FRIDAY FINDS

Well I made it through the first post-Labor Day week. This summer has been so incredible (I know, I won't shut up about it, sorry) that I was truly melancholy Monday just thinking of it ending. Despite my best efforts, my thoughts have turned to gardening tasks that need to be attended to before frost and suddenly I'm feeling concerned I won't get it all done.

I spent some time this week at the local library doing some research for work and I was thrilled to see a real, live card catalog. I bet the library gets offers to buy it on a regular basis, but this one is serving a great purpose: It's a seed library. I'd known it was there, but I hadn't checked it before and I was thrilled to see such a great variety of heirloom seeds represented in it. Seeds are packaged and free to take. They ask that you bring back some seeds at the end of the season  to keep the collection intact and hopefully add to it. Here's more info on seed libraries.

The Kitchn is doing a series called "20 Chefs, 20 Knives" and I find it really interesting. I'll admit, I was a knife snob. When we got married I didn't register for a knife set, choosing instead an expensive  German chef's knife and paring knife (which I still have an use regularly). Then I got a Wusthof santoku knife that has been in regular service for about eight years. And then I read a Chef's Illustrated knife review and picked up their favorite, the Victorinox Fibrox 8-inch chef's knife (affiliate link), about a year and a half ago and it's the knife I use 98% of the time now. I like it so much that even if it's dirty I will take it out of the dishwasher and hand wash it rather than use another knife. When I bought it, it was $35 and I see that it's now $10 more, but it's still a fantastic deal over most really good knives. I also got a new knife sharpener and it's the best I've used. You just have to know the angle of your blade, which they clearly describe how to figure out in the instructions.

This list is actually quite funny and somewhat spot on. But only go there if you have a sense of humor about your name.

Here's some good info on how to clean marble, complete with lots of drool-worthy photos of great marble, natch.

This reminds me, I never did get Mr. Much More Patient to build a trellis for the clematis by the garage.

I'm a little afraid of canning. I fear I will kill someone with a horrible foodborne illness caused by an improper seal or whatever. Here's a bunch of ways to preserve food without going the full-on canning route.

That's it for this week. I'll be spending some time in the garden doing a variety of things including using Miller High Life for it's highest and best purpose: slug bait. The slimy suckers are everywhere. What's on your list for the weekend?

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE: WEEK SIX (AKA THE END)

Thanks for your patience on this. I got behind on all the last minute details and just couldn't finish this up in time to join the first wave of "big reveals" Thursday morning.

If you're wondering what all this is about, I joined the One Room Challenge, hosted semi-annually by Linda at Calling it Home and attempted to renovate our downstairs bathroom in just six weeks. It was the first room we planned to renovate when we bought the house and it turned out to be pretty much the last room we touched, mostly because it was just daunting.

And here's where it ended up.

To fully appreciate how far it has come, you have to remember what it looked like before. Highlights, or rather lowlights, include highly textured walls, pickled pink wood, a pink counter, weird shower insert, rope sink, shiny gold (not in a good way) hardware and, of course, a boob light.

By taking out the shower insert and tiling the shower up the ceiling and using a very low threshold shower pan, the room feels twice as big. 

Unfortunately the vanity top is not finished. If you recall, it was cut incorrectly and is too small for the vanity and the sink hole wasn't cut correctly. We've been waiting for another carrara marble remnant to become available but no luck so far.

The fabric for the roman blind was not what I intended to use originally but that didn't seem quite right. I ended up looking for something with a hand-printed look and in the middle of a mad internet search I found just that in Australia and just a few days later, freshly printed fabric from halfway around the world was on my doorstep. Like I do about once a year, I pulled out the sewing machine, tried to remember how to work it and sewed that baby up, saving somewhere in the neighborhood of $130, which was the going price I found to have someone make a custom roman blind. I was fairly impressed with myself, particularly given that I literally sewed THROUGH my finger when I took a machine sewing class in summer school in 7th grade.

