Guest Bathroom Facelift: Part 4.. The Reveal

TA-DA

She's finally done!

You are all now officially invited to come over and inspect our loo..

(click on the picture to see close-ups.. safe to say I am loving my new camera)



A few things..
I spray painted the cabinet knobs with brushed nickel to match our light fixture. Easy fix, but took me a solid 2 weeks with our little cold snap. I found the white shower mat at Target on clearance for 6 buckaroos. Score! My good friend S gave me the linen-look fabric for my DIY shower curtain. Total score. And yes, I used curtain clips to attach it to the rod. I'm loving the fullness of the curtain in there.


Visit Part 1 to see befores of our guest bathroom.

lovely blooms

Aren't these loverly?
Hubby professed his undying love and devotion by dressing up as a naked, winged baby with a bow and arrow slung over his shoulder. And he gave me these gorgeous blooms.

Made for a very interesting conversation with the neighbors the next day. :)

All the better to SEE you with, my dear..

Happy February to ME!

Don't mind my ugly, lime-green closet of an office.
I'm just thankful there's a door I can shut. :)

P is for Project

Hello, my name is Aja and I have a little... problem.

With projects.

This comes as no big surprise to me and virtually none to my husband by now, either, but I like to.. as they say.. have more than one iron in the fire when it comes to any kind of project. I just have so many ideas in my head! I'll start 2 at a time or want to rush ahead and begin something new when the first is only half way done.

Sigh... I'm working on it.

Sort of.

So I'm sure you were all expecting Part 4 in the wildly exciting internet sensation that is my Guest Bathroom Facelift. Sorry folks.

Frankly the idea of steaming my DIY shower curtain for pictures just isn't lighting my fire at the moment, so you'll have to wait a bit. But I promise I will deliver!!

So anyway, with our recent Winter Weather situation, I was able to work from home on Thursday and Friday (cue the Hallelujah choir) and had time to cross off and add to my little project to-do list.

First up: my knock-off Pottery Barn pillows. Yes, I know, these debuted quite a while ago, but well... I've had this linen fabric and wooden buttons for about 3 or 4 months with the intention of making them!

You see! Too.Many.Projects.

What do you think?? I won't go into details with how I made them.. email me if you want a full run-down.

What was that?

In the background of my pic?...

Huh?

You see what??..

Oh, yes. I see what you're pointing out there. PAINT.

Yup. Moving right along. I started painting our family room (or living room?? I haven't decided it's proper name. Add to list) last night. It was time. It feels right. I like the current color (that we painted a mere year ago), but our couch and chair (not pictured) are too close to the same color and it all blends together into blah blah land. (Sorry for all the parenthesis)

So this is where you'll find me this weekend. Semi-snowed in and getting high on paint fumes. How's your weekend shaping up? Are you snowed in, too?

Guest Bathroom Facelift: Part 3

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?

I'm happy to say, my guest bathroom mirror, that's who!!

GB Facelift: Part 1
GB Facelift: Part 2

Like many newer houses, ours has the builder-grade mirrors in the bathrooms, with their flat, lifeless edges making no real impact or statement in the room, other than their sheer size and reflection of every single thing in there. That just wasn't going to cut it with me. I had long ago decided that I would buy a large, framed mirror to replace the old one.

The problem was, this mirror spanned from wall to wall across the counter, which is just under 5 feet long. A mirror that size was going to be pricey, and we all know I like to cut corners, save money and DO IT MYSELF. After coming across this bathroom mirror DIY frame, I knew I could make it happen, for a fraction of the price. Insert problem #2: we don't have a saw, and the lovely fellows at Home Depot will only do so many complimentary cuts for you. So instead of having the normal, angled corners (can't think of the correct term), we stuck with straight edges to our 1x4's and came up with a plan.

Here's how it all went down:

1. I measured.

2. I drew out a little diagram to get an idea of scale and how it would all look.

3. Measured again.

4. Determined what length we needed our 1x4's.

5. Jaunt over to Home Depot during the lunch hour to purchase the wood and some Liquid Nails. (That stuff is hard core).

6. Stain the wood. This took numerous coats. I decided (foolishly), to start staining a day before the huge snow storm hit us around Christmas. So the first few coats really didn't have a chance to dry since the temperature in the garage didn't venture above about 10 degrees. I ended up bringing them into the guest room to finish staining and give them a coat of poly.

7. Install!

I started by placing the pieces against the mirror and taping them in place with painters tape to make sure everything fit correctly and evenly. Then we broke out the Liquid Nails and got to work!

You can kind of see our "design" for the corners below. I keep trying to type out a description and then delete it, because it doesn't make sense. So if you don't get it, just come over and look for yourself. :)

I wanted the stain to be a deep, dark mahogany, so I did about 5 or 6 coats. I love how the color turned out and the contrast it creates with the countertop and our new paint.

See, this is what I mean about reflecting everything in the room. I tried and tried to get a shot of the whole frame, without including my sweats-wearing self in the photo. Not going to happen.

Doesn't it instantly change the room? If I were only going to do one update to the bathroom, this would be it. It just gives it a custom look. I love it!

____________________

On a totally unrelated note, one day after submitting myself to Jillian Michael's Shred mercy, I am feeling the burn. It would be untruthful to say I even experienced the full force of her fury, since at least a third of the time, I was blatantly ignoring her commands and doing whatever exercises/movements I wanted. If you do the math on that, it's really laughable, since the video is only 20 minutes long. But we jogged beforehand and then jumped right into level 2, so that has to count for something! My two friends who did the video with me were much more obedient and didn't deviate from her instructions and I'm sure will have thinner thighs than I because of it.

WHATEV.

Have you tried the 30 Day Shred?? Did you actually make it 30 days? We just started getting together every Saturday morning to submit ourselves to torture in the eternal search of a toned physique, so we should be done by around September. Check back with me then and I'll give a full, detailed report.