Author Archives: The Girl

Building a Bathroom on a Budget

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I am very excited to share the progress of our bathroom demo, but I hate to show tasks that are not quite complete, and we have a little ways to go (like, I don’t know, removing a bathtub?). Therefore, The Boy and I will finish up demo this weekend and share it next week.

In the meantime, I have been furiously Googling, Craigslisting, Pinteresting (Pinning?), and thrifting in an effort to find the things I want/need for this bathroom. Budget is tight, ya’ll. I was not able to share all of those gritty details for the last bathroom, because this blog wasn’t born in time (she’s a late bloomer).  This time around, you just TRY to stop me!

Here are the big ticket items we need:

1. Tile (for floor of bathroom and walls of shower):  We are pretty sure we have settled on these tiles at Floor & Decor Outlet.  In the last year of us stopping by to say “hello” to them every time we are in the store (which is embarrassingly often), they haven’t gone on sale.  We may have to pay full price, but they are actually very affordable in the expensive world of tile.

2. Tile (for floor of walk-in shower):  We purchased this tile at Floor & Decor’s end of year clearance last year.

I loved it (picture me petting it while talking sweetly to it, because that happened), the price was right, and I cannot resist a deal. I had to pull the picture from my Master-ish Bathroom Pinterest board, because I cannot find this tile on their site anymore. Discontinued I suppose? Thank goodness I bought it when I did!

3.  Vanity:  As we did with the last bathroom, I am looking for a dresser/buffet/sideboard we can transform into a vanity, and I think I have finally found it on Craigslist (fingers crossed!). Here is the picture from her ad:

I have been emailing with the very nice owner, confirmed that the hutch detaches, and will head over today to check it out. I am not saying I will definitely buy it, but I am bringing the truck and the blankets and the tie downs and the cash and praying for no rain JUST IN CASE.

(Update:  She is mine!!  I played hopscotch with two adorable little girls waiting for someone to get there to help me load it.  You never know what you will encounter when buying on Craigslist, but so far I have had nothing but really positive experiences.)

I was hoping to use the hutch as a cabinet and hang it above the toilet, but it is much too large. I love it, though, so we will figure out a use for it:

4.  Sink (or 2): Now that we have the “vanity” picked out, we can figure out what kind of sink(s) we want. The one green rusting sink we previously had was causing a rift in our relationship twice daily, with both of us pushing and screeching “moo eee!” (that’s “move it!” with your mouth full of foamy toothpaste). I look forward to the day when we can both brush our teeth while staring longingly into each others eyes (ok, maybe just without throwing elbows). Practically speaking, since we will be altering a piece of furniture to accomodate, it makes more sense to have a large sink with one drain, but two faucets.  I found this sink, and we both fell in love with it, although The Boy is probably not sitting at work picturing himself bathing in it (doesn’t it look like a tiny version of an amazing giant free-standing bathtub??).

We would put two faucets, near the back corners, to make it a two person sink. Normally I find the item I want, and then search the internet high and low for the best deal. Everywhere I look, this sink is still $419.95. EVERY. WHERE. That would be quite a blow to our budget, so we will see how it pans out.  (I WANT THIS SINK.)

5.  Toilet:  We have strange names for everything, and have been calling our puke green throne the “turtle.” This turtle’s gotta go. I know what you are thinking – “Whaaaat?  They don’t want to keep that lovely green turtle??”  This may be a surprise, but no, we don’t.  Especially not after this incident:

This is a FROG in the TURTLE and it scared the BEJESUS out of me!

Imagine getting out of the shower, after having used this turtle, only to see this ENORMOUS frog hanging out in there. He is lucky I didn’t pee on his huge green head. Really, I am lucky he didn’t jump on me mid-stream and scar me for life. Small miracles. The point that I am trying to get to is that I purchased a toilet at Home Depot not long after buying the house, and it has been sitting in its box in the garage ever since. It is nothing fancy, but it is new and white and was on sale (a year ago, when I imagined we would replace the green turtle, but we ended up just replacing the toilet seat as a temporary fix).

