Third Project: Bathroom Paint

I'm going to stop numbering these posts any time now.

Project #3 in the new house was to paint the bathroom.  Like the bedroom, it was painted a dirty yellow color with a darkish, dusty blue accent wall. The craft room is painted the same way, actually.  I guess someone at some point got some oops paint on sale.  The walls are also dirty and smudged and dinged, and there's this...thing...here, look:

When people don't know how to patch holes correctly. 

Here's the bathroom before:

bleh

And here it is after:

The new color is homemade.  I took some of the Silvermist from the bedroom project and added it to a bucket of white primer, to make this color.  I didn't care what color I came out with, as long as it was pale enough not to clash with our towels and things.  I'll be honest, it doesn't really blow my skirt up, but it's not yellow anymore, and that darker blue wall isn't looming over us anymore, and it's a nice, fresh, clean paint job, which I love to see.


The blob is a little better, too, after I sanded it down most of the way, filled the holes that appeared in it while I was sanding, and painted over it:

Still ugly.  Slightly less blobby.  

Yay.  The end.

The Bedroom

I haven't done anything in here, project-wise;  I just finally got it all together and cleaned up for photographs - and I'm showing off, because I loooooove my bedroom.

Clockwise from the door:

My dresser, the Ikea SONGESAND, which took me nearly two months to find, because it was always out of stock.  Popular one, this thing!

This thing is a big block, but it seems less bulky in a tiny (9x10') room crammed with furniture than I thought it would be.  I love it, though - it's pretty, the finish feels nice, the color is gorgeously dark,  the drawers roll smoothly and quietly, and I have drawer organizers in some of the drawers to help corral my things, which works great.

My vanity, composed of:

•  an old hall console table that I painted
• A $10 Goodwill bathroom medicine cabinet, also painted, which houses things like jewelry, perfumes, beauty products, and hair things. 

The Tilden metal bed from Target, with Ikea bedding, a wooden jali screen from World Market, and an antique side table given to me years ago by a friend.  

As you can see in this pic, I have about a 3.5' walkway around the bed to move in, and that's all. It's a tiny room. But since I'm a person who doesn't really do anything but sleep and get dressed in here (I don't hang out in my room), that's really all I need. 

At the end of the bed is a wee nightstand table that I refinished years ago, the giant mirror from the fireplace at my old house, and my acoustic guitar, Ember (an Ibanez AEW40). The curtains on both windows are Ikea's MATILDA. 

This bedroom, the design of which I've been working on for three years now, makes me feel like a Jane Austen heroine.  I never thought I'd want white walls again, after I moved out of my last apartment in 2004; but I love the feel of this room, and I'm finally happy with it, and finally feel like it's complete. I didn't even have to paint this one myself. 

About that vanity cabinet...

Because I adore my cabinet, and I'm super proud of it, here's some more of it's awesomeness: 

It's made from a bathroom medicine cabinet I got at Goodwill for $10.  I cleaned it thoroughly (and cleaned gum off the inside. Gum! Who does that?), primed it and then painted it black.

The necklaces up top are hung on bronze-colored shower curtain rings on a tension rod that I keep meaning to spray paint to match.

There used to be a second shelf, but I got tired of having to pile my necklaces on it to get the doors to close, so I took it out.

The insides of the doors are painted in black chalkboard paint.  I draw little pictures and write inspirational quotes on them to perk myself up in the mornings.  How Pinterest of me, I know.  Currently, they say:

• "goooob morning", a tribute to Thoughts of Dog
• "I am enough", which is what it says on a ring that a friend gave me, because she said I needed it. ♥ 
• "Always use your full ass!"  Never half-ass anything. 
• "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'" ~ Shawshank Redemption (this is what I tell myself when I'm having a hard time getting off my butt to do things) 

Oops.   Loch Ness Handster.

A Completed Hovercraft

Well, it took a little over 3 weeks, but the aforementioned indoor construction site is now a bathroom again,  complete with functional, brand-new shower.  You saw the gaping hole and wall innards;  here's what the new shower looks like:

I know, I know, you know what a shower looks like.  But seriously.

More blue stuff, yay!

This is the smallest bathroom I've had since like 2003.  It's plenty big enough to move around in; but it's kind of a bitch to photograph.

They left the cute little tile fixtures, yay!  I have to say, I wasn't all that excited about the sort of pale-sand-colored wall tile at first, but the more I live with it, the more I kind of love it.

What's Next? 

