Making Monday [22]

Hello blogging friends! It's so nice to have you here again! Are you all settled back into your normal daily routine? Lori just finished getting her decorations up and I'm in the midst of a bit of a decorators block, I miss my Christmas decorations!!. I'm loving 2014 so far and hope you are, too. I haven't even accidentally written 2013 yet!

Welcome to this week's Making Monday link party.

This is a party where you can find fun new creative ideas and tasty recipes shared by amazingly talented people. Every Monday bloggers stop by to link up their posts and share with all you party goers. By joining in {both bloggers and non-bloggers} you will discover new blogs, be inspired to make something new, try a yummy new recipe, and most importantly make new friends!

This party is hosted by Gracie and me, and your projects will be shared on both of our blogs. We love that you're here and we love featuring you on our social media so be sure to follow us so you can see if your post gets shared!

Kitchen Table Art | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

A Bright and Beautiful Life | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

We also pin to our Making Monday Pinterest board and we'd love to have you follow along! This is a place you can find projects from all the previous parties, too, so it is like a party every day!

This is what your hostesses have been up to lately:

I shared some of my favorites from ETSY this week on my Wishful Wednesday post. Check out the list of some unique hand made goods here!

Lori is sharing five of her favorite books. If you love to read, click here to read about her recommendations.

These are the fabulous features for this week, chosen by Lori:

#1. Cinnamon Chip Mexican Brownies from Feeding Big

#2. Budget-wise, Versatile Soup from Simply Fresh Dinners

#3. Turkey and Wild Rice Soup from Mommy on Demand

#4. Salted Caramel Brownies from Life with the Crust Cut Off

#5. Kid's Magnetic Chalkboard Wall from A Mom's Take

#6. Shrimp Scampi from Krafty Cards etc.

#7. Crockpot BBQ Sticky Ribs from What's Cooking in the Burbs

#8. Free Calendar Printables from Home Coming.

If you were one of the features PLEASE grab a button and share it with some friends.

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<a href="http://www.gracelangdon.blogspot.com" title="Kitchen Table Art"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-L5eknem5XOc/UhbuocSnhWI/AAAAAAAAD5s/1AE84ATdRqQ/s128/MAKINGMONDAYFEATURE.jpg" alt="Kitchen Table Art" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

   And don't forget if you didn't make it as a feature this week to check out the Pin board and to keep linking up, next week could be you!

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<a href="http://gracelangdon.blogspot.com/" title="Kitchen Table Art" target="_blank"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kp9MFsu6sRU/UhI3fYjHNAI/AAAAAAAAD2w/wenummLiQnM/s125/making%2520monday%2520button.jpg" alt="Kitchen Table Art" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

An IMPERFECT Bathroom Renovation

Today is all about a project that has taken way to long to finish. In fact it isn't even finished yet, and to be totally honest it probably will never get finished to the standard I had in my head when we started.

BUT! that isn't super sad, it's actually what I am devoting my Fridays to this year. Yep my "failure Friday" starts TODAY, with our totally imperfect bathroom make over.

Reed and I needed to start this bathroom reno 1. because I hated the color, it was a pale yellow but made  everything look yellow and 2. because the shower walls decided to start falling off.

We visited Lowes and got new shower walls for just $70 and made sure we had all the glue and caulk we needed. And I figured this made a great excuse to paint the bathroom when I didn't have to worry about getting paint all over the place. I was aiming for a smooth ombre effect with the left over grey from the rest of the house/studio.

First, Reed pulled the old walls off and boy oh boy was there problems. Loads of old glue to scrape and then bad sheet rock around the faucet. Once Reed scraped off the glue and replaced the sheet rock he was ready to add the new walls. So he cut the walls to size, spread the glue and taped it to dry.

Sadly, apparently our window is no where near square so when Reed cut the walls it was a bit off. Ya know an inch between the bottom and top of the wall. Old houses blow my mind some times. 

And no pictures but the next day when we put the caulking on apparently 1 section of the wall decided to not really stick tight so there is a bubble... great. Right now we have a board attempting to push the air out of it! Oops :) 

And when Reed was doing the shower walls I decided to start my thought to be super easy grey paint job. I took my original paint color and painted a 12 inch strip. Then I added a half cup of white paint to make it a tint lighter. Then painted another 12 in strip. And to blend them together I used a dry paint brush and just smudged the two together. I continued this up for 6 strips and then white for the remainder of the wall. 

 Well, I failed. I was hoping for a beautifully soft gradient. Instead I got some crazy uneven stripes and then basically the same color the rest of the way up... It was a pretty big bummer and took all I had in me not to just give up on the idea. I'm hoping I can go back and fix it up... maybe another post in the future but for now our bathroom is a failed paint job FO SHO!

Please just tell me how I taped off the entire bathroom and still have about a bajillion of these bad paint spots?! Ugh, I always hate painting...

How many projects have you started thinking it would be uber easy only to find out it is going to take much longer, and maybe a bit more skill than you thought?