The Latest: 2019

All this week we’re talking about bathroom renovations, starting with Ashley’s recent remodel, and following up with tons of helpful posts about the process! Baseboards are a fantastic way to spruce up a room, and put the finishing touch on a newly remodeled one. Multiple layers of decorative molding brings great visual drama, or you can use a simple wood plank for a straightforward, modern look. Baseboards are relatively easy to install.

All this week we’re talking about bathroom renovations, starting with Ashley’s recent remodel, and following up with tons of helpful posts about the process! The process of drilling through ceramic tile is easy as pie — as long as you use the right tools. The hardest part? Taking the plunge wondering whether you’ve marked the right spot where you’ll soon drill into your pristine new tile. Glass & Ceramic tile bitDrillSpray bottle + waterAnchorRubber mallet 1.

All this week we’re talking about bathroom renovations, starting with Ashley’s recent remodel, and following up with tons of helpful posts about the process! Floating shelves are fantastic, and I knew I wanted one above the tub in my new bathroom. We searched high and low for a floating shelf that not only looked good, but could hold a lot of weight without sagging —especially because the wall is pretty long.

When Celeste first moved into her Park Slope condo in 2008, she wasn’t super excited about the bathroom’s generic, builder-basic look. But she didn’t consider remodeling until several years later, when dark spots on the floor’s limestone tiles alerted her to the fact that the floor had never been properly sealed. Limestone is extremely porous, and despite her best efforts at cleaning the tiles just got more and more discolored.

When Lisa moved into her Upper East Side one-bedroom, she loved everything about it but the kitchen. Besides not being very pretty, Lisa’s kitchen had a lot of problems. The upper cabinets were too shallow for dishes, and the lower cabinets were too narrow for pretty much anything, meaning Lisa had to store her pots and pans in the coat closet. The whole kitchen had only one outlet, and there was a large and suspicious stain on the laminate countertop.

Ah, the tubber combo. It’s ubiquitous in bathrooms all over the world. And because it’s so common, it can very easily fall into the boring side of washroom architecture. If you have one and you hate it, you don’t have to demo the whole thing and start anew. You can just make some smart, sleek modifications and enjoy a fresh-feeling, semi-renovated spa-like space.

I can’t even look at a picture of this kitchen without feeling claustrophobic, so I can’t imagine how Anne lived with it (and cooked in it, even) for almost a decade. I think it goes without saying that after cooking for ten years in a kitchen that measured only 27 square feet (no, really) she was ready for a change. The biggest change, by far, was the removal of the wall separating the (previously teeny tiny) kitchen from the living room.

All this week we’re talking about bathroom renovations, starting with Ashley’s recent remodel, and following up with tons of helpful posts about the process! Lighting is one of the best things about a bathroom renovation. Since the bathroom is where we get ready for the day ahead, the lighting can make or break our look. Here’s how you can marry beauty and function when choosing what you need for your newly renovated bathroom.

What can you make from IKEA’s most utilitarian offering, you ask? Well what can’t you make? The SULTAN LADE bed slats are a $10 take home add-on that make IKEA’s platform beds feasible without a boxspring, but they’re also simply just a bunch of raw pieces of lumber stapled together to a polyester cord.

The kitchen in John and Kaija’s Brooklyn co-op began life as a narrow galley kitchen, but a previous owner had the smart idea to tear down the separating wall to half-height, and top the remaining wall with a countertop. This made the kitchen a lot more spacious, but the new countertop, inconveniently located at bar height, wasn’t particularly useful for prep work, and storage was still an issue.

This is not your grandma’s cross-stitch. These projects take the art form of stitching tiny X’s with thread and turn it on its head. Giant painted cross-stitch wall murals, stitched sterling silver bangles, an embroidered IKEA stool – trust me, there’s a lot more to this craft than alphabet samplers. Greet your guests with a cross-stitched welcome sign.

Few things in decor are more polarizing than the retro pink bathroom. Some people hate them with a passion, and some people really, really love them. Unfortunately, when Chase and Lauren bought their more than 50-year-old house in Austin, they didn’t have a choice. Lurking behind all that pink tile was something even more unappealing: extensive water and termite damage. The pink bathroom had to go.

Think you don’t have room for a bar, dining nook, or food prep station in your small outdoor space? Think again. These DIY tables, bars, and carts fold flush to the wall, wheel inside, and make use of plain ole’ efficient design—turning the dream of al fresco dining into a reality for small space dwellers. When open, this Murphy bar offers plenty of shelf space for cutting boards, bottles, and glasses, plus, a dining table for two.

Nathan Rittgarn doesn’t list the square footage in his professional project submission of this kitchen, located in a pre-war Brooklyn Heights one-bedroom apartment. But you can see from the before photos above, it’s not particularly expansive. Coupled with the fact that the apartment’s “entryway” dumps you right in front of this small space, and it’s clear this room needed an update not just for aesthetics, but for function, too.

Finding your dream apartment in New York can be hard. So Austin found the next best thing: a less than dreamy apartment that could be turned into his dream home. All it needed was an improved floor plan and a little tlc. The apartment, which hadn’t seen a renovation since the 70s, had beautiful tall ceilings, but was broken up into a series of awkwardly cramped small rooms. A new floor plan — and a few new finishes — was the key to realizing the apartment’s potential.

Unless you’re incredibly wealthy, finding a dream home in New York City can be a real challenge. That’s the position Holly and Christian found themselves in when they started house hunting: the apartments they could afford fell significantly short of dreamy, but they didn’t want to leave Greenwich Village, a neighborhood where they had lived for many years. So they found the next best thing to a dream home: a fixer-upper that, with a little work, could become their dream home.

While preparing for their first baby, Kelsey and Matt found themselves getting creative with their closet space. One armoire, a few DIY projects and four months later, they have an adorable and cozy nursery all set for their daughter. From Kelsey: With the upcoming arrival of our first baby, my husband Matt and I wanted to create a special nursery in our one bedroom rental home in Topanga Canyon, California.

Faced with an awkwardly shaped ceiling, Catherine and Bryan had to get creative and totally rethink the space of this bathroom. From Catherine: This bathroom was the only room in the house that needed some {major} love. It was the only bathroom on the second floor, and awkward was an understatement. Our biggest priorities when renovating the space were: 1. Ditch the tub and replace it with a shower that’s more comfortable to use (and prettier, of course!).

By switching up three simple elements in this dark nursery, Sarah completely transformed this space. Nothing new-fangled or extra fancy, just some really smart design choices. From Sarah: A few months ago we bought a new house and immediately set our eyes on a nursery makeover. The room was originally painted a dark tan, which made the space feel drastically smaller and more dated than it was. The ceiling fan was way oversized for the space and the lights were directly in front of your face.