The living room, which means that the garage is actually next.  When we moved in, everybody just threw things into the garage at random, so the whole space is clogged, and there's no room to set up my little workshop yet.   There are a couple of boxes of things in the living room that need to go into the garage, but there's nowhere to put them. And there are a couple of pieces of furniture in the living room that need to be repaired and/or altered, but, again, no workshop yet. 

I know what I'll be doing this entire upcoming three-day weekend. 

My Hovercraft Is Full of Construction Workers

Well, the move is complete.  Mostly. 95% of our stuff is at the new place, excepting only an empty aquarium and some tools from the garage.

The new house is lovely, albeit packed to the rafters with our stuff, and covered in concrete dust and huge pieces of cardboard taped to the floor.

Wait, what? 

It seems the drain line and P-trap under the bathtub, being 53 years old, rusted through at some point and collapsed, leaking into the ground below the foundation, and into the walls.  This was discovered by the clean-up crew the day before we moved in, who thought it was clogged until they sent a snake-o-scope (whatever it's called) down the drain to check it out and discovered that, well, it was pretty much fucked under there.

Not to worry!  Our new landlady and her awesome crew are ON IT, and it's being repaired as quickly as possible.  Over the weekend as we moved our things in, contractors and crew were demo-ing the old tub and shower enclosure, removing the rusted pipes and trap, removed water-damaged wooden framing, and replaced it with new wood.  The wet and rotting wood attracted termites at some point.  They're gone now, but just in case, there's a termite guy coming in a few days, after which the new plumbing will go in, and then a new tile shower surround.  Sylvan and I've been driving 20 miles south across the city to shower at the old house, which is inconvenient, but it's only for a few more days.

So, for lack of "omg isn't my new house beautiful" pictures, I give you:

My current shower, or rather, some of it.

1.  Termite-eaten wood

2.  Entrance to the World of Og

The original (1965) iron tub.  Such a shame.

Original vanity cabinet and faucet.  The sink I think was replaced sometime in the 80s, and the paper holder...who even knows.

(The dirt is new).

THESE ARE SO CUTE.

I think toothbrushes must've been much smaller 53 years ago.

I haven't seen a towel rack like this since the actual 80s.  SO CUTE.

I have some paste stuff that makes my car's headlights clear and sparkly.  I've been wondering if that stuff would work on these things.  Hm.

















You know what the best part of all this is?  I don't have to fix ANYTHING.  MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!


Well, that's all for now.  Pics of the finished bathroom, and of the rest of the house, will be coming soon.  For now, I leave you with this cat, who is just making himself at home and doesn't seem to care that nothing is unpacked and put away yet:

Windowz & An Art

I'm hard at work sprucing up baseboards, doors, door trim, and doorknobs, all around the house.  I have no pics for you, because...baseboards, really?  Not exactly newsworthy. 

However, I took a moment over the weekend to finally get my sand collection together, which sounds like a weird euphemism, but is, in fact, about an actual sand collection: 

Lighting in here is terrible, sorry for the picture quality.  There's not much to decorate in the master bathroom's Poop Cave, but there was enough wall space for a couple of favorite Impressionists (Monet's Impression Sunrise; Van Gogh's Seascape near les Saintes Maries de la Mer;  as well as a small oil painting of a lighthouse on a cliff painted by none other than my roommate, back when she was in high school).  

The plants hanging up there are a Senecio ("String of Bananas") and some sort of weird fern I found at Blowe's with no label.  Both puny-looking and in desperate need of more water and less cold (like me in the winter).  

I don't know why I collect sand, that's just the way it is.  Initially I collected it every-sandy-where I went, to fill my incense burners;  but somewhere along the way I developed a love of just collecting sand in general.  Sort of an, "I buried my feet in this stuff, remember?"  (except for the sand people bring to me. I'm that friend who answers, "I'm going to Tahiti, want any souvenirs?" with BRING ME SAND!!!)  

Left to right:  

1. Hawaii, brought to me by a friend from her vacation.

2.  Costa Rica, also friend/vacation

3.  Cannon Beach, Oregon, from my trip there last August.

4.  Black sand from Hawaii, which is illegal to collect but is sold in these tiny bottles there. Friend/ vacation.

5.  Cozumel, Mexico, from my Caribbean cruise in 2012.   

# 1 and 5 need better jars, but, I like having them all displayed, finally.  There are two more around here somewhere, I think, I just don't know where.  

It's not much, but it pleases me. 

Bonus stuff: I made an art! 

I like to draw and paint, as you may have noticed in my last post when I made a little laptop table to draw on. I mostly just diddle around with coloring or sketching flowers and things, but I also like to copy some of my favorite paintings for practice and to explore translating images from one medium to another.  

This is a colored pencil version I did of Van Gogh's The Olive Trees  It was SO much fun. 

