Bathroom Redecorating

It was 10 years ago today that Adam and I moved into 10925 Harrison Avenue South. I've now lived at this address longer than anywhere else in my life. After weeks of searching for houses with Linda Burning and her signature "Coldwell Banker" call and "front door test", we found our home. At 26 and 23, we were only able to scrape enough money together to cover a quarter of the required 20% down payment, and once the deal was signed, we literally didn't have enough money left over to buy groceries. We settled for 2 mortgages: the first was a 30-yr. fixed 6.875% interest rate that covered 80% of the purchase price, and the second was a 15-year fixed 9.5% interest rate for the remaining 15%. With some mindful budgeting, we were able to pay off half of the second mortgage along with what was left of my federal student loan in 2002. In the fall of the same year, we consolidated the two loans and refinanced to a 30-yr. fixed 5.875% interest rate. We refinanced again in the spring of 2010 to a 15-yr. loan, which further reduced our interest rate to 4.0%. The two of us moved in an afternoon, with everything we owned fitting easily into Adam's white Chevy Blazer pulling a small trailer, and my Honda Civic.

Our countless list of house projects came full circle this week. I asked Adam at the beginning of this year where we should begin: with the bathroom, the hallway, or the kitchen, and he said he wanted to prioritize the upstairs bathroom, which was the first room we redecorated in 2001. After removing the wallpaper border, we scraped down the crumbling ceiling and sprayed upshot on February 27. The ceiling and walls got a fresh coat of paint the following weekend, the ceiling with standard white ceiling paint and the walls with a discounted gallon of Ralph Lauren Frosted Hawthorne River Rock paint from the Home Depot. Instead of trying to minimize our brown tiles, we embraced them, decorating the room in deep brown and cream. Finally, we ditched the cheap vinyl blind for an antique finish wood blind from Yourblinds.com and purchased some new bathroom accessories from Target.