Baby steps in the bathroom

It took me a little while, but I did finally make some more progress - admittedly small - on the bathroom this week.  The first thing I did was give the tub a total scrubbing while I had everything taken down.  I thought about taking before and after pictures to show you the dramatic difference, but in the end decided the potential for embarrassment outweighed the usefulness of posting such pictures.  It's not that I haven't ever cleaned it, but I don't think the periodic cleanings I have done were as intense as this one.  So long story short, it's super-clean, and I burned a few calories while cleaning!

After doing this, I made a trip to IKEA to scout out new furnishings for the bathroom.  I specifically wanted to leave with a shower curtain rod, a cheap shower curtain, and some rings, and this I pulled off.  I also wanted to go to just see what other hardware or bathroom storage options they had, in case there was something cute and cheap, and this part was a little less successful.  There was cute stuff, but it just felt a little too...Scandinavian...for this room.  Kind of cold, when I'm looking for something with a little more personality.  [Racial.]

So I ended up spending around $20 to get the curtain rod, curtain and rings.

I see this as kind of a temporary solution.  While it's not the most amazing thing I've ever seen, it actually does look better than this picture shows.  The shower curtain is white, but somehow in this picture it looks like ecru or something.  At any rate, I just needed to get something cheap up so I could start using the shower again, but this could be a step in the right direction.  Much improved from this, right?

If nothing else, see how the shower curtain in the old room used to be way too long?  It was because the shower curtain rod was set up too low, so the curtain brushed the ground and got all gunked up on the bottom.  So I've fixed that in the new set-up.

I've also been thinking about what I want the room to eventually look like, and have been shopping for mirrors.  I see the mirror as the starting place, because I'd like it to be a big piece of art in the room, not just a utilitarian hotel-style mirror like the old one.  Depending on the mirror I choose, I think it could have a big effect on what the rest of the hardware in the room looks like.  Generally, though, I'm still thinking I'd like it to be kind of "nature-y" and green.  Because there's no windows in there, I can't actually put plants in the room, but I'm trying to figure out a way to imitate that feeling.  I have these dark brown rattan cup and toothbrush holders, so you can kind of see what a dark brown and green color scheme would look like in there.

Along those lines, here's a mirror I especially liked from Pottery Barn.

I found it yesterday, and was THIS CLOSE to buying it because it was on sale and I thought it fit the vibe of the room that I was trying to create, but decided it was prudent to give it a day to think about it.  False!  Apparently waiting 24 hours was too long, because today I went to look at it again and it's sold out.  Boooooooooooooo.  So now I'm back to square one.

Besides shopping for a mirror, the other thing I will be focusing on is replacing the coat hook that was on the far wall behind the door.  I finally got my hands on a tool to get the old hardware screws out, so I started repairing the holes in the wall, and will need to figure out what to do in that space next.  Stay tuned!

Neutrality

It's been a busy week!  Since I took down all the hardware in my bathroom, including the shower curtain and mirror, I haven't really been able to use it at all, so I've been motivated to get moving on my big makeover project.  Before I could get started with the painting, I had to do a lot of prep work to get everything ready. 

My first challenge was to try to figure out whether or not I could remove these anchors that had been securing the screws holding in all of the hardware.

I talked to the guy at the hardware store, and he told me that you could just unscrew them if they were Phillips head types (some of them were), and if they weren't, then you're supposed to just push them back into the wall.  I expressed my shock at this - how can the most elegant solution be to just hammer the hell out of it?  Well, I checked the internet and sure enough it confirmed that that is the preferred solution.  At least it provided an answer to one nagging question, which was what on earth happened to create these holes?

Remember, these are the ones where in unscrewing the hardware, I ended up pushing something back behind the wall?  Well, apparently that's what's supposed to happen.  Then you're supposed to just patch up these holes and move on.  So there were some easy Phillips head anchors that I easily pulled out, and then there were a bunch of other ones that were the less-helpful kind.  These I did try to hammer a bit, but just felt like if I did any more I was going to do some serious structural damage to the wall.  So I stopped when they were pretty flush, and decided to try to fix the rest of it by spackling it up real good.

