One of my favorite cozy winter activites is a nice hot shower. Even if I’ve taken my usual quick shower in the morning, sometimes I’ll indulge in an extra one right before bed just to relax, unwind, and warm myself before crawling under the covers in our chilly bedroom. (Did I mention our room is the coldest in the house? It’s about 5 degrees colder than the other rooms because it has 3 exterior walls and is on the corner of the house, catching all the cold wind whipping up the hill. Brr…)

As an extra special treat, I buy a bundle of fresh eucalyptus from Trader Joe’s and hang it from the shower head! It’s only $3.99 for a decent bouquet. Sorry if you don’t have a Trader Joe’s – a lot of people have told me they wish they had one closer!

Benefits of eucalyptus in the shower:

• The steam of the shower releases the oils from the leaves, resulting in a wonderfully soothing aromatherapy experience.
• Having fresh greenery in the shower is visually calming and refreshing.
• Eucalyptus steam can help with wintertime colds and congestion.*

To hang it in the shower:

• Remove all packaging from the eucalyptus.
• Wrap a long piece of kitchen twine several times around the base of the bouquet and tie with a knot.
• Tie it to the top of the shower head neck so that that end is sticking up above the pipe (see photo). This helps keep it out of the stream of water. You will need to loop the twine around the shower pipe and back around the eucalyptus to achieve this height.

A few tips:

• Try to keep the leaves out of the direct stream of water – this will keep them fresh longer and prevent them from getting moldy.
• Mine usually lasts about a week. Remove it when it starts to dry out or sooner if it starts to grow mold.

Please note that eucalyptus should be used carefully:

• The oils should not be ingested by anyone – they can cause seizures or be fatal if consumed. Keep the leaves out of the reach of children and pets.
• Eucalyptus steam may not be right for everyone, especially young children or those who have a history of asthma or breathing problems.
• *I am not a medical professional. Please use your own discretion and/or consult a doctor if you are unsure how these tips will affect you based on your health history.

All that being said, I find eucalyptus in the shower to be a delightful winter treat and I hope it’s one you enjoy as well!

It’s so important to take time to care for ourselves – even if that’s just by incorporating little things into our usual tasks that make them all the more enjoyable and rejuvenating!

Happy New Year to you all! Please let me know if you try this and how you like it!

Well, we didn’t quite finish before baby came. At one week postpartum I was [very carefully] helping my husband line up the toilet with the screws on the floor so that we could get that porcelain attraction off of our driveway (it looked soooo classy, let me tell you!). Don’t worry, he was doing the heavy lifting!

Before our renovation, we were the proud owners of a very PINK bathroom! I suppose it was somewhat charming in a vintage kind of way, but not what we wanted long term. (Don’t you love the mangled blinds? They came with the bathroom…)

Besides the fact that it had pink floor tile, pink wall and shower tile, and a pink bathtub, it also had some structural issues that needed attention…like the fact that…

The. Shower. Leaked. Into. The. Basement.

Sound familiar? Yeah, that was pretty much the story of our new-homeowner lives. (Here’s the story of the other shower that leaked!) We found out about this one when I was cleaning the shower and my husband was working down in the basement. I had the water pointed at the shower wall to rinse off the soap and suddenly heard,

“Melissa! Turn it off! Turn it off!”

It was forming a significant lake on the basement floor.

Our pink bathroom also boasted not one, but TWO heating vents in the same room. It was certainly the warmest room in the house having two vents and being positioned directly above the furnace.

The bathroom had no exhaust fan. Steam would build up in that room in no time flat. You can imagine extreme steam + heat from two air vents in a small bathroom = major sauna!! We added a recessed light / exhaust fan combo, and my husband drilled a hole in the side of our house to install the exit vent. Fun times! That was the meanest looking saw blade I’ve ever seen – it was a metal blade shaped like a circular cookie cutter with large teeth. Eek! I held the ladder – that was my job!

The vanity and sinks were old, the faucets had seen better days, and so on.

The only things we kept were the toilet (which was fairly new), the mirror, and the light fixture. The light fixture is not exactly what I would pick given the opportunity, but it was fairly new and worked perfectly well, so we stuck with it to save some money.

One November Day, we gutted it.

Apparently pink cast-iron tubs shatter like glass when hit with a sledge hammer! Pretty cool. (No, I was not the one doing this, but I saw a video of my brother demolishing it!)

Over the next few months, my husband rebuilt the bathroom while I prepared the nursery and acquired baby supplies. I am so thankful for him. <3

As always, family and friends were right there when we needed them and we are so very grateful! We could not have done it without you all!

It took a team of strong men to move our vanity in! (This was before we re-did our family room, by the way!)

I was very, very pregnant…

We finally finished a week after baby boy was born – the toilet re-installation was the icing on the cake! Okay, that just sounded wrong…those two things should never be in the same sentence.

Besides many aesthetic changes (tile, paint, trim, vanity, etc.), major changes we made to this bathroom were:

• Installed exhaust fan that vents to the outside.
• Removed and closed off the extra air vent.
• Opened up the walkway by removing the “doorway” between sections.
• Gutted and rebuilt the shower to not leak into the basement!

Because this bathroom functions as both a guest bath and the kids’ bathroom, we wanted it to be cheery and fun. We decided to paint it a bold blue to contrast with all the white. I also have a thing for birds, so that’s kind of the theme…my husband calls it our “bird bath.”

Details:

• Paint: “Soft Turquoise” by Behr
• Vanity: Kitchen Bath Collection Bella Vanity with Carrara Marble Countertop
• Faucet: Came free with the vanity and has no markings (sorry!)
• Shower Tile: White Subway Tile from Home Depot with a decorative border from Menards
• Floor Tile: Jupiter Grey Porcelain Tile from The Tile Shop (12×24)
• Shower Fixtures: Moen (except in chrome)
• Shower Curtain: Lenox “Chirp” Series
• Bird Garland on Window: Homegoods
• Pom-pom rug: by “Fresh Home” found at Homegoods
• Hand Towels (my favorite): by Grandeur Hospitality
• Eucalyptus: Trader Joe’s

We’ve been enjoying our new bathroom every since. <3 As always, it was a lot of work and a lot of mess, but very worth it.