Three Days Before Christmas

I'm a planner. I have notebooks of lists. I use a daily to-do list. It helps keep me on track. This summer I even created a "project list" of things I wanted to get done before we started back to school. I am also a "long term thinker." What I mean by that is I will ruminate on an idea for a while before I finally jump in and get it done. So in other words, I like to plan and sometimes it takes me a while to actually complete said plan.

We moved into our current home six years ago. It's a lovely home and probably my favorite of all the ones I've lived in over the last 25 years of being married to my hubby. We've moved more often than most people unless they are military. Then those folks have us beat on the number of new houses.

One thing I did not like about our current home, however, was the "builder's white" on all the walls. Every single wall in the house was white. I like color. Before we moved in we redid each boy's bedroom. Our youngest son's room was completely repainted. Our middle son received a two foot stripe of dark blue paint around his room and some vinyl stickers. Our oldest son ended up with a "focal wall" of olive green and vinyl stickers. It all helped to offset the white.

A few years later I repainted our living room. I love how it turned out. The wall with our TV hanging on it is a dark chocolate colored brown and the remaining walls are tan. A few years later I convinced hubby to let me repaint the downstairs guest bath. It's now a lovely grey. And for the last year or so I've wanted to redo the upstairs bathroom.

 We started having an issue with mold growing on the dry wall above the shower area. On the Saturday before Christmas, hubby and I were driving north to visit my niece who had just had a baby. The 90 minute drive there gave us ample time to chat and we decided to finally do the project. Only this time it wasn't a simple paint job. My hubby wanted to tile the area above the tub so that the mold issue would be easier to clean up if it came back after the project.

After our visit we headed to the local box store that sells such materials and picked up some very inexpensive 4x4 white tiles. This was going to be our "test project" as the downstairs bathroom I had painted could use the same treatment due to water damage on the drywall above the shower. I've also wanted to remove the jetted garden tub that we never use from the master bathroom and put in a shower.

So on the Sunday afternoon before Christmas (otherwise known as Christmas Eve Eve), we started working. We used this as an opportunity to teach the skill to our younger boys as well. Hubby taught them how to measure and cut all the tile. We only had one injury which was thankfully minor albeit a bit painful when my middle kiddo took off a chunk of skin from the pad of his thumb breaking the tile. We then added some blocks of wood and a hammer to make it a bit safer.

While the men worked, I cleaned and prepped as best I could around them. I finally had to give up as there wasn't enough room to maneuver with all four of us in there and I needed to work around the door. So I headed downstairs and made homemade pizza for supper and a double batch of chocolate chip cookies. They were finished around supper time and after we finished eating, I headed back up and put the first coat of paint on most of the walls. 

All the tile is on the walls!

The next day, Christmas Eve, I headed up and finished painting the bathroom. Hubby added the grout to the walls and caulked all the edges. It looks so pretty! 

And the final photos!

The photos don't show the paint color great, but it is the palest green we could buy. It's a bit darker than it's showing in the photos, but we all still like it so that's good. 

I'm super glad this project is done. On to the next!