot and normal.  Left side still cold.  Blah.

We went downstairs to look at the plumbing (remember we live on the second floor and all of our plumbing is exposed in the ceiling of the garage.)  After some looking around, Blittle found the problem.  There are two pipes running up into the house labeled "H" and "C".  The problem is they are both connected to the same line.  The cold water line.  Annoyed doesn't even start describe how I felt.

I mentioned very briefly before that we had problems with the plumber.  Y'all, I hired a plumber for work because it was important that the job be done quickly and correctly.  I got neither from this company.  And now they are not answering the phone or calling me back.  We are probably going to fix it ourselves on Sunday.

Even though we had this little bump in the road, so far, things really have gone smoothly.

There are several DIY tutorials that I hope to post over the next few weeks.  The vanity makeover will start soon and hopefully we will be using the shower next week!

Have a great weekend!

Friday Update ~ 03/20/2015

So I fell off the Friday Update band wagon for a few weeks.  Sorry, guys.  It happens.  If you follow me on Instagram (you should if you don't!), you know the past few weeks have been filled with nights at the rodeo, updating the blog (y'all know technology hates me), and working on projects other than the bathroom.  Plus, I took several days off to be with my mom while she was visiting from Germany and spend some time with my best friend while her kids were on spring break.

MASTER BATHROOM

We have stalled a little in the bathroom.  My goal for this project is to stay on budget and to not stress out too much.  Since we have another bathroom in the house, having this one all messed up isn't that big of a deal.  Other things have taken up my time and energy so the bathroom has been on the back burner for the last few weeks.  Tonight we plan on installing the rest of the fixtures and hopefully we can use the new shower this weekend!

Tile and grout done.

The grout was also sealed.  There will be a tutorial later.

I painted yesterday and tomorrow, we hope to take down the huge mirrors and maybe the countertop. My gut tells me there are things hiding behind those mirrors.  I am confident they didn't texture behind them and there might be some other problems hiding.  Fingers crossed it isn't as bad as I think it is.

The new wall color is Gray Cashmere by Benjamin Moore.

FURNITURE

I finished up and delivered the large bedroom set I painted white.  The past few weeks have been horrible with all the rain and things were delayed.  Right now there is no furniture in the booth which is kind of nice.  I can focus on the bathroom and working out the last details of our trip.


MISCELLANEOUS

We are less than two months away from our trip to Europe and there are tons of little details that need to be worked out before we go.  Trip planning is extremely time consuming.  There is so much information to take in and consider for each city and country.  I only have a few more things to work out and then we are set.  Next week, I'll try to post a few things about the trip.  I would love any suggestions and recommendations from y'all about what to see and where to eat.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.  It is suppose to rain this afternoon and all day tomorrow here. My goal is to get the shower done, get my nails done (my cuticles hate me right now), and go shopping with Blittle to get clothes for the trip.

Stay dry and safe, everyone!

Friday Update - 02/27/2015

Super short update.

Y'all.  Praise him, I am done tiling.  About 2, 948 lbs have been lifted off my shoulders.  If I wasn't such a freak about details and perfection, it would have gone much faster but I am type A all the way.  (I think that could be a shirt.)  At one point this week, there was a mountain of clean clothes laying in the hallway for days.  My floors were filthy (Those of you who know me personally know I can't stand dirty floors).  We ate out more in the past two weeks than we have in two months.  I was a bit of a mess BUT in the grand scheme, it is worth it and temporary.




FURNITURE:

I have a gorgeous bedroom set in the paint booth right now.  It is an off white going to white.


MASTER BATH:

Tiling is done and now I am on to grout.  I tested two light gray grout colors on trash tile.  Never trust the store display.  NEVER.


I am going with Platinum by Polyblend from Home Depot.  Answer me this....why do they have certain grout colors and then not provide the same caulk color?!?!?!  The grout carried by Lowes and Home Depot both do this.  They only carry a few caulk colors so I had to find the matching caulk online and ordered it yesterday.

I haven't talked much about the budget so here is a quick update.  Money planning started back in September and I initially set the budget at $6,500 and things were looking to cost more like $8000.  I went back to the design stage and changed some things. I considered getting it down to $5,000 and it was possible but there were a few luxuries we were not willing to give up so I am staying with the original $6,500.  As long as we don't have any major problems come up, I will be able to stick to it.  That cost is not including fixing the AC intake that we did when the project started or the costs for reorganizing and building stuff for my closet which will happen after.

Here are the cost for the shower as of today.

The only big expense left on the shower project is the door.  I am still debating on us trying to install ourselves or call a professional.  Doors are heavy.  Being level is a must.  My pretty new tile will have to be drilled.  It all makes me nervous and have sweaty palms.  Having said that, hiring someone is probably out of the budget.  So we could buy the door and install ourselves or pay someone to do it and cut costs somewhere else.  Not sure where those cuts could come from so I am thinking we will DIY it.

I hope everyone has a great week.  I promise to post pictures of the tile next week.  I need a few days to rest, catch up on furniture work, and to clean my house.  :)