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hey there! I'm monica 

I pride myself on making amazing style and design accessible for everyone, regardless of location, budget, or ability! My design philosophy is rooted in authenticity + attainability - If I can do it, you can too! My work has been featured in countless publications, but I take the most pride in homeowners that have been personally inspired by my DIY ideas and have tried something in their own homes!

learn more about ME + MY BIZ

I always promise to be honest and “keep things real” with you guys, so I’m just going to come right out with this…  Finishing my basement was the worst project Eric and I have ever done together and overall it was a hot mess.  Phew, I feel a tad better admitting that.  I had some really big ideas for the space, Eric was a bit hesitant, and now it’s done, we survived, but just barely… and that’s no exaggeration! We had/have a really large basement- it’s about 1100 sq/ft and we kept one 1/2 finished and the other 1/2 we turned into an apartment for my little brother who is finishing law school in Philadelphia.  We build a bedroom, living room, full bathroom, and roughed in everything for a kitchen that we could add at some point.

This is the part of the basement that became the apartment

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Now, even though we both still break out in hives just thinking about the project, there were parts of it that went according to plan and turned out pretty well… We’re going to focus on the good parts…like the bathroom.

I am super proud of all the work Eric did in the basement-It was intense!  When we built our home, we never planned on putting a full bath in the basement, so we didn’t have the builders rough in the plumbing, that meant we actually had to jackhammer through the foundation, dig down about 4 feet under the house and lay our pipes.

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As you can imagine, it was crazy hard work, but it was one of the first steps of the renovation, so we were still in good spirits! !

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After the pipes were prepped and the floor patched up, we built the walls, installed the tub and had ourselves a bathroom!

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After the drywall we were finally ready for a fun part- tile!!  I’ve worked with Build Direct many times before (both for “Knock it Off!” and for projects in our home), so I knew they were my go to for my tile selection.

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Subway tile is still really popular, I do love it, and it was a strong contender when I was choosing, but in the end I wanted something different and a bit masculine.  One of my favorite things about Build Direct, is how they provide free samples.  When we installed the wood floors in our house, I think we looked at 15 samples before making our choice.  Thankfully, with this tile, I made a pretty quick decision!

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When I saw the Kaska Porcelain Tile in Silk White and Kaska Porcelain Tile in Silk Marrone I knew just what I wanted to try… bold stripes in alternating directions.

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I ran it horizontally in the shower and vertically on the floor.  I kept decor and color to a minimum and let the tile make the largest impact.  

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Believe it or not, this was my first time installing tile and I learned a lot about the process along the way.  It wasn’t hard to learn and I’m excited to try my hand at it again soon!  Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing my tips and tricks and maybe even a few “don’t try this at home” scenarios to save you some hassle! Ha!

How to Install Tile

The comments +

  1. Gina says:

    I love that bathroom! Great job. The shower curtain is the best….where is it from?

  2. Laura Yoder says:

    This is so beautiful, I love it!

    Laura
    http://www.24-7style.com

  3. Carrie says:

    Love the shower curtain…where did you get it??

  4. Marissa Castro says:

    In love with the horizontal and vertical stripes. Super amazing!!!!!!

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