The OTHER bathroom

I haven't talked much about the upstairs bathroom because there isn't much to say - but it has been an organizational challenge. The vanity is too small. There is also no medicine cabinet. 

There's also no storage. So when we moved in, we stood there and stared at the bathroom going, "I don't understand where all this stuff will go."  Then we remembered that my sister gave us storage cubes that did not yet have a home, and would fit perfectly on either side of the vanity.

It is totally ugly and disorganized, but for right now, it's provided the additional storage that we need. If this was permanent, we would paint the cubes, but I'm planning to steal them for craft supplies after we redo the bathroom.

Eventually, we will be replacing the vanity with a wall to wall vanity that has plenty of storage for all.

The more immediate question was the issue of towel storage. We don't have a linen closet, so we knew towels had to go somewhere.  We had one of these old bookshelves from college, so it created a temporary solution (and gave it a temporary home) to the problem.  Unfortunately, it didn't fit nearly enough of our towels - it maxed out around four, plus hand towels and washcloths.

 We were at Bed Bath and Beyond on Saturday, so we picked up this 3 shelf bath tower. I've included a picture so that YOU DO NOT BUY IT. It is terrible.  Assembly was horribly, and the quality control is absolutely awful, but now it's assembled and looks okay.  But seriously, save your money, because I'm sure you could get a similar but better unit elsewhere for similar money.

 However, it does fit all of our towels. (Many of which are currently waiting to be washed in our soon-to-be-working washer/dryer.)

 I've never really worried about having a lot of matching towels before, but now I'm concerned because they're out and oh no, they don't match. Then I remembered I don't live in Pinterest and it's really okay to have assorted towels because that is how real people live. I would like to get a basket for hand towels and one for washcloths for the top - any thoughts on how that would look? I mostly want them to not fall over.

 We also installed a new towel rod, because we needed a closer location to hang towels in the bathroom.  We used to keep them on the door of our old bathroom, because the door was close to the tub.  Having to hang them over a rod was not working for us, so we got a rack with hooks instead.  We're trying to keep all of the fixtures brushed nickel, so that's what we went with here as well. 

 

 

50 Shades of White

Our second painting project in the house was the closet doors.  They were pretty beat up and I thought a simple coat of white paint would help freshen them up and make them a little brighter. 

It was not worth it.  They took forever to paint, and the hallway is so dark you can barely notice a difference. 

Firstly, we bought a high gloss white paint in the basic white color at our local hardware store.  The doors were white before, so I didn't think it would be that big a deal if I didn't get full coverage, etc. 

 

There are about 5 million shades of white.  Lesson learned.  The fronts I painted with a straight brush and a trim roller.  It took forever, my hand hurt, and I wound up needing to do two coats just to cover the old white with the new white and make it look good. 

 

I found a tutorial that suggested painting the insidy parts of the boxes first.  It didn't help make anything easier or with getting more coverage. 

 

Because we set the doors against the wall on a dropcloth, painting the bottom of the doors was also a challenge.

 

 

Finally they were done, and while you can clearly see they are not very well done in this photo, I was ready to call it "good enough" and decided we would live with the doors as they are. 

 

I searched a number of Pinterest Tutorials about painting, and a lot of them suggested the "shockingly easy" tip of lining your paint pan with tin foil and then throwing it out.  Listen, folks.  They make these amazing amazing paint trays that are lined with Teflon.  They are the best thing ever.  They are cheaper than a roll of tin foil.

I did read a tip to soak my brushes in vinegar and hot water to get the paint off of them, and it helps a lot - the bristles don't get so stiff, and the paint comes off a bit easier.  If anyone has any tips for cleaning rollers, they are appreciated.  This tutorial suggests using fabric softeners, so I think maybe a dryer sheet in a bucket will help us out next week when we have to paint the bathroom. 

Closet makeover

The house only has two closets.  So when we realized that one of them was taken up almost entirely by shelving and a vent, we knew some demolition was in order.  I also wanted to paint the inside of the closet a sunny, fun yellow color.  I spent a lot of time on Pinterest looking for tutorials for redoing the closet, and Home Depot for materials.  It turns out that that is a huge waste of time.  Here is how you redo a closet. 

1. Measure your clothes to figure out how much space you need (this can include length, so you can hang your rod as high as it needs). 
2. Measure your new closet to figure out how much space you can have.
3. Measure your new closet to figure out how big a shelf you can fit over your closet rod.
4. Measure your bins that go on the shelf to figure out how much space you need to leave between the shelf and the ceiling.  Alternately, wing this. 
5. Go to home depot. You can choose between the expensive wooden rod that you can saw yourself, the metal rod you need a hacksaw to saw (but is cheaper, except not really, since you have to buy a hacksaw) or the adjustable metal rod that already has easy screw in end pieces.  You can also choose between shelf brackets that also support the closet rod, and ones that don't. I opted for ones that do, since they were cheaper.  You can also choose between wood and the particleboard coated with plasticy stuff that I can't remember the name for (I'll just call it Ikeaboard).  I went with the Ikeaboard and I like that it already has a finished look.  Plus, it was half the price. 
6. Crowbar out the old closet shelves.  My husband did it for me while I was out on a run, so I have no instructions for this.
7. Remove the old closet rails. 
8. Prime and paint the new closet. (A friend and I did this, and she did most of it while I sat, stepped in, and knocked over paint and very poorly painted the area behind the vent, which was time consuming and hard to get to.) I skipped the primer, and to be honest, it looks really terrible. If I had taken the extra ten minutes to prime it, it would look much better. 
9. Install the new closet shelf.  Start with the brackets.  Then screw in the shelf.  It is very important that they be level and at the same height.  You may need several attempts.  Also, be sure to use drywall anchors and the correct size screw. 
10. Add the closet rod.  If you bought the cheap adjustable one, it already comes with mounting hardware.  Ta da!

Before:

 

After!

As much as I would have liked to have shelves in the closet, they simply didn't make sense where they were.  I'm planning on putting shoe storage in front of the vent, since there is about 10" of space there. 

It also took an entire quart of paint to pain this closet, probably because we didn't prime it.  But, I have four feet of hanging space for clothes, so it's a significant upgrade.