Coral Painting

I was in my mom's store a couple weeks ago and saw the most beautiful painting that would go perfectly in my bathroom. Unfortunately it was one of her student's paintings! But I talked my mom into painting me one too. And so now I am the proud owner of this beauty:

 Isn't it pretty? I guess the flower is inspired from her student's bedspread (kind of like the dresser painting I did to match my blanket). The color is perfect to match my shower curtain and pops against the gray and white stripes.

The painting is hanging directly across from the shower curtain.

Thanks mom! :-) See more of her work on her store's Facebook page: Ruthie's Paint and Yarn Shoppe

Master Bath of My Dreams

It's my favorite time of year, Pinterest challenge time over on Young House Love and Bower Power (this time teaming up with Decor and the Dog and The Remodeled Life! Not only is it a great excuse to spend some time DIYing, but it kicks my butt to get something done I've been wanting to do.

The master bath has been a long slow process of one project at a time, starting with painting the trim and cabinet white, making a shower curtain, hanging a new mirror and light fixture, updating the electrical switches, making wall art, and painting the walls. Now the finishing touches - a new faucet and stripes!

The pin I chose is actually one from Young House Love's blog, a tutorial on painting horizontal stripes in the bathroom. See it here.

I started by measuring the whole height of the wall and dividing by 7. I wanted 7 total stripes so I would only have to paint the middle 3! Each stripe ended up being 13.3 inches (total wall = 93 inches). I measured from above the baseboard to the ceiling.

Then I marked the wall from the ceiling down with a pencil. I taped across my pencil marks to make the stripes. YHL does a nice tutorial here if you want more details. Then of course, I ran out of tape. Which put a pretty big halt in the project. :-)

So I got more (and better) tape - I noticed later that the green tape did a better job keeping paint from running under it than the yellow tape did. Then it was easy - 2 coats of gray making sure to pull the tape off while the 2nd coat was still wet.

 

 
I did have a little bit of touching up to do (see tape issue above) but it was mostly user error. I did not do a great job making sure the tape was stuck really well to the wall in the corners and that was my main mistake.

 
The beautiful stripes on the wall also inspired me to go out and buy the last couple of items we needed for the bathroom makeover to be complete: a new rug (chevron of course) and a little plant for the back of the toilet. I wish it was real, but the bathroom has no windows so it would surely die. Nevertheless, I thought the bathroom needed something alive looking in it.

I am beyond happy with the results. I keep telling my husband I am just going to go hang out in the bathroom. While it was nearly the last living space I made any changes in, it was well worth the wait. Maybe patience is the key to good design?

Here is a (terrifying) look at the before. So sad looking! It is hard to believe it is the same room.

As I am writing this post I am realizing almost none of the projects in this room have appeared on the blog, so let me tell you about a few of them. I found the mirror at Goodwill last summer for $8. My sister and I each bought one - we think they must have come from a hotel. It was an ugly gold brown and I spray painted it white. I had been on the lookout for a faucet for a long time but didn't want to take the $70 hit it costs to get a new one. My father in-law happened to just have this one in his garage! He even came for a visit to install it.

New Faucet

This light fixture was from the Restore and cost me around $10. It was again an ugly gold. I spray painted it white and now it is beautiful! Special thanks to Dad and T.J. for installing the light and the mirror. I love the scrolly detail of the light fixture with the lines of the mirror. Finally, the shower curtain is made from some of the fabric I picked up at Mood NYC this summer.

And so this concludes the Pinterest challenge. By far the best one yet! See my previous Pinterest challenge projects by clicking the following links: (button wreath) (clay earrings) (flower ring) and (bee running costume).

Easy Sunday Project

Today I whipped up some interesting and unconventional art for the bathroom. 

I found this giant H at Joann's for 10-11 dollars - but I used my 60% off coupon and got it for about $5. I used spray paint I had on hand. I was originally thinking a nice grey for the H, but T.J. suggested white. And I thought... why not. So we did. And I like how it turned out! Very unexpected in my color filled house. Good thing the shower curtain is bright and cheerful (fabric from my Mood trip this summer)!

 

I have been hard at work on this bathroom but it has been a slow process. I hope to have some sort of final reveal during Christmas break. As a sneak peek though - here is the light fixture I did. I got it for about $10 at the Restore - it was ugly gold. The mirror was $15 at Goodwill in MI.

Life Map

I have been wanting to make Map Art for a long time - since I saw this pin on Pinterest. Before I could start though I had to collect maps from 3 very important places to me - Michigan (where I was born, grew up, and met and married my husband), Charleston (where T.J. and I lived for 2 years and where we were living when we got married), and Indiana (where we live now, our first house, currently making memories, etc.). Michigan was easy - I drive by the welcome center there at least once a month. Same with Indiana - except most of the time I forget to stop there. I recently made a trip down to SC (see some pics here) but I was sleeping when we drove by the welcome center - so I had my mom stop by there. She was driving down separately about 4 hours behind us. So finally, I was ready to make my map art. I found this frame at Michaels pretty cheap - 50% off.

I made a pattern based on the pictures that come in the frame already 

and cut out each map centering the place that means something to us.

Viola! I may add a little something to mark where our house/apartment/college/childhood

 home is located, but I have not decided what yet. T.J. likes it the way it is.

The map art found a home in the guest bathroom - I had to move my awesome "Gone to Carolina" painting to a different wall. Still searching for the perfect frame for that painting...

What do you think? How many holes would your map frame need to have accommodate all the special places in your life? I wonder how many mine will need someday.

Small Change, Big Impact

I have been meaning to paint the sink cabinet in the guest bath black since July when I did a mirror/light/paint makeover in there (check out pics of that makeover here).

I can not believe I waited so long. I absolutely love the way it looks. It isn't a take your breath away kind of change, it is subtle really, but in the very best way. No more offensive wood vanity cabinet. It is shiny, black, fresh, and new. Check out the transformation:        (pardon the picture quality - there is almost zero natural light in this bathroom)

I do not have the perfect before picture to show, but I have this one where you can see a little of the wood cabinet. The picture below is actually of the master bath (which embarrassingly looks almost exactly like that still - I think it's the only room in the house we haven't done anything to yet) but the sink cabinet/vanity is the same.

First things first, I taped off the wall, floor, inside of the cabinet doors (just on the bottom shelf since the ledge I painted is nearly flush with it), and the underside of the counter. I also removed the toilet paper holder. I primed the cabinet and doors using the kind of primer with which you don't have to sand first, so I would not have to deal with sanding in that tight space. The primer is made by Zinsser - you can read more about it in my post from Tuesday.

I used the same Rustoleum Painters Touch black on the cabinet as I did for the shelves we recently built for our bedroom, and the vanity and chair I made over this past summer. This black paint is pretty amazing. It holds up really well from my experience so I was excited to use it again. I rolled on (I used a small foam roller and a small paintbrush to get the cracks and crevices) three coats total.

After 1 Coat

2 Coats

3 Coats - Done!

I also picked out new hardware for the cabinet. I tried to re-use what we had by spray painting them earlier this fall, but ultimately decided I wanted a more modern look. Check out the before, progress, and after shots below. 

The best part? The new hardware was only $1.99 each at Menards. Bonus! 

And for the big reveal....

The above are my attempts at showing the mirror and the vanity cabinet at the same time... harder than it seems! There are only so many camera angles in that bathroom.

There is only one thing left to do in there now... a new faucet! That cheap-o one in there drives me nuts. Unfortunately I don't think I can DIY my way into a new one... so I will have to break down and spend the big bucks someday. Or maybe I'll get lucky and find one in a thrift shop. Who knows!?!