Tiling and styling!

Jason and I actually managed to accomplish a small remodeling project in our house, which, as far as I'm concerned, is no small feat with a) a baby in the house and b) pretty much no handiwork skills.

We actually redid our entire downstairs bathroom, or "powder room" for my Canadian counterparts. It all started because of a wobbly toilet.  It was so bad that I would get up off the toilet (which, at 9 months pregnant, was a little too frequently) and it would make a huge noise, then I would hear water running... not a good sign. After Drew was born Jason's mom came to visit and helped us pull out the toilet to replace the seal underneath.  It turned out that there was a leak, and it was pretty bad; the hardwoods under and around the toilet were pretty much destroyed.

So we decided to pull out the wood and replace it with tile.  Who puts hardwoods in a bathroom anyway? (Don't even get me started on the hardwoods in my kitchen... I love the wood, but between leaking refrigerators, dishwashers, back doors where wet animals come in and out, and of course said animals' water bowl, they're just about destroyed too!).  We picked out some tile that would match the chocolate brown walls in the bathroom....

Then we realized those walls were in horrible need of being repainted too (and what better time to paint than when the toilet and sink are out of the way!). My main reason for wanting to repaint the walls was because the previous owner had used a flat paint, and that paint showed every drip of water from shaking water off hands and dripping it over the towel.  Even though many of you were happy to see it go, I actually liked the chocolate brown, but I finally admitted that a closet-sized bathroom is not the place for dark enclosing colors (I should mention that aside from our master bathroom all the colors in our house are from the previous owner).  I was going to get a glossy version of a slightly lighter brown but I finally relented and decided to paint the walls with the same neutral color the rest of our house is painted with (so boring!).

Because I picked such a boring wall color I wanted to spruce up the rest of the bathroom. I wanted to incorporate the dark brown that I loved, and thought I'd also pull in some of the red from my living room and kitchen. Jason, however, was not happy about that prospect because he knew it meant spending even more money.

So I managed to buy only a few small things- a new towel (you can't use a tan towel with tan walls), a soap dispenser ($5 at Target!), a can of brown spray paint, a bottle of "antiqued bronze" metallic paint, and some red/orange glass marbles. I painted the mirror frame, the trash can, the towel hanger, and the toilet paper holder (which were all gold) with the antiqued bronze metallic paint, then spray painted my wicker baskets brown.  I almost bought a wall hanging for the wall (actually, I DID buy a wall hanging, and promptly returned it) before I realized I already had one sitting around doing nothing after getting knocked off the wall in my entry way (picture Jason walking through the house with a lawn mower... okay, okay, it's just a push mower, but still!). It was even better than the one I had purchased- the interlocking rectangles looked perfect with the little red rectangles on my towel. Instead of buying candles I filled the votive holders with brown stones I already had and the cheap red/orange glass marbles I had purchased.

I wish I had before and after pics, but I didn't think of it at the time. At the very least, here is the color the walls were (they were the same color that is currently in my upstairs guest bath, or Drew's bathroom I guess I should say)

And here are the hardwoods (against a darker chocolate brown)

And voila, the new bathroom:

It drives me nuts that some of the rectangles are crooked

 

Many thanks to "Poppy" for all the help ripping out the hardwoods and installing the tile.

And many thanks to Grandma for helping to fix our horrid painting job!!

Grandma had to borrow some painting clothes from me. Guess what? She's wearing a shirt I used to wear in 6th grade!

P.S. Those of you who have been to my house may be thinking, "that bathroom has been finished for a month! Why is she just posting pictures now?" Well, things were "finished" for a month but we finally got the last finishing touch put on last week- the wall hanging. I couldn't possibly take pictures until that was finished!!