To find out more specifics about how this project all went, check out previous weeks here:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5

SOURCES 
(Some affiliate links may be used)

Floor tile: Fluid marmara marble 6x18 honed

Wall tile: Daltile Rittenhouse Square 3x6 in Kohler White (K101)

Wall accent tile: Bardiglio marble piano tile (discontinued but this is similar)

Shower base: Kohler Ballast

Heated floor

Marble sealer

Trim and ceiling paint: BM White Heron

Wall paint: BM Pebble Beach

Vanity: My design, semi-DIY constructed

Vanity paint: BM Hale Navy

Drawer pulls

Mirror

Vanity light: Fiona Big Sconce custom painted

Spray paint : Montana Gold in navy (for vanity sconce)

Ceiling light

Shower light/fan combo

Towel bar, robe hook, toilet paper holder

Door knobs

Faucet

Toilet

Shower faucets

Handshower

Showerhead

Art

Roman shade: DIY with this fabric

Vanity tray

Guest towels

Please take a moment to check out all of the other guest participants in the One Room Challenge as well as the featured bloggers.

Thanks for following along!

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE: WEEK 3

First off, thank you all for your wonderful comments from Week 2. I'm happy to say that thanks to some insanely long hours by our tile guy, the tile portion of this project is moving nicely.

There were a couple of factors that came into play with the selection of the wall tile. This bathroom was always going to be all about the floor, so everything else had to play second fiddle. I also wanted to keep the cost down in order to keep the overall tile cost down. Subway tile came to mind pretty quickly and came with the added bonus of being period appropriate to our 1938 house.

Of course I would have loved a subway tile that was hand-glazed and had a little more character, but price was a huge factor and I went with your basic Dal-tile subway tile that you can find at Home Depot. Well, sort of. There are three shades of white in Dal-tile's Rittenhouse Square line: the basic white, the most commonly stocked at Home Depot; Arctic White, the brightest; and Kohler White, which is said to match white Kohler porcelain products. I wasn't overly concerned about matching the toilet and shower base, but in a toss-up between the latter two choices, which I felt matched the floor best, I went with the Kohler White. What I didn't realize was that this was a less economical choice, which was a bit of a bummer. I had assumed that they were all the same price and it wasn't until I had the tile installer order all the tile that I found out they weren't.

Some affiliate links may have been used. Thanks for your support!

Once again, our tile guy spent serious quality time in our bathroom to crank out the subway tile installation.

The stripes were made from a bardiglio marble piano till that came on mosaic-style sheets that we cut apart.

I also wanted a little bit of classic interest on the walls and in my book it doesn't get much more classic than stripes. Rather than use pencil accent tiles, which can add up quickly, I looked for a gray mosaic tile with a linear shape. After a few missteps that involved falling in love with tile that was discontinued, I found bardiglio marble piano tiles that were each 5/8-inc by 4 inches long and came on a sheet of 18 rows. I only needed four sheets to complete a design incorporating four stripes in the shower and two around the wainscoting in the rest of the room. Figuring out the spacing of the stripes so that they looked right in both sides of the room as well as the height of the tile chair rail was a math problem that gave me a weeklong headache.

Sorry for the bright lightbulb in your eyes, but here's a good look at the wood plank ceilings.

Benjamin Moore White Heron

Benjamin Moore Pebble Beach

I cranked out a little bit of painting prior to the wall tile installation as well. We went with the same wood plank ceiling that can be found in much of the rest of downstairs and like we had put in the office a few months ago. (See how I painted them here.) The ceilings, trim and doors were painted Benjamin Moore's White Heron, which was the closest white I could find to the subway tile, leaning a little on the brighter side. I want this whole room to be light and bright so I also went with a light color on the walls: Benjamin Moore Pebble Beach.

Because we used wood plank ceilings, we tiled the ceiling the shower as well. I've never been a fan of tiled ceilings, but as soon as it was up, my mind was completely changed. I love the look. The shower niche and the small corner seat will be tiled in the floor tile, but we had to order more, so that will take a bit to finish.

It was another big week in the bathroom, but in the background, not all is well. We are experiencing a somewhat major hiccup that I fear will be difficult to overcome. I'll tell you all about that next week.

Here are some links to products you've seen so far in this renovation:
Floor tile
Shower base
Trim and ceiling paint
Wall color
Subway tile
Wall accent tile (discontinued, but this is similar)
Heated floor
Marble floor sealer


If you want to catch up on previous weeks in this project check here:

Week 1 - The before + the design
Week 2 - Floor tile

And make sure to check out the One Room Challenge featured bloggers and all of my fellow guest participants, all of whom are doing some pretty fabulous things, all organized by Calling it Home.