I measured completely wrong and had to tack on an extra page to get the paper sized right - it was either that or erase a LOT of work, which I wasn't willing to do, hehe.  Fun times. 

When next we meet, I hope to have some actual progress on the craft room to show you.  Let's see if I actually do. 

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Master Bathroom

Another room in the "Finally!!" category!  While on the surface this was just a re-paint job, this project involved the following challenges:

• sanding uneven wall texture to even it out
• finishing a ceiling that was stuck up by remodelers years ago but never completed
• adjusting two light fixtures that were hanging all sideways
• scraping, patching, caulking, sealing, priming, and painting baseboards and door trim
• cleaning doors and walls before priming and painting
• sanding and smoothing out cabinet doors which had built-up stenciled paint all over them
• patching walls where decals were removed, which ripped huge holes in the paint underneath
• glitter.  so much glitter.  glitter everywhere. 

First of all, this room is shaped really weirdly, and it's really hard to photograph!  

This is a fairly decent representation of the new wall color, though, and shows part of what my roomie and I call The Poop Cave.  

Still Life w/ Ladder & Wonky Art, 2017

The Poop Cave even has a window, so your neighbors can watch you poop!  Okay, not really - the glass is frosted, and there's a giant tree right outside.  

I've debated putting up a wee curtain here, but I think I'll cover the whole thing in hanging plants.  

Art + towel rack =   o_O

Look, Nan: flip-flops!

I'm not sure what to call the wall color.  I mixed it using Sherwin Williams' "Tradewinds" and Behr's "Fresh Thyme Green."  The result came out almost identical to SW's "Comfort Gray" (which is green!), except it's more on the minty side. 

It's actually precisely the same color as Baskin Robbins' Daiquiri Ice sherbet/sorbet, which pleases me to an unusual degree. 

Now for the BEFORE pictures! 

As always, I forgot to take before pictures, so these are mid-project.  

This is...purple as fuck.  The previous painter mixed sand into the purple paint to create a sandy texture, and then went over the walls with gold glitter. The sand was a neat effect - I'd seen the idea on tv, and always wondered how it felt in real life. 

You can also see the 1984 shell-sink molded vanity in a lovely shade of "was this beige once??"  It's super yellowy, and as far as I can tell, it's supposed to be (no amount of cleaning/bleaching/ scrubbing/scraping has changed it).  

I sanded every inch of these walls before cleaning and priming, to knock back some of the over-textured areas (I literally cut my elbow on the wall once, I'm not kidding) and balance them out a bit with the bare spots.  I could have scraped the walls completely clean and re-textured them from scratch, but...nuh-uh.  Do not want. So my entire life was covered in purple dust with gold glitter in it for like a week. 

The Poop Cave cabinet doors had been stenciled with silver acrylic paint.  It was a pretty effect, but the cabinets needed cleaning and repair, and updating.  I sanded the doors smooth to knock down the edges of the stenciling, and just painted over it.  

I also removed the knobs and patched the holes.  Again - neat effect having them in the center of the doors, but it was way too high to reach comfortably. 

This is what I mean by a weirdly-shaped bathroom.  If I remember correctly, it was actually a huge rectangle, once - if you imagine away the closets and take the walls back into a more regular shape, and add a tub and separate shower.  At one point, the room was remodeled, and the tub and shower were replaced with a single, HUGE, walk-in shower with a bench, and these two closets.  It's actually a fantastic space to use, as odd as it seems.  I love having a bathroom large enough to walk around in; and the closet duo means that we have a ridiculous amount of space in which to store various linens and craft stuff (the master bedroom is our craft room, just like at the old house).  

The only thing I don't like is where the bathroom door and the Poop Cave doors meet up. That's just a recipe for smacking yourself in the face, that is. It may not be everybody's first choice, but, I took the door off the Poop Cave.  It's safer, door-smacking-wise, and lets more light into the bathroom from the window during the day. 

I love the way this color looks with both the silver fixtures and brushed-gold frames and accessories.  

And the mirror, apparently, since I re-did this room like three weeks ago and still haven't wiped off that paint smear.  

The floor tile (and shower tile) is a warm, yellow-beige, just like the vanity.  

The only other consideration I bothered with in mixing the color was that it be something that coordinated with my roommate's gorgeous cotton shower curtain from World Market.  We both love the way this works. 

