Our home has but one bathroom... so when it came time to redo it we knew we had to make the most of things.  While this is exciting, it also means that every day it's under construction is another day we're showering at work and using a chemical toilet in the basement (gross, I know).  The before pictures you see above are not a reflection of how we got the house (if you can imagine it was even worse), but back then we were more focused on removing the filth than picking up a camera, so you'll have to use your imagination.  In this vein, when we redid the bathroom (almost 2 years ago) we were more concerned about getting it back up and running (as all labour was done by us after work and on the weekend), so again we unfortunately don't have any progress pictures.

Offcuts from what?  I'm glad you asked!  Speaking of splurge, we decided to go all out when it came to the floor.  12x24" white carerra marble was laid out in a bias herringbone pattern, and underneath lives a Suntouch floor heat system.  We removed the heat register from the room altogether so we needed to reintroduce a heat source, and this ended up being the perfect solution. The 7 day programmable thermostat helps keep your toes toasty and your hydro bill low, well worth the $100 premium.

One thing you hear time and time again when it comes to bathrooms is you never want to see the toilet when first walking in.  As you can see we ignored this advice, removing the knee wall and leaving the toilet where it was.  One thing we didn't want to do was change the floor plan too drastically.  The bathroom has a very narrow crawlspace under it and re-routing plumbing would have extended the timeline significantly.  We figure you pick a pretty enough toilet and nobody will care.

The vanity started life as a dresser which we found it on Kijiji for $150.  It's not an antique, but it's solid wood from a good furniture maker.  We were able to salvage all but the top 2 drawers, so it's functional as well as pretty.  Luckily for us, the dresser also came with a mirror.  A huge mirror.  We sectioned about 18" out of the middle of the frame, and had the mirror cut down to fit.  Pro tip: paint the back of your mirror frame before mounting the glass!!  This is a tip we learned after the fact, which you may or may not be able to see from these pics.  The quartz top was another splurge item, but we ended up getting a good cash deal and they threw in the under mount sink.  Some reproduction glass handles and a nice coat of dove grey really brought this piece together... before pics on this one would have been awesome.  The other furniture piece was found at the Christie Lake Antiques Show for a mere $180!  It was covered in a horrible maroon paint job, but it stripped and stained very well.  It apparently came from a school house, and inside it had little numbered cubbies for the students.  We kept as many as we could while making it functional for our purposes.

Other finishing touches include textured wallpaper on the vanity wall (Hayley's favourite detail), reclaimed barn board turned floating shelves, a great antique medicine cabinet generously donated by our friends Mark & Karen (thank you!) which we left as-is, a stunning door sourced from Timeless Materials Company during their window & door sale, and the inspiration for the colour palate- the ruffled shower curtain from Urban Outfitters. The final piece to the puzzle is a Roman blind to cover the less-than-attractive window, which will be crafted this weekend by grandma & great grandma (thank goodness for them!).

Check out our new "Favourite places to spend money" section for info on where we found many of the things featured in our bathroom and the rest of our home!

I'll open this post by making an admission that I'm sure I'm not alone on: Although our office contains a desk, files, and office supplies, it tends to act more as a walkway to our deck or an accidental catch-all for things that don't have homes than the place where we get down to officely business.  With the desktop computer becoming an anachronism, the bed, couch, or kitchen table tend to be where most work ends up getting done these days.

Having said that, the idea of an office space still seemed best for this particular room and it ends up serving its purpose in its own little way.  Of all of the rooms in our house this was definitely the most straight-forward makeover.  Paint, fabric, and laminate (boo!) to match the rest of the main level.

The fabric is all from Joel Dewberry's Aviary 2 collection (granite colour way) which we fell in love with as soon as we saw it.  It worked great with the "Manila" paint which serves as a fresh neutral backdrop to the majority of our home.  It also inspired us to give a fresh coat of grey paint to the horrible old IKEA furniture that had one foot in the grave.  This actually ended up coming out much better than expected.  I think part of the reason it works so well is how perfectly it frames the large window that floods the desk with light.  The corner cabinet is solid wood (probably a Mennonite piece) and was found on Kijiji exactly as you see it, as was the antique window frame turned mirror.  Both pieces were had for under $50.  The desk chair was donated by Hayley's grandma (it came all the way from Bermuda!), and after getting a coat of wall-colour paint and its seat recovered it really tied everything together.  

The biggest splurge was definitely the mosaic tile at the deck entry, but with everything else being so simple it definitely adds a bit of richness/warmth.  

The best deal was the outdoor pendant that we snagged from Home Depot's clearance section for $5 (it even came with a CFL bulb!).  It's a nod to the room's previous life as a screen porch.  The matching desk & floor lamps were also a great big box store grab- this time from Rona on a blow out sale for $30 for the set of 3.  

Home Depot will pretty much pay you to take anything they have one of, typically being old display items.  If you find an empty shelf ask about buying the display sample- each time we've done this the floor manager has offered an insanely discounted price- typically 10% OR LESS of the shelf price.  Apparently if these are still present during the next inventory they are charged the MSRP for the unsold item so just having them gone is like money in their pocket.

My favourite part of about saying goodbye to winter is always having beautiful flowers in the house.  I created this arrangement to celebrate the first day of spring!
♥
Hayley Sara