March 15, 2011

thiiiiiiis close

The bathroom.
It only took us four months longer than planned but (drum roll please....) we are done, or so very nearly done that we can say it's done. The only thing left to do is to switch out the shade on the light fixture. The ones we bought, while pretty, were just not getting along with the mirror (too wide) so back to Lowes I will go later today to find some narrower ones.

As I've said before this bathroom is super hard to photograph because it's so stinkin small, but you get the idea. Coming from this (and remember, this was after we painted it, before it was even worse!)It's much better. In fact, I think it's our nicest, quality wise, renovation in this house, mostly due to the fact that we have a nail gun now and that we have finally learned the secret to caulking (wet sponge people, not fancy caulking tools or your finger, a wet sponge does the trick. And getting caulk from the paint store and not Lowes, that helps as well) If we had had Will's new nail gun when we were putting the kitchen together things would have gone so much more smoothly. But alas, we didn't. Still, all further renovations will be taking place at the hands of the fantastic finish nailer which I love, even though I'm terrified of it and won't be using it anytime soon.
So here's the rundown of what we did:

Everything came out of the old bathroom - tile on walls and floor, toilet (reserved, we'd already replaced it) sink, stinky cabinet, ugly mirror. The new white tile and dark grout went in pretty well with only a minimum of "oh shits. The paint had some more (a whole quart was tipped over in the hallway. Yeah, fun) Bead board on the walls with trim top and bottom.
The mirror was actually a gold picture frame from our dining room that held Briton's art. It was a wrench to loose it but it fit perfectly and after two months of trying to find something that would work it was a relief to realize we had something in the house that would do. Besides, I can get another frame (I hope). Will had the old upstairs bathroom mirror - which has been living in our closet since I redid that room- cut down and I paint the frame, gold wasn't working with the silver/teal/white color scheme, and up it went.

And then there is the sink. Yes, I know, this is not the sink I wanted. I almost had Will convinced to try the bast iron wall mounted one, but then it sold before we could pick it up and we never found another, and after waiting around for a few more weeks to see if another showed up we gave up (I gave up) and went pedestal. I'm actually pretty pleased with it, it makes the bathroom very crisp looking to have all that white on the lower half.
Besides, I love my kitchen sink, I love the upstairs sink, so if I don't love this one (I do like it, I just don't love it) oh well. Will should get a turn now and then. But don't tell him I said that because I'm totally winning the shingle vs. clapboard on the mudroom battle at the moment.

So yes, Done. I still need some doo-dads. A soap pump that looks nice and maybe something to hang over the toilet, but even without those things I'm so ridiculously pleased to have a bathroom again. One that smells nice and looks nice and ahhhhh.....is pretty much done.

Now. On to the next project. Mudroom floor, here I come.