My $8 Master Bathroom Makeover

Before:



We moved into this house mid March 2008. Two weeks later our second child was born, and this photo was taken one month after her birth. Now you understand all the mess in this room!


The walls were painted the worst shade of yellow. You can't really tell just how bad they were from the photos. It was exactly the color of yellow school chalk. The worst part was the previous owner also painted all of the trim and the back of the door with the same paint! Ugh! Who does that? Oh, and that oh-so-lovely lace panel thumb-tacked to the window came with the house too. What in the world? How did their realtor not tell them to take that down? I love a good mistreatment, but come on! The cabinetry wasn't terrible, just builder basic oak.






Our purple towels and bathmats weren't doing anything to help the situation!



A gallon of camel/caramel paint, some white trim paint and two cans of spray paint later(Valspar satin java brown) it looks like this:
















I just taped off around the cabinetry and spray painted the cabinetry in place. I did take off the wood cornice on the light fixture as well as the cabinet doors and drawer fronts and painted those outside.
















The wall color looks more camel in person. It looks too yellow in this photo.

I'm planning to frame out the mirror soon...

I didn't pay a penny for the fabric in the room. Remember this post about my sofas? The lady who sold me this sofa threw in a slipcover for free. I liked the fabric but it didn't fit the sofa so i cut it up and used it to make the window treatment, the shower curtain and this little curtain for the area between the cabinets (thanks for this idea, Nester!). The shower curtain is bordered with a burgundy window panel that used to hang in my hubby's bachelor apartment.







I would love to replace that light fixture, but now that it's painted it doesn't bother me as much.








I already owned the ledge shelf (still trying to figure out how best to accesorize it though!) and all the accesories in the room (including the world's naughtiest kitty!).

The tile in this room isn't bad, but it has a burgundy border, so we had to work with that color. I found these towels at Target and had a $100 gift card, so I bought the towels and bathmats. The wall color is maybe one shade lighter than the camel color in the towels.

I still haven't decided what to hang above the towel bar. I thought I had it all figured out- two vertically hung frames spray painted brown and filled with leftover fabric from the shower curtain and window treatment, machine embroidered with "His" and "Hers" (similar to the art in the bedroom), but it just turned out weird. So, if anyone has a suggestion, I'm all ears!! I do have one idea...

By the way, do you like the shower curtain better hanging on the rod like this:

Or froofed up on clip rings a la the Nester like this?:

The shower actually has nice tile (somewhat nicer than the rest of the room) and an attractive glass door, but after one shower the glass looks dirty, and I just can't keep up with that, so I decided to add the curtain. It's also nice to have the privacy since my little ones are frequently in and out of the bathroom while I'm in the shower.

Here's a closeup of the window:

I just sewed a little pocket into the top and put it on a tension rod inside the window frame. Then I accordion folded the bottom and put a pin on each side. Our house backs to woods, so we don't have to worry about privacy. You'd have to jump off a cliff and then climb a huge tree to see into this window!

Oh, almost forgot- I did purchase these new switchplates and outlet covers, but I used store credit, so I'm not counting that towards my $8 bottom line. The two cans of spray paint were the only thing I purchased. I'm not counting the wall paint, but that was purchased a while ago. Yeah, that's probably cheating, but I won't tell if you won't.

For the cabinet knobs I painted my old brass knobs with rustoleum hammered spray paint in brown. I love this stuff. It has a nice mettalic sheen, but it doesn't show up well in my photos. Sorry- you'll just have to take my word for it!

What do you think?

Love,

Guest Bath Decorating Dilemma

Today I'm participating in the Decorating Dilemmas party at Serenity Now!

Here's my problem:

My guest bathroom. I have some ideas in mind already to snazz it up a bit, but I need help choosing paint colors for the beadboard (or do I just keep it white?) and the wall above. Since there is virtually no budget to redo this room, I will be keeping the existing tile and fixtures for now. Why do people insist on colored tilework when building houses? Don't they know we will be stuck with said color for a very long time?

I actually don't mind this color (dark teal or peacock), but I hate having the color scheme dictated by the tile.

I found these towels at Target and liked that they had the same peacock color as well as some other warmer colors. When I bought them I thought they would make choosing paint colors easier- just pick two colors from the towels, but now I can't decide! Help!

Here's a closeup of the towels:

The colors are Peacock, creamy white, gray, chocolate brown, camel/tobacco brown, mossy green, and browny burgundy.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Love,

Fedex Love

I'm participating in DIY day at Kimba's. Make sure to go check out all the other great projects!

Oh how I love my fedex man!

Last week he brought me this:

Thanks, Boogie! It's a Dell inspiron mini notebook and I love it! It's teeny-tiny and I love being able to blog from anywhere in the house. My old computer was on its last legs and these are very affordable. We got this one for $299!

Mr. Fedex also brought me this fabric I ordered from fabricguru.com


I can't wait to start crossing off some of those projects on the right! Fabricguru.com is great! Their selection and prices are terrific. I bought these aqua and red fabrics for my living room projects. I have no idea what I'm going to use the trellis fabric for but I absolutely love it. It is such a dead ringer for the Kelly Wearstler Imperial Trellis fabric that I had to go to the KWID website and compare to make sure that it isn't the real thing. I bought a total of 12 yards of fabric for $72 including shipping. That comes $6 per yard including shipping! And these are all upholstery weight fabrics!

Oh, and there's one fabric that I used up before I took this shot. I managed to cross one project off my list...

Before:



After:

This is a silk taffeta fabric with an embroidered diamond pattern. I had to pleat the fabric to keep the pattern going in the right direction, but I really like the look. It reminds me of the pleated neckline on my favorite dress.

Here's how I did it:

1. I measured the circumference of the bottom, larger ring of the shade, and cut a piece of fabric a little longer than that circumference and a little wider than the height of the shade. (My circumference was a little longer than the width of my bolt of fabric so I actually pieced two pieces together and hid the seam in a pleat)


2. Then I carefully peeled off the old fabric from the hard-back shade.


3. Next I hot glued the long edge of the fabric along the bottom of the shade frame.


4. Pulling straight up I hotglued the top edge of the fabric to the top rim of the shade frame only between where the pleats would fall (I used the geometric pattern of the fabric to guide the pleat placement)


5. Using two hands I pinched the extra fabric between the glued spots and pulled them smooth and glued them to the top rim of the frame.


6. I ran a thin bead of glue all the way around the inside of the top and bottom rims of the frame close to the rims, pressing the fabric into the inside of the rims.


7. I trimmed any excess fabric from the inside of the shade and glued some white single fold bias tape to hide the raw edges of the fabric on the inside of the frame.

What do you think? I'm debating whether or not to add some trim and whether to paint the lamp base...

Love,