Bathroom Redo = My favorite room in the house

After getting my hands on every room in our little house, the bathroom was going to be the biggest and most expensive remodel.....so I kept putting it off.  Don't get me wrong, I really really really wanted to rip that sucker apart, but we only have one bathroom and to have it ripped up for an unknown amount of time was going to be a pain!  But finally I got the greenlight from the man-of-the-house to get started, and boy did I!

 

The walls were butter yellow and the trim was grey.  The fixtures were all outdated and pretty plain.  The room is only 4 x 5 feet excluding the tub, so there was alot to cram into a tiny little space.  The floor was basic vinyl and stained in several places.  There was ceramic trim around the shower stall and the sink (not sure why, though, because it served no purpose and stopped halfway down the wall). 

I started with the floor

It actually came up pretty easily, just very very messy!

This is after the floor, ceramic trim, and covebase was ripped up - nowhere else to put it but in the bathtub!

Next was tacking everything off the walls and spackling the holes - fyi: we had no idea there was a hole behind the mirror!

I've always wanted to get my hands on a tile floor - I had some experience tiling the top of an end table, but NOTHING prepared me for the headache of tiling a floor.  Especially one with this many grout lines!

So here I am amidst a sea of black and white tiles.  I was crosseyed by the time this was over! In fact, I could swear that the tiles were crooked no matter how much I measured.  They weren't, I was just becoming delusional!

The walls were painted crisp white to open up the space.  But white is soooo not me.  So in order to get some color in there, I painted the ceiling apple green.

The overall colorscheme for the space became black, white, and green which I incorporated into accessories (towels, vases, storage bins, etc).

We bought a new sink that was small enough for the space, but still stylish and tall enough for a 6 foot man to brush his teeth.

I added a piece of wallpaper sample to the front of the sink to dress it up a bit.

All the fixtures are chrome and porcelain, including the teapot style faucet on the sink, the light fixture, the towel holder, and toilet paper holder.

The room didn't have a linen closet, so I used this store-bought over-the-toilet stand to hold towels, makeup, hair stuff, etc.  The switched out the nobs to some black and white ones I had on-hand.

The suprise hole behind the mirror was perfect for a small medicine cabinet, so that provided extra storage space for small items.  The key to this makeover was to provide as much storage as possible in the small space we had to work with.

Here is the green ceiling (it's hard to get a good shot) minus the crown molding because we haven't figured that out yet.  But it really looks great having the color on the ceiling instead of the wall - it shakes things up a bit.

So there you have it.  Blood, sweat, and tears went into this bathroom and I absolutely LOVE it!!

Until next time :)

Wicker Kicker

My best friend was promised a fine piece of J. Paris furniture when her and her husband purchased their new home in September...of 2009!  It took me awhile, but I finally got her her housewarming gift :)

This chair is actually a pair, but I decided to split them up.  The wicker was ripped on the back when I got them (read: picked them up on garbage night) but I would have removed it regardless.  Removing it, however, caused a small problem initially....it meant there was no back.  I had to create one out of a piece of hard plastic sheeting I had lying around.  That became the template for attaching the back's fabric to.  The back itself became a completely separate piece that was then attached the the actual chair. 

The seat was, of course, recovered.  The chair body was stripped, sanded, stained, and varnished.  I used a combo of dark walnut and red oak stain (I only had a little of each left!).

Better late than never, I always say :)