adourn: another FIND, and bathroom update

we've been so busy at the house! and when i say 'we', i really mean my husband :) i JUST started doing some things this last week. its finally MY turn to get in there and do things that i'm able to do. but he's been so busy and done such an amazing job on everything!! AND i don't want to forget to mention all the friends and family that have been such great help as well....we are so very appreciative!

OK, on to the new 'find'. during demo upstairs we realized that the house was originally built with all vaulted ceiling upstairs. can you imagine?! first of all, design wise, gorgeous. but practicality wise, that house had to have been FREEZING! the vaults were actually built right into the roof framing....meaning that there was no airspace between the vault and the roof...so no space for any insulation. not that they had any insulation anyways...but still...COLD. we also discovered that the upstairs was maybe only 1 or 2 rooms when the house was built. the vaults were sort of all connected and it seems like the guest bedroom and our dressing room area were all one huge vaulted room at one time. and emma's room may have been tied into it as well. i SO wish i had photos of that house when it was built! i have to do some digging and find something.

we (and again, when i say 'we' i mean the royal we...which means the husband...but 'we' in the sense that i made the design decision...you know, so i can be included in the 'we'!) decided to re-build the vault in the guest bedroom because there was a window in the attic which was included in the vault. it didnt work out to have the vault in the our dressing room area, because i'm a symmetrical fanatic and the vault would've been off center in the room....and it would've look weird. i am SO happy with how it turned out...and the 'guest' will have the coolest room in the house..

here's a photo of the ceiling...hard to tell what it is, but the 2x4's are actually the dropped ceiling someone put in at some point, over the vault. not sure WHY they ever covered it up...so the original vault was plastered and had a few layers of wallpaper on it...with some glorious water damage spots.

and here's the original vault before the husband rebuilt it. structurally it needed some reinforcement and needed to be pulled up a bit and leveled out. so that little window on top, was covered up at some point when they put the dropped ceiling in

and here it is after it was rebuilt. LOVE it!


and look at this...PROGRESS!!! this was just taken last week. this room is going to be pretty cool!

you remember the bathroom, right?! well last time i posted, i was lamenting over the tile and color selection. after about 7 trips to the store, i finally came up with the tile selection. and guess what, they didn't have enough in stock. so its on order, but should be here next week so we can get it laid. the husband and i were however able to get the tile set in the shower. and i am loving it. its classic, clean and fresh. i tried to chose most things that would be period to the house and added a few fresh updated pieces....but still in the traditional scheme.

i originally was thinking of doing a sort of 'rug' or center design in the bathroom floor, in one tile and then doing different tile. well, that didn't come together. i couldn't find anything that i liked together. so i ended up going with a marble hex tile for the entire floor. which i think will look lovely. we're also doing a sort of border around the floor in the pencil tile, so it brings in the subway tile look down to the floor, from the shower. i chose standard white subway tile for the shower surround....and added a cut marble tile border, just to break it up a little and to add some marble to connect everything in the bathroom.

this is the marble hex i chose for the flooring, along with the subway tile pencil trim

here's the shower surround detail next to the flooring

the progress. and i learned that we work really well together :) he did the cutting, i did the tile install

here's a photo of it finished

oh and how could i forget to give an update on the bathroom vanity....its been finished now for about a month. i chose a deep navy for it. i used milk paint, to give a nice chippy finish and i turned out perfect for the bathroom! and i ordered two rectangular white vessel sinks to be installed on the top.