Be Our Guest

The guest room/bathroom was our last ‘room’ to be completed, unfortunately so, since we had a fair number of guests before it was even remotely occupational and now due to 2020’s travel issues we’ve had none 🙈🤪

Here you see it in some of its former grandeur…

From left to right –  What is now the bed nook. What is now the little countertop area. What is now the bathroom.

Once a layout was decided on, the wall building and drywalling etc. began.

I wanted to make use of the space that was available behind the door, (the far right photo above) so a closet would be installed, new handles put on it from Amazon and then it was filled with bedding/home items, so our storage room could be used for more tool-y bits etc.

Due to a mishap from the store, we had one box of flooring that didn’t match the rest, so Mike did some super fancy puzzling and STILL managed to complete the floor without it, since he already had the glue on the floor and the store was over an hour away.
He literally used EVERY piece of flooring we had and I’m still not sure how he did it 😂
He said he’d never had so few scraps 🙈 I ordered peel and stick tiles from Amazon for accent flooring in the bathroom area… we really went for that ‘use all the leftovers’ and ‘peel and stick stuff’ in the basement 😅 Honestly though, I’ve been super happy with how the peel and stick tiles have looked and held up 🙌🏻

Here it is ‘finished’ but yet, far from it 🤪

And now, as it currently stands…

The vanity in the bathroom is from Ikea.

It was $70.00 or so dollars, came with the vanity top and I was happily surprised with how much room it actually has inside!
The legs were spray painted gold and the brushed gold faucet, towel holder and toilet paper holder were purchased months earlier, on sale from Home Depot. The mirror in the bathroom is from Winners.

A sliding door was installed for the bathroom.
Mike found the roller part of it on sale so that’s why we decided to go that route, though it makes sense to use that style, so that the floor space doesn’t have to be clear for a door to swing open.

A potential problem with guests being so slovenly with their suitcases and such 🤪
The door itself was purchased on the local buy and sell page and the exact style I wanted 👍🏻

We had these Art Deco style door plates from one of our many projects/finds/I don’t exactly know where but they worked as little finger pulls on the door, while adding much visual pleasure 💗

A shelf was installed in this open nook area to give some more space to place things upon/add some character to the room.
We covered it using marble drawer liner, so it would match the nightstands and brackets from Ikea were sprayed gold and installed as a decorative aspect.
The mirror is once again from Winners 😏
The blue vase is actually one we bought when living in Holland and the dried leaves are from the palm plant I killed 😜 Our extra bar stools fit beneath it perfectly, so that worked out wonderfully, storage wise👌🏻

I find a lot of simple pleasure in making up the ‘welcome basket’ and putting little oft forgotten necessities in the bathroom. Probably more pleasure in that preparation than the actual action of having guests 😂

The duvet cover is from Amazon and though there is something about it I’m not 100% sold on, it couldn’t be returned due to having been washed, so for now it will be kept ☺️
I love the colors in it and the idea of the tropical design but as I said… there just seems to be something that’s a little ‘off’ 🧐
Adding the headboard and getting rid of the pink rug helped a lot though.

The headboard was a $5.00 find at our local ‘Habitat For Humanity’ and after a light sanding, vacuuming and washing, Mike attached it to the wall and I’m super happy with it 😁

The little ‘nightstands’ were made using small leftover pieces of countertop from the Mac House Makeover! 😁
We also made sure to put power outlets on each side of the bed for easy device charging 🙌🏻

Walls/ceiling were also insulated where possible, since the room is below the kitchen and beside the laundry room, two decently high traffic areas that could hinder ones guests restful mornings 🤓

I still want to add a few finishing touches here and there, art above the bed for example. I just don’t know when I will get around to such things, so I decided it was high time to share this, the last real ‘made over’ space in our home ☺️

A Refreshed, Rental Investment

So we bought a second, or I guess I should I say, third house, a couple months back 💁🏻‍♀️

Hubster found a bank repo for sale in a town 15 or so minutes away from us, so we went and were the first people to take a look.
The rest is history 🤪

This one was purchased with pretty much only the intent to clean it up, fix a few things and then rent it out.
I wouldn’t have minded cleaning it up, making it look a bit better and trying to sell it again right away buuuuut Hubster wanted to get his fingers in the rental market, so that’s what we did 🤪

 

 

What’s really unfortunate about it all, is that we (the sister and I) cleaned for about 8-10 hours, I cleaned for a few hours alone before that and Mike repainted all the walls, took out trash annnd you can’t really see ‘missing dirt’ in ‘after’ photos 😬

 

So the look isn’t much different from photo to photo, but imagine if you will, how gross it was if it took two steady cleaners, 8 or so hours to scrape off unknown substances from the walls, baseboards, kitchen cupboards and then vacuuming, mopping and carpet cleaning and then a few hours of bathroom scrubbing.

And, that isn’t touching the state of the basement, aside from what Mike and a friend did, removing a bunch of the old owners items.

We now have a renter in it and are just trusting all goes well in this new venture* 🤓
Fingers crossed we don’t find too many terrible ‘surprises’ in the yard once the snow melts 🤪
By surprise, I mostly mean dog poo, as that was found multiple different places, IN the house 😬

*Since I wrote on here last, Michiel began his own construction and renovation business! The name is ‘Hagenouw Ventures’ and so far, he’s been kept pretty busy and is still enjoying being able to use his hands and set his own hours 😉

@HagenouwVentures

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