The only thing I don't have a pic of (because my phone just *cannot* for some reason) is the ceiling.  Yeah, it's just white.  But when this room was remodeled umpteen years ago, the ceiling was never finished. Not all the seams were taped, the joint between the ceiling boards and the wall boards wasn't sealed, and there were still grease-pen markings all over the ceiling from the workers who cut and installed it - arrows and measurements and such.  The bathroom itself took me about three days, but one of those days was just the ceiling:  cleaning, sealing, taping & floating, caulking, priming, painting.  I used to get so MAD while I was taking a shower, looking up at those measurements. Now it's fresh and white and smooth.  Ahhhh. 

There are plenty more things, both done and yet to do.  I'm hoping over the weekend that I can at least post about a couple of smaller projects I've been working on, if not have a new, huge one to show you (I have five days off, after all).  

IN the meantime, happy holidays, if holidays are your thing. 

Guest Bath No More

Now it's BFF's bathroom!  And it's white no longer:

Here's the before...

That's Olympic "Turquoise Mist", if anybody's wondering.

BONUS FEATURES:

This idea came from Pinterest (really, what doesn't anymore?)  A trash bag tied over the toilet tank - no paint to clean off the porcelain, and the bag doubles as a handy-dandy receptacle for all your painting trash at the end of the job.

Know what I discovered today?  If you flush the toilet while the bag's on the tank, POKE A HOLE IN THE BAG.  It did this crazy thing where it tried to swallow itself because of the air being sucked out of the bag by the retreating water, LOL.  0_0

I like to rock out with my caulk out.











Now the bathroom just needs BFF's stuff!  She moves in in a week and a half! :D


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Another "New" Bathroom Light Fixture

Because seriously, ew:

That's the light fixture that's been in my master bath since 2004.  Came with the house. I *hate* these, and somehow in ten years I've never replaced it. 

In March, I replaced the guest bath fixture with an Italian tole chandlier that I fixed up.  Over this past weekend, I finally got around to putting the one that came out of the guest bath into the master: 

It's a bit dwarfed* by the gigantic sheet mirror that has also been there since the house was built;  but I intend to replace that thing, too, eventually.  For now, I really love the 3-light fixture in here.  I've been using my six-lamp fixture with only three bulbs in it, so there's no change in the amount of light, though this new fixture does change the angle a bit.  I'm perfectly happy with it, though.  It's warm and soft.  Not great for putting on makeup, but I do that at my vanity cabinet, since I can stand directly in front of it instead of having to lean over a counter because of my crappy eyesight, hehe. 

And of course, because the simplicity of the "plug and play" aspect of changing light fixtures is often just too good to be true, it took me two hours to get this thing in place, because the old six-lamp fixture was screwed directly into the wall - not mounted on a bracket.  Luckily, I had a bracket, threaded rod, and a large assortment of nuts and washers and screws to choose from, in order to get this thing mounted correctly and securely.  

* "Dwarf" is one of those words I can never type correctly on the first try.  I touch-type (without looking at the keyboard) at nearly 100wpm, and yet every time, it comes out "drawf."  Sigh. 

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Tole!

Remember the antique lily chandelier that I acquired and refinished, and hung in my guest bath?

(via ME!) 

I've recently come across TWO blog posts about them -  Apartment Therapy has one up today; and Design Sponge has one from 2013.

This chandelier is Italian "Tole" (/toe-lə/), and refers to ornate fixtures usually painted, gilded, or shellac'd (to prevent rust on metal fixtures) - and also refers to similarly-painted tin trays and other metal or wood objects. They're often brightly colored:

(Pinterest, Ebay)

(Pinterest, Etsy) 

Or painted in gold, or darker metal tones:

(from http://www.frankie.com.au/, via Apartment Therapy)

Squee!  I have to admit, I don't like the colored ones; but I LOVE the white and gold finishes I've seen.  and I adore my gold bathroom chandelier. :)

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Guest Bath Chandelier - Finished!

I posted here and here about a pair of antique, homemade chandeliers that I was given by a dear friend. I've finished the lily chandelier, which was made by my friend's metal-worker great-grandfather in the 60s.  Here is the before:

It's a four-light candelabra chandelier, originally gold-leafed.  It's 54 years old, and was encrusted with dust and cigarette smoke.  The gold leaf was peeling, and the metal was rusting underneath. The wiring was all good, thankfully, though I did replace the main wire leading up from the center of the fixture to the ceiling mount.  I also scrubbed and sanded the fixture to remove the gold leaf and rust and dirt, bent some of the metal bits back into shape, spray-painted the bulb holders white, and primed, then sprayed the entire fixture in a pale, shiny gold.

My guest bath, meanwhile, had this three-light fixture in it:

Which was pretty, but not fabulous.  I wanted fabulous.  

Here is the after:

Yay!!  I love this SO MUCH!!


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