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE: WEEK 2

Welcome to the second week of my personal One Room Challenge, where I attempt to renovate one room in six weeks. See Week 1 here.

Some affiliate links may be used. I very much appreciate your support of this blog. 

It was a big week in the bathroom progress and, not surprisingly, we ran into more than a few hurdles in the process. This is no surprise: This old house is anything but square and level. This caused a rather significant issue when the contractor was setting the shower pan because they had to futz around with it for quite some time. We went with a low-profile plain shower pan. There is only about an inch difference in height between it and the finished floor so it's very unobtrusive and I didn't feel like fussing with a custom mudded and tiled shower pan.

Then it came time to level the floor, which was out a full two inches from one end of the bathroom to the other, just 9 feet away. Our poor tile guy (the husband of one of my best friends, who has done all of the tile work in our house) spent seven hours just leveling the floor and incorporating the heated floor cables (an add-on that I couldn't have cared less about but Mr. Much More Patient really wanted). He was here until 11:30 one night!

To accommodate the amount we had to bring the floor up to level it, we fashioned a ramp to meet up with the hallway.

Leveling the floor meant we had a decision to make about how to make the transition to the hallway, because of course the "high" side of the floor was the end by the hallway. We decided to create a mini ramp with two pieces of tile.

The floor in progress. It took much longer to level it than it did to tile it.

And then the floor tile went in. Bestill my heart. I was very selective about how the pieces should be laid out (although a couple snuck in places I wouldn't have chosen, but it's fine). Originally I was planning a herring bone layout in this room, but I was afraid that the striped marble tiles in the small room would be way too busy in a traditional herringbone layout. So I decided to have them set in the same pattern but perpendicular and parallel to the walls, rather than angled to the walls. Somehow it calmed the design to me.

I sealed all the tiles ahead of time with the sealer our tile guy recommends and I'll give the entire floor another coat after the grout is completely dry.

I can't tell you how much I love this floor. When I found the tile I knew right away that I'd do whatever it took to have it and although I've had a little pushback on it from some people, I think it's fabulous.

Yes, I love it. 

What is most amazing thus far in this renovation is the difference that pulling out the shower insert made. I thought this was a small bathroom. Suddenly with a full height ceiling in the shower and the additional 6 inches we gained width wise (enough to accommodate a 66-inch by 36-inch shower base), the room looks huge. Even without anything on the walls in the shower, it looks so much bigger. I never expected that.

The room looks so much bigger with the shower insert removed.

We'll see what surprises the coming week brings.

Check out the official One Room Challenge featured designers here and all of my fellow guest participants here.

FRIDAY FINDS

Well, it looks like we may get our first frost tonight. I'll be making myself a big bouquet of flowers from what is left in the garden and bringing the poor spider plant after work. I don't think I've told you about the abused spider plant before and I'll have to something. I bought it the day I moved into my first dorm at college which was (ahem) somewhere in the neighborhood of two decades ago. Since then that poor plant has been abused in every way you can abuse a plant but it keeps going (sort of). It's a survivor and that's no thanks to me.

I haven't had a lot of time to scour the blogging world lately (or comment on blogs ... sorry, everyone) but can I just voice my displeasure at the amount of Christmas stuff that is already being discussed? It's one thing for Wal-mart and Costco to have their Christmas stuff out for the crazy folks who get into that at this time of year but why in the world is the blogging world perpetuating this rushing of the seasons? So do not expect to see any holiday-related items in Friday Finds for quite some time, unless that holiday is Halloween or Thanksgiving.

I think if you're going to go to cooking school, Paris is probably a really good place to do it.

I have so many hydrangeas that I could easily make this. And I might do just that.

I'm pretty sure this tile will be making an appearance in the downstairs bathroom when we spruce it up, but it won't look like you see it here. (Eyeglasses—not mine!—for scale.)

I can't remember if I told you about the bathroom reno that is hopefully happening this winter or not. I know I started a post about it but sometimes these things languish unfinished in the drafts folder. Anyway, before I start a big renovation project I like to have every possible decision made in advance because there are always plenty of on-the-fly decisions to be made mid-project. And this tile will probably be a part of the plan, but not the way you see it here (above). Mysterious, right?

