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. 

Apps

When we started house hunting, I installed the Realtor.com app.  While the website certainly had some issues, I really liked the app.  Even though I eventually also downloaded Redfin, I found myself preferring Realtor - it showed nearby open houses, nearby houses for sale, and recently sold houses using a tag with the price.  You could star ones that you liked and it also showed a checkmark next to ones you had already used.  The most recent update to the iPad app cluttered up the search with sold houses, and you can't undo it, so I do hope they fix it.   A number of my friends like the Zillow or Trulia apps, but they don't always have the most up to date info (the websites especially) so we skipped those.  It was easy to log in on the computer, although searching on the actual Realtor website was really annoying and time consuming - I found myself pulling out the app just to do a search. 

Because I'm crafty, I of course already had the Pinterest app on my phone, and originally that was my go-to for house design stuff.  This created a couple of problems, like some of my nosier friends getting excited and asking if we'd found a house when I started pinning some very specific features.  Mostly, the search interface wasn't great, the links weren't always good, and people on Pinterest seem to define small bathroom as "my whirlpool tub and shower don't each have their own room". 

When we first started looking a houses that had weird little quirks that we would need to change, I started googling things to see if they were possible or how they looked.  And over and over again, I would get links to Houzz.  I assumed that Houzz was like when you google a recipe for something delicious and then you get a link to Cooks.com or one of the other horrible sites that just gives you 400 recipes that are NOT what you were searching for.

So it wasn't until three or four of my twitter friends suggested I check out Houzz that I went ahead and downloaded the app.  And it's awesome.  It's like Pinterest for houses, but the search function is better, you don't get 400 pictures of the exact same thing, and when you repin, it doesn't make you write stupid captions. Plus, generally there is a link to the designer and you can write questions and ask, for example, where they got that vanity or those towels and they'll answer if they know.  There's also usually links to things like the tile or flooring used. 

Plus, they make it really easy to embed stuff in blog posts. 

Traditional Bathroom by Edina General Contractors REFINED LLC
 
I also downloaded and installed the Ikea App.  In Baltimore, we have two Ikeas in easy driving distance, and the Ikea App lets you make a list (the website does the same) and will tell you whether the items you've put on your list are in the store.  When you are in the store, you can add items to the app and then when you go downstairs, it tells you where to find them!  It saves stuff they didn't have for later. 

What are some good other apps? Are any of the home improvement store apps any good?