After doing all the remaining holes like this, I let it dry and then sanded it down to get it flat.  I actually did it a couple of times if I felt like it wasn't totally flat.  Here's what it looked like at that stage in the process:

After getting all of that done, I gave the walls, baseboards, shower, and countertop a wipedown so that I could start painting.  (You'll have to forgive the dirtiness of the tub - it will also get a wipedown once everything is a little more organized)  So without further ado, here's the new look!

Isn't it funny how close the new color of the walls is to the color of the tub?  That was totally unintentional, but I think it's a happy accident.  If you look up at the picture of the tub with the yellow walls, it really emphasizes the difference in the color of the tube from the white floor and trim and just ends up looking dingy.  With this new color, it kind of blends into the walls and looks better, I think.  I mean, don't get me wrong, that tub has to go eventually, but this helps me live with it a while longer.

The color is a nice change of pace.  It's definitely a more relaxing, but more refined color.  Here's a picture I found for inspiration of where I'd like to go with this eventually.

I think this coloring will tie in nicely with the other colors in the house - I'm really into the "natural" colors of the brown and the green, apparently.  I think it'll also just be a calmer room, in comparison to the yellow, which was not a bad color, but very intense.

While it was nice that this painting took me a relatively short amount of time because of the small size of the room, it was also one of my biggest challenges.  I kept backing up or bumping into walls every time I turned around, which resulted in a lot of awesome smudging.

So, to review what needs to happen next, here's the list:

1. Take down hardware

2. Buy tool to remove coat hook screws and spackle over holes

3. Remove anchors for mirror and spackle over holes

4. Spackle over nail holes

5. Clean baseboards and walls

6. Paint!

7. Replace shower curtain rod

8. Buy new shower curtain, towels, and rug

9. Replace shower head

9. Buy and install new mirror

10. Buy and install new towel rod, toilet paper dispenser, and coat hook(s)

11. Think about shelving and how to create additional space

12. Buy and install new shelving

13. Figure out how to cover enormous holes where hand towel holder was

14. Buy and install new hand towel holder

15. Buy and install new lighting

The coat hook was the only one of the hardware thingies that I couldn't remove yet, because it has completely different square-shaped screws, which I couldn't find a tool to fit.  The next thing I'm trying is borrowing one of those little IKEA wrenches to see if that works.  If not, then it's back to the hardware store.  Once those screws come out, I will still have to spackle and paint the holes.

But that might tie in just fine with some other spackling and painting that I think I need to go back and do.  Once I got all the paint up, it was easier to see where my spackling had been less successful, and where you could still see a little bit of the anchors poking through.  

I'm not tooooooo worried about it, because I think in most cases the new hardware will just cover up where these spots are, but I want to give it one more shot with the spackle to see if I can flatten it out a bit more.  

With those wee projects, and shopping for a new mirror and shower curtain, I'll be busy again this week.  Till next time!

My blank yellow canvas

Well hey there, readers, sorry it's been a while since I've posted.  I've been "pausing and reflecting" (shout out to my SPCO homies) to more or less figure out what to do next.  When I last left you, I had been looking at the overall to-do list in the house, and narrowed it down to painting the bathroom.  It seemed like a fairly cheap and easy thing to do that would have a big impact.  Remember this place?

Given the color palette I came up with before, I decided that I wanted the bathroom to be a nice neutral, relaxing place in a house that is otherwise filled with a lot of intense color.  So I started doing probably the MOST exciting thing I can think of (sarcasm noted): sorting through various shades of beige.  It really was shocking how different they looked when I really started digging through them, so I'm glad I did it.  At one point I had about nine of them hanging up on the wall in the bathroom.  I won't bore you with pictures of those because they would honestly all look the same.  I finally narrowed it down to one called Durango Dust that I thought was a nice complement to the Boothill Brown that's in the hallway just outside the bathroom.  So western of me, eh?  (I painted a swatch on the wall, but I'm not going to give you a picture of that either because with the crazy yellow walls and the crazy yellow light in there you wouldn't have even been able to see it.  Guess you'll just have to contain your excitement and wait for the big reveal!)

