Alright, guys, it’s time for the reveal of our powder room with statement wall tile!! But first, be sure to check out the other powder room blog posts for more on the construction and design process:

• Project introduction
• Finishes finalized
• Wall tile update

Powder Room Construction

No reveal is complete without a few before images!

Remember this gem? The powder room was previously very outdated, had one heck of a horrible paint job and was overflowing with orange-y wood. The sink and matching mirror had painted ivy detailing and the vanity top was tile. Very stylish, huh?

In order to create a little more space for us in the area off of the kitchen as a whole, we decided to eliminate the coat closet that was behind the powder room, shift the room over and reconfigure the layout. You can see in the photo below where there was previously a wall.

Since we relocated the powder room and changed the floorplan, we had to jackhammer into the foundation to move the plumbing. At this time we added the plumbing lines for the wet bar that now exists adjacent to the powder room.… Read more

Remember the pony wall we used to have around our sunken living room? We removed the wall last year but after demolition, we were left with a big, hazardous step that we had to address before our new flooring (as part of the kitchen reno) could be installed. In the end, we built an additional step around the living room to create two code-friendly steps.

Pony Wall Removal and the Big Step that Remained

The pony wall served no real purpose other than making the large open living area of our house look dated. I hated the wall since we first saw the house so it had to go. We demolished it last year and I blogged all about it here.

As you can see, after demolishing the pony wall, we were left with a huge 10″ drop down into the living room which is a safety hazard and code violation. Originally, our plan was to hire a concrete removal company and remove a chunk of the 10″ step in line with the lower, pre-existing step, to extend it all the way around the room.… Read more

Happy New Year, friends! Today is the first reveal of our big renovation of the kitchen and the area off of the kitchen and we’re starting with the reveal of our farmhouse mudroom!

Remember the plan to convert this little office nook to a mudroom? Prior to our renovation, we had a small office nook immediately off of the side door entrance of our house. I decided to convert the area to a small mudroom entryway. Here’s a look at what it looked like before and after demo.

As you can see on the image above, we completely demolished the area, including the walls. We actually moved the exposed wall to the right, toward the window about 2 feet to create a little extra space on the other side for the pantry and wet bar (more on that later).

Here’s a look back at my farmhouse mudroom design plan from when I first introduced the project:

I wanted to define the mudroom area with hexagon tile, panel the walls, add built-in locker storage, replace the side door with a dutch door and finish off the space with vintage furnishings and accessories.… Read more

Earlier this week I shared our 2018 project recap and now I’m going to talk a little about what we plan to accomplish in 2019.

This year we have a lot planned for the exterior of our home and the yard.

• Front Porch: Our front wrap-around-porch needs some love. We plan to replace the drywall on the ceiling with a beadboard or similar type of paneling, paint it a fun color and install new ceiling fans. We need to seal the wood porch flooring and I would also like to replace our wood steps with brick masonry steps.

• Landscaping – We plan to finish the landscaping around the house, which basically is just planting plants since we installed all of the rock last year.
• Garden – This year we want to start a garden! We’ve been wanting to do this for a while but last year we just didn’t get to it. We want to fence in a large area in the back yard and install several raised garden beds. I also want to move our chicken coop into the garden area.

… Read more

Happy New Year! 2018 was a busy year in the Daly Digs! We completed several home improvement projects and made a ton of progress! While 2018 was definitely the year of the kitchen, let’s not forget about the other projects we completed last year including the stair railings, back patio and removal of the pony wall surrounding the living room.

Today I’m looking back on last year’s projects and later this week I’ll outline what we hope to acomplish in 2019.

2018 Project Recap

At the beginning of every year, I outline what we accomplished the previous year and project plans for the new year. In my 2018 project list back in January of last year, I outlined several projects we hoped to accomplish. Here they are, along with a status update:

• Living Room + Fire Place + Stair Railing – I’m not quite sure why I rolled all of this into one because that is A LOT! However, I’m happy to report that we finished the stair railings (you can see before and after here), repainted the fireplace and started on the living room.

… Read more

Our powder room remodel is juuuuust about finished so this is the last update before the big reveal! This room is small but mighty and the powder room tile wall packs a punch! I CAN NOT WAIT to share the reveal with you soon!

Remember the design plan?

Construction Updates

We’ve made a ton of progress since my last update! If you recall, we relocated the powder room a few feet and reconfigured the space which involved moving walls, re-running electrical and ductwork and new drywall. All of the construction is finally behind us but here’s a look at the room after the framing and plumbing rough-in was done.

We installed heavy-duty metal brackets into the studs to support the weight of the floating vanity and concrete sink and had the plumbers rough-in the sink plumbing in the wall for our wall-mount faucet.

Tile Install

After drywall, we had the tile installed on the floor and wall.  First, our tile guru (Brian with Ceramictec for anyone local) installed the slate floor tile. I love the simplicity of the tile but the various shapes keep it interesting.… Read more