One of the hardest things about any remodel is spending so much money on the “stuff you can’t see”. Unfortunately when we began dismantling the upstairs bath, we learned that we had to replace all of the plumbing throughout the house due to cracks in the pipes.
In order to redo the plumbing, we had to open up the area under the house which meant the plumbing took much longer than we had originally planned.
At least we have a good excuse to replace some of the old insulation!
One of the things I was most excited about with the new plumbing was that they added a spicket outside on our porch!!! Here she is in all her glory!
When the plumber called to ask if we wanted to add one on the balcony I literally almost jumped up and down! I’ve seriously had this on my Christmas list for the past three years! In order to water my plants in the past, I’ve jerry rigged a hose up the balcony- this is going to make life so much easier! It’s the little things y’all!
With plumbing finished it was time to move on to electrical. 🙂 Luckily the electrical in the house was the ONE thing that we didn’t have have to completely replace. There were, however, some upgrades that we needed to do to get things to code. (GFCI outlets weren’t around when this house was built.)
We also wanted to move around some lighting around, but we weren’t sure exactly where. I emailed one of John’s friends who works as an interior designer and she gave us some great advice!
For the living room she recommended adding a fixture over the island (where the pipe is sticking out of the ground in the first picture), can lights over where the kitchen table will be and a fan over the living room. John said he really didn’t care about the lighting in the house, except that he wanted a “cool fan” over the living room.
I was still having trouble visualizing the final lighting plan so I created a draft in PowerPoint.
Since the mess was kind of distracting I added walls to make the plan easier to see. It’s so exciting to imagine the house like this! (aka finished!)
The stairs used to have two wall sconces (which I hated), so we decided to add a pendant light over the main part of the staircase and then can lights for extra lighting.
Our original plan included adding can lights over the bottom part of the staircase but, we ended up getting rid of them to save on cost.
The master bathroom is also a place where we had to reconfigure lighting and add GFCI outlets. I wanted lighting over each vanity and John’s friend suggested adding a can light over the shower and a light in the center of the room.
Once again I wanted to get a better idea of what it would look like:
And finally, knowing my love of pendant lights, she suggested adding pendant lights over the bed.
I created a list of lighting options to discuss with John and we went to one of our favorite local restaurants and spent the evening discussing electrical ides. I was getting ready to leave the country, so we created a very extensive “honey-do-list” for John to get electrical done while I was out of town!
While I hate making decisions, it was actually exciting to get to to start making “finishing” decisions about the house. It finally feels like the end might be insight!
Here are some of the options for lighting we are considering!
For the bathroom, John’s friend recommended a flush mount light since pendants don’t tend to do well with the moisture in the bathroom.
First Row:
Second Row:
First Row:
Second Row:
After discussing, we narrowed it down to our favorites!
I’m so excited about the closet light! I got it for Christmas from Lowe’s and it looks like there are crystal’s in it when it’s turned on! John’s Christmas gift was a vent fan that has a bluetooth speaker in it for singing in the shower! You know you’re growing up when you’re actually happy to get lights for Christmas!
We’re still not sure about the bedroom pendant lights. I’d love to hear your ideas for what to put there!
Next step: Drywall and Cabinet install!
Thanks for reading!
Home Renovation Journey:
Smiling from ear to ear.