In preparation for the painting, I started taking down all the hardware that's in the bathroom.  I did it partly because I thought it would be easier to paint around, but also because I just don't really like it that much and am thinking I'd like to swap it out for something else...maybe something in a darker finish.  Now that I had my fun with the door hinges, I've become totally obsessed with having everything in that oil-rubbed bronze finish.

So the list of hardware removed includes the toilet paper holder, two towel rods, the shelf, the mirror, the shower rod, and a hook that I use for my bathrobe.  Oh, and my picture of the Abbey Road album cover that was hanging on the wall.  Here's what it looked like when everything was cleaned out.  Well, almost everything - while I mostly moved out of this bathroom into the upstairs one while this project is going on, I left a few essentials down there so I can keep using it occasionally.  

Love that orangey-beige shower, right?  Ugh - it's on the list for someday.  Someday.

CRAZY!!!  It's very echo-y in there right now...kind of creepy.  You may be wondering what those black hole-shaped things are all over the walls.  They're actually the remnants of the anchors that held up all the hardware.  Close up, they look like this:

There were these big chunky ring-shaped things that were screwed in with these big screws, which appear to also have been held in place with these anchors.  So for each of these, I'm going to need take out the anchors and paint over it.  I'm not quite ready to spackle over the holes quite yet, just because I don't know yet what my replacement hardware will be, and who knows, it just might fit?

Of course, this couldn't be completely simple.  There are two of these ring things that are causing me problems.  Here's one of them.  This first picture was taken when I kept unscrewing and unscrewing and unscrewing and it just wasn't ending.  I peered in there a little bit, and it looked like there was some kind of brace actually inside the wall that the screws were being screwed into - like, it was BEHIND the holes.

So I kept plugging away at the unscrewing, and the did indeed come out, several inches later, and sure enough, the brace thing just dropped off the back...INTO THE WALL.  Weird.  How on earth did it even get in there?  I may never know.

So now there's some metal thing inside my wall and I have no idea how to cover over these holes.  They're about 3/4" wide, so simple spackling is not going to work.  And I don't know enough about construction to know what my options are, so I'll have to look into that a bit more.  Hmmmm.  There's also a weird thing happening with the ring thing for the hook.  It's got some oddly-shaped square screws that will require me finding some other tool to get them out, so I'll work out that in the next few days.

As I was spending all this time removing and unscrewing things, it got me thinking about everything I was going to have to do to put the room back together.  And thinking about all that stuff started feeling overwhelming, because there's a lot of choices that have to be made in a certain order to avoid re-doing things and to get myself back living in the bathroom as soon as possible.  So - of course - what did I do?  I made a list.  Yeah, no one's surprised.  I'm calling this my "order of operations."

1. Take down hardware

2. Buy tool to remove hook screws and spackle over holes

3. Remove anchors for mirror and spackle over holes

4. Spackle over nail holes

5. Clean baseboards and walls

6. Paint!

7. Replace shower rod

8. Buy new shower curtain, towels, and rug

9. Replace shower head

9. Buy and install new mirror

10. Buy and install new towel rod, toilet paper dispenser, and hook(s)

11. Think about shelving and how to create additional space

12. Buy and install new shelving

13. Figure out how to cover enormous holes where hand towel holder was

14. Buy and install new hand towel holder

15. Buy and install new lighting

Yeesh.  Isn't making a list supposed to make you feel better?  The plan is to get through items 1 through 6 this weekend, and then as quickly as I can after that move on to 7 and 8 so I can start using the shower again.  As much as I love getting a little bit of exercise climbing the stairs to use the other shower every day, it will be nice to have this one back.