Homeownership project #4, Part 5: Walls

We're getting close guys!  Sheet rock is done! And, yep, the random light is still hanging there.

I put a few paint samples on the wall. Tyler says this is the last thing I can paint grey.  Fine.

Since I'm so indecisive, and since Tyler tells me to just pick whatever I want, I had to enlist the help of Jamie, who is my trusty paint expert friend, and Darlene, who knows my taste well enough that she can pick what I would like best. Both of them said 1 or 3, which were my gut choices too. Can you guess which one I decided to go with? :)

One thing was bothering me though.... texture. I mean, what the heck is going on here??

Woah.  Now THAT'S texturized.

Um, yeah, so I made them redo it.  It put us back at least 3 days, but that texture was making me dizzy. They told me that this was the texture going up in all the new houses, but come on, our house was built in 1943 - nothing else in the house looks like that.  Here's the new, normal texture -

New, normal texture!

The steps that are left are finishing painting, doing the trim work, finishing up the plumbing and lighting, and installing the vanity.  Next bathroom post will be a brand spanking new bathroom.  I literally cannot wait!

New product obsession: Rodan + Fields Micro-Dermabrasion Paste

As a consultant, I'm loaded up on all of the Rodan + Fields goodies, and I'm slowly but surely getting to try them all out.  I have a new favorite....the Micro-Dermabrasion paste!  If we're friends on Facebook, you've seen that I'm obsessed with the Macro Exfoliator (which is on a super Flash Deal right now, let me know if you're interested!) but since I can only use the Macro E once a week, this micro-dermabrasion paste is the next best thing....seriously.

This paste is made with sugar and salt to gently exfoliate while improving your skin's tone and texture. A little bit goes a long way too.  The product is a little heavy to the touch, but even with the heaviness my super oily skin felt totally soft and clean after I used it. Is it weird that I made Tyler feel my face aferwards?  My skin was so nice and soft!  This product has also been featured in Lucky Magazine and Allure - here's the feature in allure.com - check it out.

Friends - I have samples of this that I can give/mail you.  Let me know if you want to try it!! Or you can find it under Enhancements on my page. :)

https://ncaviness.myrandf.com

Brother & Sister

Don't worry, Max doesn't have claws.

Sunday Morning

Homeownership project #4, Part 4: Progress

Today was a long annoying day. I had to drive over to Grapevine to the Park Place Lexus to get my car serviced. I thought maybe I could get it serviced at the Park Place Mercedes over here, but apparently I have to go to Park Place Lexus dealership, so it was either Grapevine or Plano. Driving on 121 is miserable.  The construction is such a headache, exits aren't marked clearly, the lanes are skinny, its scary! And I think Grapevine is further from Fort Worth than it is from Dallas.  I made it to my appointment 10 minutes late, of course, but they didn't mind.  When I had made the appointment, they had told me it was going to be a quick service, so I could wait there while they did the work.  Well, my appointment was at noon, and I didn't get out of there until after 2pm.  Then, I got slapped with a $170 bill - my 5k mile and 10k mile service appointments were free!  Ugh.  And to top it off, they said I had a nail in my tire that they couldn't repair, so they were going to charge me $350 for a new tire! I said no thank you and drove to the Discount Tire on 114. Apparently everyone else in Grapevine had nails in their tires, probably from driving on 121, so I had to wait over an hour to get my tire fixed. By time I got home it was past 5pm, and I accomplished absolutely nothing today other than getting my car serviced, $170 later.  BUT, after all of that, I came home to find a lot of progress in the bathroom!  Look at what I came home to:

They got almost all of the wall tile up, and all of the floor tile down.  I'm so pleased!  The two guys doing the work must think I'm crazy because of how excited I was.  They really are awesome though - they are two young Hispanic guys....maybe 26 or 27 years old, but they are super nice, speak really good English, and are obviously really talented and really hard workers. Bless their hearts - the one guy, Robert, stays in the bathroom, while the other guy goes outside every few minutes to cut each piece of tile.  It has got to be such a monotonous task. Yes, that's the light still hanging there - the electrician will come in the next few days to take care of that. The tile guys will be back here bright and early tomorrow morning to finish up.  We are definitely making progress now! 

Homeownership project #4, Part 3: Demo

Demo started on Tuesday of this week....is it sad that I think it looks better already?

Things we learned from the demo:
1. The white tile was actually PAINTED and was originally baby blue!
2. There was a gas heater behind the tile walls.
3. There were two layers of wallpaper on the walls.
4. Under the floor tile was linoleum.
5. The walls were made of cement.

There used to be a toilet and sink here.

