bathroom redo...

FINALLY!!! after about 4 months of sharing a bathroom WITH THREE TEENAGERS... our master bathroom is finished (well, there are a couple of little things still to be done. but finished enough to blog about...)​

​you may recall how it looked before we discovered that we had an ongoing leak and had to GUT the entire 5x7 room...

yellow and gray. i really loved the color combo. and i loved the yellow 1960's tile. i didn't love the TINY shower with a low ceiling. it was constantly moldy. and dark. and did i mention TINY? i usually showered in the kids' shower. but most of all we didn't love the way the floor was caving in. though the fact that at any moment we could fall through into the underbelly of our home did make going to the bathroom in the middle of the night quite thrilling...​

so DURING the process the entire bathroom was gutted. and the molded floor boards replaced. and some of the supports replaced. 40 years of water leaking does something bad to wood. that is my professional opinion...​

the whole shebang was proving to be a lot of bang. and a lot of bucks. we decided on white subway and black and white tile from home depot. and a framed glass shower (we wanted frameless but could not justify the price.) we knocked out the wall between the shower and the toilet and that gave us a little more room in the shower and a couple more inches to the side of the toilet. but the perfect and affordable vanity and countertop ​eluded us...

​until i went to the shabby shack by the fairgrounds. and found this most excellent 1940's dining room buffet. for $125. perfect size. lots of character. and ready to be refinished.

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adam stripped it and then added SEVERAL coats of black stain with acrylic. inside and outside to waterproof the whole thing. he cut a hole for the sink and even made the middle drawers with cut outs for the plumbing AND areas where we can still use them for storage. BRILLIANT. and then it all came together into a lovely little master bathroom...​

​white subway tiles on the walls. black and white tiles on the floor. gray grout (which means that it will NEVER look dirty!) and a light gray paint color. i bought two glass plates from goodwill (on half price monday) for us to put our items on that go to the sides of the sink. and the glass shower feel HUMONGOUS compared to the shower closet with lowered ceiling that was there before. it is a pleasure to shower in there now. i think i may head back to take a shower right after blogging...

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so there it is... our new and VASTLY IMPROVED master bathroom. i LOVE it. ​

remember that i am a gift giver...

see my adorable "mantle"? is it a mantle if it is over your couch and not over a fireplace? well, let's call it a shelf just in case... i would hate for all the interior decorators of the world to start hating on my word usage.

so let's start again... see my adorable shelf? and all my adorable posters on said adorable shelf that may or may not be a mantle? thank you panorama photo tool on my iPhone for the panorama photo. note that the wall doesn't curve. the panorama photo looks like that. but i wish my wall curved. wouldn't that be awesome?!?!?

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i made those adorable posters (maxx made the original art work piece from the pichard-a-thon two years ago. the piece is entitled "poinsettia in the wind". lovely.) 

i made two of the Christmas signs last year. and then added to the collection this year. i had them printed up like posters. they would be cute printed smaller and framed also. if only you had the pdf files...

if only...

so sad for you...

BUT thank goodness i am a gift giver! and tis the season. and all that jazz.

leave me a comment with your email address in it and i will send the pdf files to your very own inbox and you can print these up for your very own self. and put them on your very own may or may not be a mantle or a shelf. or the refrigerator. or wherever you have to put things such as this.

so to leave a comment... click on the headline of this post ("remember i am a gift giver") and it will open up the post to where you can scroll down to the bottom and leave a comment. IF for some reason it won't let you leave a comment, or if you don't want to leave your email address all out there for the world to see on my blog in the comment section just let me know by emailing me at leamarshall@mac.com and i will email you the pdf's anyway because i am a trusting gift giver.

enjoy my generosity.

don't you wish you were me...

...maybe not with over 300 blog posts to still be added to this blog. one by one. photo by photo. it is a bit unnerving and overwhelming and tedious BUT it has its moments of fun as i slowly wade through the past 6 years post by post. and it is a bit disconcerting how many things i had forgotten ALL about until i reread my blog posts. they say the memory is the first to go. the second is the ability to finish what you...

so you may not wish to be me ...but then let me remind you that i am going on a cruise later this week!​

are you rethinking your answer?

​and not only am i going on this cruise BUT i am in​ charge of planning and implementing all the teenager activities. so not only do i go on an awesomely fun cruise BUT i hang out with cool young people on the cruise. win/win!

​and to really make you all jealousy here is a sneak peak at one of the activities that i am planning....

amazing race.jpeg

i have been working on getting all of the games set up (the amazing race one will be planned mostly on the boat once we see the ship and figure out what the road blocks and detours can be for each stop along the route. but i do have all the detour, road block, route info and route marker flags ready.)​ sometimes being a meticulous planner AND a spontaneous wacky game lovin' gal works itself out in some kind of perfect storm of magically delicious fun. this is one of those times.

i am super duper excited about the FOUR teen only events that i am in charge of... first because i love to be in charge. second because they are going to be so much fun! and third because i have maxed out on the cute graphics and lamination with the little details of the games and that makes me very happy. nothing like the smell of laminating in the morning...

i am going to try to blog some from the ship. especially with my new cool squarespace blog that enables me to blog from any place where i can get the internet and have access to a computer. my me.com blog could only be updated from my own computer. on my own desk. in my own house. a bit more limiting indeed. 

new season... new room...

in two days rosalea will be a TEENAGER. and i will be the mother of three teenagers. pray for me. and bring over some chocolate. thanks.

anywho, when millie turned 13 we had a big room makeover. from the little girl room (millie was fairies, rosalea’s was just pink) to the teenager room. you get one time to redo your room at the marshall house. if you are a girl. maxx never had a room redo. he has wood paneled walls and camp ridgecrest blankets. that is all a boy needs.

but rosalea needed a freshening and updating for this new season of her life. and boy, did she ever get it! we called in the expert, shelly kale. shelly was one of our college girls. she went off to atlanta and got her interior design on. then she married zach and they moved to charlotte. i follow her blog and i LOVE her style. i saw the room she designed for her stepdaughter allie and i KNEW that she would understand our nature/animal lovin’ rosalea’s style. shelly had me set up a pinterest board where we could post ideas for rosalea’s room. adam traded in some frequent flyer miles to fly shelly down for this past weekend. shelly came up with a BRILLIANT plan using things rosalea loved: a terrarium made by my aunt lynette (who made three more for the room), quilts, and the idea for a whole wall of cork board. i only bought the quilt, fabric for curtains, 2 sconces, and a couple of little accessories. the rest of the room is old, reclaimed, repainted furniture (and chandelier from my grandmother’s house) and a wire spool made into a bookcase.

and the final product is BEAUTIFUL! the BRIGHT GREEN wall freaked me out at first but once everything was painted and back in the room, it is actually quite fresh and calming. it is bright. cheery. happy. and full of life. just like rosalea. she helped us pick everything out and then we shut her out of the room for a few days while we did all the work. we made a good team: shelly, erin (shelly’s college roomie), adam (the handyman), and me the seamstress/ceiling painter/furniture painter. it was a BUSY week for me to get everything ready for shelly. and she was only going to be here less than 48 hours. but we were able to get it ALL finished. and even got in a couple of great meals. and plenty of chat time. it was a lot less crazy than i thought it would be. and it turned out better than i thought it ever could be...

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