Bathroom Update + a GIVEAWAY!

I had the MOST EXCITING weekend!
(ok...it was exciting for me, because I am odd bird, bear with me)

We are officially making headway with our bathroom re-do.
Now, the original intent was to save up some moolah, hire a professional, and have them knock out the work in a week.
So I called a couple people and had one come out for an estimate this weekend.
I told him everything we wanted to do, asked for a timeline, how many guys, etc, and he looks at me and says, "We will work on this project and have it completed in 6-7 days. Three guys. Labor is five thousand."

Gulp.
That's like....all the money we had saved up for this project.
So I tell him I will be buying the materials. I'm good at deal spotting, how much could this possibly be?


If you follow me on Pinterest, then you know I have been pinning inspiration pics like mad, and this is the one we chose:

We all know I am a fan of neutrals, especially gray.
When Mark and I first visited Miami many moons ago, we stayed at a hotel that had a bathroom very similar to this one. Ever since then we always said if we ever had the opportunity to re-do a bathroom, that is how it would look.

I don't really know what is going all with the wood pedestal sink..I mean, it's cool, but I won't be adding that to ours. The main focus is the slate tile.
I am obsessed with the large grid floor and thin brick patterned walls.

So Mark and I go shopping this weekend. We hit up the big box stores thinking we would find something to our liking for a relatively decent price.
Um...no dice.
Everything in those stores is beige and square. Lame-o.

Onto a tile specialty store.
Of course we find exactly what we want, and real slate no less!  I haggle and haggle and haggle with the guy, but when we were all said and done, we ended up getting 240 square feet of floor and wall tile, grout, thin-set, and slate sealer for $2,200.

And I died a bit inside.

How are we going to afford both the labor AND materials for this project?
Obviously the rest of the materials and items for the bathroom will be far less expensive, but we were really kind of hoping to actually have money left over after the remodel instead of being broke again.

So....we bit the bullet and have now decided WE will be doing the remodel ourselves.
We are perfectly capable. It's just time.
The goal is to work in stages: demo, clean-up, prep, floor work, wall work, painting, assembling...a little bit each weekend.  We are hoping to start mid-October and have everything wrapped by Thanksgiving.

Man...I was totally deflated just thinking about all the work and grit and grime we are getting ourselves into.
But I know the end result will totally be worth it. And we will love it forever.

This is our starting point:

More details and progress updates to come!
In the meantime, please try your hand at my end of month sponsor giveaway!
You could win a $20 Target Gift Card as a thank you to my sponsors for September.
 Contest runs all week. Winner will be announced next Monday.
All entries will be verified. Good luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway