From shocking to subtle: Bathroom re-do dos.

Dear friends,

I mentioned to you we recently completed a re-do of three bathrooms at our house. Truth is, only two are actually finished: 1) the powder room, which you saw in this post, and 2)  the kids’ bathroom, which I’ll show you today. The master bath is still a work in progress, stalled because I have been unable to make a decision about cabinet hardware. And of the five new light fixtures I needed for that room, only four were in stock. So — just a heads up that “bathroom re-do tres” may not show up for a while. (I have no idea why I have suddenly adopted a Spanish counting theme since I studied French in college, but I’m rolling with it.)

And, I regret to say a technical difficulty (darn computers!) has prevented me from retrieving my “before” photo of this bathroom. But you know what? You’ve got the gist of it already. You saw my kitchen before.

Blue Formica, white walls, golden oak cabinets.

And you saw my powder room before.

Blue Formica, white walls, golden oak cabinets.

The kids’ bathroom was a whole lot of the same.

But unlike the kitchen and master bath where I sprung for new marble counter tops, and unlike the powder room where I painted the counter tops, I decided to live with the Formica in the kids’ bathroom. It was a darker shade of blue that I didn’t find quite so hideous. And I figured the problem was not really the counter tops. It was the contrast of the counter tops against the plain white walls, made uglier by a cabinet finish that is two decades out of date.

I had a hunch that if I painted the cabinets and wallpapered the bath with a print that took the emphasis off the counter tops, the expanse of less-than-lovely Formica would “recede”  and the counter tops would go from shocking to subtle. (Or at least more subtle.) And I was right. Take a look.

See how much painting the cabinets black and giving your eyes something interesting to look at on the walls make a difference? (By the way, that’s a new light fixture above the mirror. I can’t stress enough how cheap or outdated light fixtures drag a room down instantly.)

You may argue that my wallpaper is awfully busy — and I won’t disagree with you. But I’m okay with busy in small spaces. Especially small spaces like bathrooms and pantries where the door is often shut. And I chose this wallpaper because it has the exact shade of blue in the counter tops as an accent color in the sea shells — well, that and the fact that red is one of my favorite colors and I’m digging on coral lately. (I’m considering a white “coral” chandelier for my dining room as I type.)

With no before photo, I can’t show you how ugly the previously installed, fake-brass shower doors were. I took them down immediately and replaced them with a neutral — and very updated — linen colored shower curtain.

You can’t really tell from this photo, but the custom Roman shade is the exact color of the shower curtain. It looks lovely in real life. Next time you need a custom Roman shade, shop JC Penney online first. Their fabric selections are limited, but their prices can’t be beat on custom orders. I got this one for anywhere from 30% to 75% cheaper than the other online retailers I sourced. By the way, the previous owner of this home spent a fortune on custom Hunter Douglas shades for every window in this house EXCEPT this bathroom. What’s up with that? Maybe she ran out money, given I priced Hunter Douglas replacements and determined she spent $2,500 on a single window in the dining room. I guess I’m kind of glad she skipped this room because the blind likely would have been blue and I likely would have despised it, too.

I had fun shopping for “art” to spruce up this room. I found this linen framed coral illustration on deep discount at Pottery Barn.

And I found these inexpensive beach-themed canvasses at Home Goods.

I still despise the cheap, white vinyl flooring in all my bathrooms. But that’s not a problem I have the money to fix right away.  And since I have lovely oak floors through most of the house, bad flooring is a lot more tolerable in small doses.

I feel compelled to note I’m not one of those women who normally like “themed” rooms, such as seashore baths and rustic cabin dens. This room ended up this way because I was trying to solve a counter top problem on a shoestring budget — and the wallpaper that met all my color and design needs just happened to be beachy. Since it’s the bathroom my kids use, I was a lot more flexible with my approach, and that flexibility saved me a ton of money. And, I think I ended up with a bath that is reasonably fresh and attractive, despite the overt theme.

By the way, if you are ever unfortunate enough to buy a home with unframed mirrors stuck to the walls, do not attempt to remove them. I speak from experience when I tell you that you’ll create enormous headaches (in damaged sheetrock) and spend more money trying to remove and replace them. Simply hire a carpenter to frame them, then paint or stain the frames. I spent $300 to pay a carpenter to frame five bathroom mirrors in this house, and it’s the best $300 I’ve spent to date. (Compare this to the $250 I paid a frame shop to frame and hang a single mirror in a bathroom renovation in our last home.)

So that’s the extent of my inexpensive bathroom reno tips. Paint, wallpaper, new light fixtures and hardware — and a few decorative touches will get you a long ways. In our former home, we took a bathroom down to the studs for a total renovation. Needless to say, I was incredibly pleased with the result and it remains the best bathroom I will have ever been fortunate enough to live with. But it cost 30 times what I spent on this one. (Yes. 30 times, which equals a big diff.)

And sometimes, less is more.

With gratitude {for a new home that came with “good bones” despite its ugly cosmetics},

Joan, who is pretty convinced she would rock on one of those home renovation shows where the budgets are extremely modest

Cleaning up old mistakes.

Dear friends,

Photo by Instagram, Lomo-fi filter

I’ve been a busy bee. Mr. Mom and I spent the day prepping and painting. By 10:00 pm Monday night, we had a coat of primer and a coat of paint on the cabinet boxes in three bathrooms. Our painter didn’t show up until almost 4:00 pm after promising he’d arrive at noon (running late seems to be the stock and trade of painters), so he only had time for a coat of primer on the doors and drawers. It won’t hurt my feelings one bit if we finish before he does.

This same workman painted my kitchen last spring. And, unfortunately, he made a big mistake on that job. I selected a creamy white paint for my outer cabinets and a Jadite green for my island. Somehow, the painter got the doors mixed up and — when the handyman came to install hardware and hang the cabinet doors — I ended up with a green door on a bank of white cabinets and a white door on a bank of green cabinets. The doors are not interchangeable so I’ve been stuck with two sore thumbs for 11 months.  Somehow, the painter has never had time to come back and fix it.

So, of course, when I hired him for this new job, I removed the mixed up doors and had them waiting on him in the garage with all the others. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, you know.

I’m not mad at him. He’s a good guy and we all make mistakes. And on that front, I’ve got him beat by more than a decade.

About 15 years ago — on another spring break when I took off work for a DIY project — I painted a set of bookcases.  It was cold and rainy that year and I was holed up in my garage for hours painting those dang bookcases, shivering to death and watching the paint dry at a glacial pace. My kids were little back then and I kept having to stop working to run in the house and do things like feed and diaper my children. Toward the end of the project, I got tired and decided to take a shortcut by not painting the underneath sides of several of the shelves.

At the time, I wasn’t a very experienced painter so I didn’t know about tricks like tinted primer. I had primed the shelves with white paint and finished them with black paint. That the shelves were painted black on top and white underneath didn’t seem like a big deal as long as I stood up. But once everything dried and I moved the shelves into the house and loaded them down with books — and then sat down in the room — I realized my short-cut was glaring. (You saw the bookcases in this post. From the angle where I stood to the take the photo, you can’t tell the underneath sides of the shelves are white. But trust me, everyone who sits on my new furniture sees my rookie mistake.)

Believe it or not, this is the first time since then I’ve painted anything black. So as much as I hate to unload those dang shelves of dozens of volumes, I’m doing it so that I can clean up a very old mistake. My painter will feel right at home when I drag my shelves into the garage for a corrective coat of paint.

But I think we’ll both feel good to right an old wrong. It’s not often you get to fix an old mistake in the course of doing something new and productive — and we’d be foolish, I think, not to take advantage of the opportunity.

With gratitude {for having learned a thing or two about painting and life in the last few years},

Joan, who’s also learned never to cut corners by buying cheap paint because, yeah, she’s been down that road, too

Going all DIY on myself.

Dear friends,

I’m tackling a big project this week while I’m home for spring break and it involves paint and elbow grease.

With the help of Mr. Mom and a professional painter, I’m finally going all DIY on my ugly bathroom cabinets.

If you read this post, you saw the before and after of my kitchen renovation. When we bought our current home almost a year ago, we loved everything about it except the golden oak cabinets and a few cheesy light fixtures. Before we ever moved in, I hired a professional to paint our kitchen.  But I blew my renovation budget on the kitchen and on marble counter tops for the bathrooms — and then I pretty much petered out for several months.

Like the kitchen before its rehab, all the bathrooms in our home had blue Formica counter tops and golden oak cabinets. What made the bathrooms even worse was unframed mirrors screwed to the walls and ugly and very cheap light fixtures and faucets. I replaced several of the counter tops (though not all — I’ll tell you more about that when everything is complete), bought new sinks and faucets and light fixtures, and hired a carpenter to frame in the mirrors. The last step is painting the cabinets and I’ll finally finish that up this week.

To save money, I hired the painter to professionally spray the doors and drawers. Mr. Mom and I will do all the prep work and paint the cabinet boxes, then we’ll replace all the hardware (just as soon as I find something I like).

To coordinate with the Carrara marble, I’m painting the cabinets black.  Think this:

Source: http://www.justagirlblog.com

Once I finish the bathrooms this week, my remaining projects on this home are pretty minimal. I’m still searching for a couple of light fixtures and I want to add some wallpaper to parts of the master suite, but I’m getting close.

So now I’m off to paint and to shop for cabinet hardware! Wish me a steady hand and the luck to find just the right handles.

With gratitude {for a live-in handyman who usually indulges my DIY dreams},

Joan, who is an excellent painter (having perfected her technique back when she had no money but lots of inspiration)