Is it just me or are all house tours starting to look the same (says the woman who is going to put marble in her bathroom, following every tired trend there is)? Still, this is an interesting house. I particularly love the exterior.

Good ideas here for using burlap in your garden. I use a lot of it in mine every year.

That's it for this Friday. More posts next week, I promise! Hope you all have a great fall weekend!

How to salvage a stained marble tabletop

I have been on the hunt for a marble side table for about two years now. I'm pretty sure it's because secretly I would have loved a marble countertop in either the upstairs bathroom or the kitchen but I knew I'd lose my mind with a marble counter. Some people love marble countertops for their patina or are willing to baby them a little, but that person is not me, so I went with no-muss, no-fuss quartz in both places.

But marble is beautiful and I really wanted to bring in a little more white by the blue chair in the living room. Not finding the right thing was just killing me (sometimes I get consumed by these searches) and I was just about to sort of give up and order one from West Elm that I had been eyeing. I liked the table a lot although it was lower than I was looking for and I'm always a little worried to go down the West Elm / Pottery Barn / Ikea road. Its not that I don't love their stuff. It's just that I don't really like it when someone walks in the house and automatically knows where something is from. I already have the Malabar chairs from Pottery Barn (and honestly who doesn't know someone who has or had those chairs) in front of the fireplace so I was just a bit wary of having things look like they were all ordered from a catalog.

West Elm Hex Side Table

Anyway, I was literally on the verge of buying the West Elm table when I decided to do my routine Etsy search for "marble side table" and lo and behold, a new one popped up.

Etsy listing photo

It was this cute little vintage number that cost about half of what that West Elm table cost. It wasn't perfect by any means. The marble top clearly had some stains on it and a few chips. Plus, the legs and the "handle" on the top were shiny fake brass. I like brass, but I like it when it's darkened, and antiqued and, um, real.

There were a number of stains of unknown origin on the tabletop.

When it arrived I set to giving those stains a shot. I really didn't expect them to budge, since I had no idea what kind of stain I was dealing with nor how many years it had been there. Honestly, I would have been fine with the table with the stains patina too. But I did a little bit of googling (how did anyone DIY anything before Google?) and decided to give hydrogen peroxide a shot.

Instead of using regular hydrogen peroxide that comes in a bottle, I went for the industrial strength stuff. And the only place I knew where to find that was in a box of facial bleach. I bought the extra strength Sally Hansen creme facial bleach (I don't know where the extra strength comes in but it sounded good), pulled out the bottle of powder labeled "Activator" and threw out the rest of the contents of the box.

Then I mixed some of the powder with a small amount of ammonia, as I read in this article. I spread it thinly on all the stained areas, covered them with plastic wrap and sealed them with tape. Then I put it in a sunny window for about 10 hours.

Later, I took off the plastic wrap and tape and washed the whole thing with warm water and a little soap. Because of the size of the table top, I was able to stick the entire thing in the kitchen sink.

There were darker areas where the plastic wrap was, but it was just residual moisture. A day later, they were gone.

But then I went back to the tabletop a few days later and I noticed that now the areas that I had treated were actually lighter than the rest of the table. It was a very, very small difference, and it may have even faded with time, but since I was dealing with a very small piece of marble I figured it would be easy enough to fix (I also could have lived with it the way it was). I just mixed up more of the hydrogen peroxide powder and ammonia and spread it (very thinly this time because I didn't have much) over the entire table, and wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap. I kind of forgot about it this time, so I would say it sat for about 20 hours, but I washed it the same way I had the first time.

And this time all I saw was a beautiful, white Carrara marble top.

I've delacquered the legs and handle, but that's as far as I've taken it so far. I'm sort of hoping it will get a little rusty or something (I don't really know what I expect to happen, and I'm pretty sure they are made of aluminum as a magnet doesn't stick to them and I know it's not real brass). My intention is to live with it like this for a little, but I'm also considering spray painting the legs an antiqued brass or bronze color. I also put on a coat of marble sealer to prevent future stains.

Despite that shiny gold glaring at me out of the corner of my eye, I'm just loving this table, and even more so now that the marble looks practically new.