A Blue Nest

A Southern DIY Blog

Vanity Update in the Bathroom

Bathroom Counter

While browsing through Pinterest one day, I came across this post about updating your sink with a special epoxy paint for less than $40. Color me interested. I did a bit more research and decided that I wanted to try it out for our dated faux marble vanity top.

I found that there were two products that basically did the same thing, Homax Tub & Sink Refinishing Kit, which comes in either a brush on or an aerosol, and Rustoleum’s Tub & Tile Refinishing Kit. For our sink and vanity, we went with the brush on version of Homax’s refinishing kit. I chose this one because it was an all inclusive kit that came with the brush, cleaner for prepping, plastic gloves, and steel wool, and it didn’t require any mixing.

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Bathroom Plan and Inspiration

bathroom plan - A Blue Nest

Last week, I shared the small bit of progress that we’ve made in our main floor bathroom. Today, I thought I would show y’all some of the bathroom inspiration photo’s I’ve been loving as well as a plan for what we want to accomplish in the space.

I think the miles and miles of trim is the next thing that I’ll tackle and it will be a beast. It amazes me how so much trim, not to mention four doors can be in such a tiny space. However, brightening up the trim will lighten and refresh the room just as much, if not more, than painting the walls. We’ve been using the off the shelf white paint and primer from Lowe’s in Valspar’s Duramax for the trim and it works beautifully.

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Downstairs Bathroom Progress

bathroom progress - A Blue Nest

Our master bathroom also functions as the main bath for the first level and as the laundry room. Talk about a multitasking room. When we moved in, it was covered in shelves, hooks, sailboats, and lighthouses. So. Many. Tchotchkes. Add in the dated vanity, faux wood vinyl floors, miles of dark wood trim and almond tub, and you get an idea of how much of a mess the whole room is.

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The Easiest DIY Tissue Paper Flowers

tissue paper diy - A Blue nest

I don’t know about y’all, but I have major heart eyes when a project that I envision goes off without a hitch and turns out exactly as I pictured in my head. That only ever happens maybe 1% of the time. Ladies and gents, meet my 1%. The tissue paper pom pom turned tissue paper flower! This is the easiest. DIY. ever.

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Judah’s Outdoor Adventure Nursery

outdoor nursery

A couple of months ago, my best friend and her husband adopted the sweetest baby boy on the planet, and she asked me to help her come up with a plan for his nursery! It was so fun for me to get to delve into the realm of boy stuff since its all girl over here. Both my bestie and her hubby are very adventurous and love to travel, so we used that as a jumping off point as inspiration for the nursery. Here’s a little glimpse of what we came up with.

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Kitchen Inspiration

One of the things that I originally loved about our house was the size of the kitchen, despite it being pretty cutoff from the rest of the house (for now). In most of the other houses we looked at, especially some of the newer construction homes, the kitchens seemed tiny. That was always a deal breaker for me. We had a tiny, and I mean tiny, kitchen in our home in Florida, and I hated it. So I was able to look past the sea of dark and dated cabinets, rooster wallpaper border, faux wood flooring and counters, and old, decrepit appliances.

kitchen before - A Blue Nest

So far, we have replaced the refrigerator, range, and dishwasher with new stainless versions. We hastily painted both the upper and lower cabinets right before our daughter’s first birthday party, which I’m planning on sharing more about later. Micah installed beadboard where the border used to be, and we painted the walls and most of the trim. There is still a long way to go, but slow and steady wins the race. Or so I’m told.

These are some of the photos we have been drawing inspiration from as we tackle updating our kitchen.

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Our House: The Before

The Before - A Blue Nest

My husband was finally able to locate the pictures of our house that were taken during the appraisal process last Summer. I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t do a very good job of taking before pictures as we were moving in. Our daughter was trying to see if I would die of exhaustion going through a sleep regression phase at the time, and I wasn’t functioning that well, so these are really the only pictures we have. These were taken before the old owners moved out. However, they left a ton of stuff behind, so most of the knick knacks that you see were there for us to deal with. We actually spent almost a whole day moving things out (and then disinfecting like it was going out of style) before we could move any of our stuff in.

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Interior Paint Colors

As I’ve said before, our house needed (and still needs) quite a bit of work. The previous owners had neglected it for years. Cosmetically, it was still stuck in the 90’s. Dark paint everywhere. Where there wasn’t A) maroon/burgundy, B) hunter green or C) Pepto Bismol pink, there was faux painting and a variety of wallpaper borders. Usually a horrid combination. And don’t even get me started on the trim throughout the whole house. I’ve never seen so much dark wood trim, and not the charming vintage kind, in my life.

We knew that out of everything we could do, painting all of the rooms would make the biggest difference. I was so excited, and quite honestly overwhelmed, to pick out paint colors for an entire house. After a lot of thought, second guessing myself and, of course, Pinterest-ing, I finally decided on this color scheme for our home’s interior.

Interior Paint Colors - A Blue Nest

All of the colors are Benjamin Moore, except for Urbane Bronze and Sea Salt, which are Sherwin Williams.

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