Actual House Progress: The Pink Bathroom

Guys, I'll level with you. I'm basically the worst homeowner ever. I used to be so gung-ho about fixing things when we first moved in ... then suddenly we found more and more problems that we had to fix before other more aesthetic things could be done.

One of these problems was the pink bathroom (a.k.a. the main bathroom we use right now). I pulled all the cheap wire shelves out of the closet so I could replace them and paint the walls (it's just drywall in there). Upon closer inspection it turned out that the paint from the walls that came into the edge of the unpainted closet was peeling up in reasonable sized sheets. When I talked to my trusty Sherwin Williams man, he said that this means the drywall hadn't been primed ... and judging by the chipping of the paint around holes from old wall anchors, the rest of the room hadn't either ... which means it will eventually all peel off the walls! Ugh! Turns out the only way to fix this is to literally scrape all the paint off the walls and ceiling in the entire room and prime then paint it all again. Yeah, I think you can guess how excited I was about that prospective task. The worst part of all was that all of the items I had to hand up on the walls had to wait around and take up space in other parts of my house.

Well, last Sunday I decided I'd had enough. Sure, there are still holes in the walls that need to be fixed and I still have to scrape the paint, but I have no impending plans to get that done. Why not at least enjoy a little organization in the meantime? So I spent a little time and finally hung things up ;)

Ta Da! I didn't take a before picture, but imagine it exactly the same just without anything on the walls and much dirtier, lol. I decided over a year ago to embrace the pink tile and it has since grown on me - I actually like it now :) Anyway, my progression around the room began in the shower:

We bought one of those corner bars with multiple shelves on it last July, but no joke it didn't last until November. I was standing in the shower one day and it fell on me - the spring had no tension. I always intended to take it back to Target and say "What The Heck?" but it's not exactly easy to bring something in that's so large. Anyway, fast forward to before last Sunday and we've been setting all of our shampoo and whatnot on the towel bar and in the corners of the tub ever since. I had this small glass shelf from our condo that I had above our kitchen sink - it hasn't been used since we moved. So I thought it would be a great replacement :) It's mounted just above the tile, so it's kind of high but luckily my husband and I are reasonably tall so it's not a problem for us. Now everything is out of the way yet easy to get to and we don't risk bumping other things off the narrow towel bar to fall to their death. Also, I got a small white hook to hang our "to be used imminently" towel on while we are in the shower. I hung it between the tile and the window - again out of the way but easily accessed. Now  no more slightly damp towels when we need to dry off and we don't have to set our towels on the sink and lean over almost slipping to our own death. Look how much death was avoided with these small changes :)

Next came this Ikea shelf unit - again this was in our guest bath at our condo and has sat in our spare room since we moved. I really wanted to get something else in this bathroom since I felt this looked too wimpy in here (I was envisioning an actual cabinet), but I haven't found anything yet and I already have this. Up it went! I decided to hang it above the toilet instead of centered in the space on the wall, which gave a little sliver of wall that is perfect to hang up this little porcelain flower piece that belonged to my Great Grandmother. Incidentally this porcelain piece also lived in our guest bath at the condo, but it works really well with the other colors in here I think.

The final piece I hung was this sweet Ikea mirror. I've loved this mirror ever since I was first introduced to Ikea furniture, but I never had any place to put one. When we decided to go with a black and white and floral scheme in this bathroom, this mirror was the first purchase I made :) Nothing like finally having an excuse to get something you want. I admit it's a bit ornate on such a small wall, but I don't care, lol. While I love this mirror as a decorative item, I have to level with you - this was the most awful thing I have ever tried to hang in my whole life. I am meticulous about hanging things - I always center and level everything, sometimes even coordinating gallery walls. Hands down, this thing was harder than all those combined. There are no angles, very little even-ness, and it has those stupid little plastic holes on the back that the screws have to line up with perfectly. I spent at least 30 minutes just measuring and marking before I figured how to hang it up and still center it on the wall; even then I was just barely off and I had already drilled anchors and everything. I was able to just whack the anchored screw to the side a few millimeters and it sunk right in (never to be moved). I even managed to get the bottom point perfectly centered in the tile grout :) I bashed the crap out of my finger, but in the end I won and now I finally have this up on my wall. Success!

It may not seem like much, but when you've lived with blank white hole filled walls in a room you use multiple times a day for over a year the difference is amazing. It's a downright pleasure to hang out in the bathroom now :) I gained not only better looks but also better organization. Sure there are plenty more things I want to do to this room, but I think it's safe to call this a Stage 1 renovation that I can appreciate for now. The funniest part of all this is now that I see these pictures, that window is screaming for a curtain - it just looks so naked! Luckily I have quit ea bit of black fabric in my stash, I just have to decide on a design.

Hooray for actually making progress on my house!