You can see the hole where the gas heater was.
We had the furdown over the bath removed - it makes the room looks SO much better.
That's a light just dangling for the time being.

The tile guys will be here tomorrow.  They'll finish tearing the cement walls down and will put backer board up.  Then the subway tile will go up.  I can't wait to see the bathroom tomorrow - its going to look so much different!

Homeownership project #4, Part 2: Guest bathroom design

So the fun part of remodeling is picking out all the things that are going to go into it!  There have been so many items to pick out and I'm excited to see it all come together.  I didn't want to feel like I had to stick to my inspiration photo exactly, but I just wanted to pull elements from it that I really liked.  Here's a list of things I had to have from the inspiration photo:

• Dark tile floor
• Vanity to replace the pedestal sink
• White subway tile
• Double towel rack

Everything else I was okay deviating from.  My taste is more streamlined and modern, but I want to make sure that the bathroom still goes with the house, which is a bit more traditional and eclectic.  Here are some of my choices:

Floor tile. The color is actually a bit darker in person.  

The tile has a bit of a texture to it.  Since its a bathroom,  

I wanted to make sure that the tile wasn't too slippery.

Double towel rack.  We never have just one guest, so with this
small space, I thought this was a good solution.

Vanity.  We have a different countertop.  I had to pick a vanity that was 24" wide by
18" deep because of the small space of the bathroom, and the white counter was not
available without getting it custom made.

I actually got the countertop from UPS today!  Its even better that I thought it was going to be!
This picture looks a little yellow because of the lighting, but its a nice speckled black white and
grey countertop.  Super excited about this decision!

Big shower head! We decided to do all chrome finishes.

This light fixture can either go with the bulbs up or down.
Tyler likes them up, I like them down.  We'll see how it ends up!

New commode! Hoping this will help save on our water bill!

We also have a few other things like a hand towel rack and faucet for the sink picked out.  I realized I forgot to pick out a new mirror (oops!) so I'll pick that out over the weekend.  Its been super fun getting all of the deliveries over the past week and a half.  I can't wait until demo is over and they start putting all the pieces together!

Afternoon fun

This is Stella's favorite stick.

Beauty product review: Rodan + Fields Sunless Tanner

For those of you who don't know, about a month ago I decided to join the dermatologists that created Proactiv to become an independent consultant for their anti-aging skincare line, Rodan + Fields.  My friend Meagan has been a consultant since last year, and after seeing how excited she and her sister-in-law were about the products, I decided to jump on board (if not for the sole reason to give me something to do while I'm not working fulltime.) I started using their Unblemish line for adult acne, and have had some pretty great results - the products REALLY work and I'm excited to start hearing about the results my clients are getting. :)

Well, at the end of March, they had a flash deal to buy one, get one free of the sunless tanner product.  Now - I used to tan in tanning beds in college, and have since moved away from that now that I'm older, and realize I'm probably going to be getting wrinkles soon, not to mention the threat of skin cancer is pretty scary.  I've used all sorts of sunless tanning products, none of which I have loved, and have also done spray tans, which happen to be pretty pricey, and sticky, and pretty much prevent you from doing anything until you've waited 8 hours and showered the next morning.  Super inconvenient.  So I bought the sunless tanner deal since I get it at wholesale price to test it out.  I figured it had to be good if Dr. Rodan and Dr. Fields developed it, so why not?

I received my order in the mail in a record one day, and was pleasantly surprised when I opened it up.  Its a foam, but its not sticky.  If you rub your hands together it almost turns into a liquid which you can easily apply.  One pump goes a long way.  It doesn't have that awful DHA smell that prevents you from going out in public...in fact, it actually smells kind of nice.  And did I mention, its not sticky?? Amazing.  Well, if that isn't amazing enough, the fact that I saw my legs getting tan within TWO HOURS is pretty freaking unbelievable. It wasn't orange at all...Tyler actually commented on how natural the color was, and it wasn't streaky at all.  Oh, and I could go out and do whatever I wanted around town, because I didn't STINK.  Amazing.

So, on a scale of 1-10, I rate this product a... (drumroll, please) resounding 10!! I'm pretty picky when it comes to products, and this has definitely has claimed its place as the sunless tanner I will use from now on.

If you're interested in trying out the sunless tanner for yourself, you can find it on my webpage under "Our Products" and then "Essentials".  I can help you place your order if you need help:

https://ncaviness.myrandf.com/

Oh, and if you're interested in finding out more about becoming an Independent Consultant, you can check out my business site for more information, and I can definitely tell you all about it!:

https://ncaviness.myrandf.biz/