Monday, July 29, 2013

Bathroom Upgrade: Rainwashed & Lightened


I'm so excited - I set out to redo a room - and I actually did it.  Finished it and everything.  (well, close enough).

We have a tendency to talk about things to death and never actually do them.  Sometimes because of budget, sometimes because of practicality,  sometimes because we are just lazy.  And I totally have project issues - I start on something, half finish it, move on, lose steam, get sad. 


So, I'm pumped I finished this, especially since this was a project all my own - no help from Tony.


 Hall Bathroom!  Smallest room in our house!  Take that!


When we moved in, this room was a peach/cream color.  I hated it so badly and itched to paint, so I decided to eventually paint it using a can we had gotten for some other room but ended up not using.  I know paint isn't that expensive, but I was trying to be frugal and use what we had.


It's kind of a ... poop yuck brown.  I was in denial for a long time, but really, it is - and it's in the bathroom.  You can see it in this old post from 2009 (ugh, my commentary is atrocious!) (still is!).  Going the cheap route hardly ever pays off...

But I lived with it for like 4 years before deciding something had to be done.  There were many other things I wanted to fix in that room too, so I set out to redo it all.  I've found that focusing my efforts on one room helps me concentrate - and projects only take like 6 months instead of years that way...


Here are the awful befores:


From move in day:

Nothing screams classy like shower doors and a Broadway stage light!


Oh, hips of 2007, I miss you.

Luckily, they had sort of upgraded the bathrooms before selling, with new vanities, sinks, faucets, and tile.  I am ok with all of those.  They aren't fancy, but they are not old or icky.  


After my mini redo a few years ago:


It's hard to get a good shot of a tiny room with no window...




We set about to remove that terrible light fixture.  This is the part that Tony (and my dad!) did help with - I don't do electrical.  Those lights would blind anyone in the bathroom and the mirrored backplate wasn't doing anyone any favors.

Apparently I never cleaned the mirror either...
Baby Harper! (this is like from, February)

Tony hung a new fixture we bought a few years ago for $20.  It's simple but modern and fits the space nicely.


However, the idiots who installed the other one were terrible handymen.  See that big hole in the wall?  Yeah, they messed up which side of the stud they put their box on, so they just made another hole, left that one gaping, and then put the whole ugly fixture over it all.  




Insert my dad helping us patch drywall....

And a royal mess.


The best change was paint.  I used Sherwin Williams Rainwashed (colormatched to Behr).  I love this color!  It is blue and beachy and grayish green, without being baby blue.  


(It's brighter in real life - I just couldn't get the right light in here - check out these pins to see it better)

Another huge difference?  We took off those awful sliding doors.  I mandated this when we had Harper so I could actually bathe her in here (it's still really hard since the toilet and the wall leave you little room).  The only bad part is the track.  It's drilled into the side of the tub, so we can't just remove it and leave the holes.  I've heard there is a patch kit - we just need to do that someday.  For now the track is still there, you just have to step over it.  


I love the new shower curtain.  It ties in all of the colors really well (Ross!).


I also learned the fine art of caulking with this room.  The areas around the tub and sink were pretty gross.

See here where it was just separated from the wall entirely??


I used the handheld tube of DAP Alex Fast Dry (found at Walmart - I liked to not have to use the caulk gun in this tight space) and used the taping method.  You line up Frog Tape on both sides of your area to caulk, run the caulk, smooth with a wet finger, then remove the tape immediately.  A nice clean line awaits you!  It was so easy and looked so good, I became a bit obsessed with caulking things.


Next I added some trim molding where the vanity met the wall.  Some of my old brown paint had gotten on the laminate of the vanity, and it just didn't look good.  The trim piece helped cover and make things look more polished.


I'm not in love with things like the knobs and towel bar and etc, but this was a minimal budget rework, so since those are nice enough, they stayed.  I kept a lot of the same decor too for the same reason, not because I'm so in love with it.  Oh the joys of staying within a (small) monthly budget.



I was pretty proud of myself for being able to semi-successfully frame out the mirror.  The old one was good enough - it just looked a little unfinished.  I've seen a million bloggers do this, so it's nothing special, but I was surprised it actually worked.  I used leftover trim we already had, cutting it just big enough to fit the perimeter and hide the bevel.  Since this is a hung mirror and not a permanently installed one, my method for attaching was suspect at best.

I put one just piece up against the hung mirror and leveled it, taping it on really well in place.  Then I glued (heavy duty Liquid Nails) down my other pieces around that one, using a T square thing (right?) to keep it level.  It worked, magically!  It's actually level and not crooked.  I did have one small issue with glue coming up too close under the edge that is reflected in the mirror, but it's not too bad.  Remember to paint your edges that will reflect!


I kept our dogs in the water collage.  It fits well enough and they are cute.


So there you have it.  A tiny room that took me upwards of 6 months to redo.  It functions as our hall and guest bath, so I'm glad it's not a ick brown cave anymore.  This look much more suits our style and I like to think our guests can now shower in peace.  If they don't mind a whale-covered spout.  Or a rubber duck or two.



8 comments:

  1. Beayouuuutiful!!!! :) That color is gorgeous, LOVE the light fixture, and I'm super impressed with your mirror framing!! :):)

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  2. It looks awesome! I love the wall color and the shower curtain really pulls everything together.

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  3. Looks gorgeous. Love that color! Way to go - bathrooms are my least favorite thing to paint, so even though they're small, I'd say you tackled a big project!!!

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  4. Love it! Our old master bedroom was about that color and I wish I could have an entire house in that shade. Guess it would be overkill though....

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  5. Love love love!!! This looks SO nice. We have a similar color in our upstairs bathroom, it's so nice and relaxing. I love that shower curtain- wish we had a Ross nearby so I could find myself one! :)

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  6. It looks so good! I have a lot of use for that caulking method...hmm.

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