6.  Fixtures (faucets and shower):  I have probably done the least research in this area so far.  I know we want oil rubbed bronze, and we would like to splurge on some body sprays and a rain showerhead, as cheaply as one can possibly “splurge.” (Oxymoron? Probably). I do anticipate that this group will be the most expensive of all the purchases. I have pinned a few fixtures I like, but I have not conducted a full hardcore search for the best prices.

7.  Lighting:  I will be making two hanging pendant lights for this bathroom, and ideally I would like to find two large glass urns or something interesting like that.  I have been casually browsing at HomeGoods, Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, thrift stores, etc., but I will know them when I see them.

I love seeing a project come together. It doesn’t always turn out the way I envision it initially, but ultimately I am always pleased with the results.  Here is to hoping this bathroom doesn’t take 10 months to finish! Now back to demo …

Booze Cruising

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The Boy and I went on a quick cruise last weekend with some friends.  It was a lot of fun and a nice little getaway.  True to form, The Boy realized about 3 miles from the port that he forgot to pack a bathing suit.  A quick stop at a Walgreens was fruitless, but luckily we picked up two (clearance!) boy-kinis at a nearby department store, and still made it to the boat in plenty of time.  The Boy narrowly escaped sleeping on the lido deck for three nights.

Cruises tend to be pretty affordable, unless you enjoy partaking in the adult beverages (or the gambling), in which case it can get pretty costly.  While I have no advice for avoiding gambling losses, other than to pick black 14 and always double down on 11, I have been very successful with getting alcohol onto several cruise lines (unless you are a cruise line employee, in which case I AM JUST KIDDING and STOP READING NOW). I thought I would share this knowledge, since I was under the impression that this was a common practice, but the two couples we were with did not bring any of their own alcohol on board.

The key is to disguise the alcohol as water or soda.  Obviously clear liquors impersonate water pretty well, and very dark liquors such as Jaeger resemble coke. We went with strictly vodka, since we had plenty on hand, and it mixes with many juices, lemonades, etc. I have had great success using the bottles of water that are attached together. Remove the lid from one in the middle, and pour out the water (or put it in your dog’s bowl, which I did), and refill with your “alternative liquid of choice.”

The vodka only looks different because it is very cold.

Make sure you line up the fill level accurately.  Then, you will need to super glue the lid to the detached ring.  This can be pretty tricky, because they are all stamped with a date, which you will need to line up perfectly.  Also, you will need to lift up the detached ring so it meets the bottom of the lid while the super glue dries.

The cardboard didn’t quite do the trick, so we used some knives:

At some point we got sloppy and got some super glue on the stamped-on numbers. You should try to avoid this because it distorts the stamp and is very obvious.  However, a quick remedy is some nail polish remover and a q-tip, which will take off the stamp altogether. Finally, we realized the knives were not working well, so we ditched them for some toothpick things.

This did the trick and allowed the lid and the detached ring to stay pushed together while the glue dried, and then we packed the entire thing in our checked bag.  Another thing we did, but did not photograph, was to buy some of those little Aquapods, which are just smaller rounder water bottles.  They were nice because you could just put the super glue directly onto the detached ring, and screw the lid back on, without having to push the ring up to meet it.  It dried perfectly.  We then put all six bottles back into the plastic shrink-wrap packaging and put it in our carry on.  The guy checked all of the bottles to make sure they were sealed, and that’s it.  Lesson: diversify. Some in your checked bag, some in your carry on.  Be sure to bring your own cup!  I had a plastic water bottle with a lid, and a giant plastic cup with a lid and a straw.  Therefore, we could just order ice and juice to our room, fill up our cups, and head out. Our friends may not admit it, but they were totally jealous!

The Boy and I are such lushes, and shared our stash with our friends, therefore we were running low pretty quickly.  No worries!  We bought more vodka and carried it on the boat at our first port of call (which turned out to be our only port of call thanks to inclement weather).  We simply emptied the entire bottle into my giant cup, and carried it right through security.  It was really that easy.

I am sure “breaking the rules” makes some people nervous, and I can understand that. However, as long as you are over 21, and bringing legal items (obviously) the worst that can happen is that they take it away.

Happy Cruising!

Side effects of the cruise included feeling like we were still rocking on a boat and smelling all contents of water bottles before drinking for several days.  Small price to pay.