Bathroom = DONE

So, one of the reasons we bought our house was because there was not much we had to do to it.  New carpet, fresh neutral paint, ceramic tile in the kitchen and bathrooms.  We're both super busy and did not want our first house to be a fixer-upper.  However, after one of my husband's infamous Rock Band nights I came home to a giant hole in the plaster of our downstairs bathroom and a towel rack on the floor.

Six months and Dave's first drywall job later, we had new fixtures (towel rack, toilet paper holder etc.) but still no fresh paint.  We were hosting a get together for Dave's sister and her friends (because she lives out of state) on the Monday of a long weekend, and on Friday night we decided it DEFINITELY had to be painted by the time they all came over.

We hurriedly went to Lowes, got all the painting supplies we needed and picked out a color we thought would be just a BIT brighter than the very neutral yellow it was currently.  Were we ever wrong.  It turned out to be crayon/mustard/AWFUL yellow - and with the harsh lights in there, it was blinding.  See below.

YIKES.  Also, for reference, this quick paint job took place in the summer of 2010.  We swore to each other we would re-paint the room as soon as we could, and apparently that was not until October of 2011.  Whatev.

Once my Pinterest obsession began, one of the first things I looked for was color palettes for the bathroom that would go with our bronze fixtures (see above) so we didn't need to replace those...again.  I found my inspiration a few weeks ago (image below from here)

And so the process began.  This time, I went to Lowe's for color swatches to put up on the wall BEFORE making a color selection.  I was NOT going to make the same mistake and have to paint the bathroom yet AGAIN.

So, I made a fun swatch wall and Dave and I picked out our faves.  Out of all of those, I ended up getting 4 small color samples, two were blue-ish shades and two were more grey.  Then we painted those on the wall to see what we thought.

I liked the two that were more grey, Dave liked the light blue.  Go figure.  But then, we thought, is this really even close to what these colors are going to look like??? Clearly the base color they were painted on MAY have had an effect on their final color.  

So we went ahead and primed the walls before making our final color choice.  Just so we could make SURE we were not making a color mistake (we were a little scarred from the first time).  Also, after I primed, I changed the light bulbs to a "soft white" version so that any remaining blinding effect would be gone and we could see the colors under the new, final light.

We went with the top left option - the darker of the grey shades we tried.  I thought it would go great with the bronze fixtures (below) and still allow us to use our light blue towels/rug.

However, like I said before, nothing ever comes out exactly like I think it's going to.  Once the room was painted and dry, the paint was much lighter and bluer than expected (even after ALL the testing we did), and the towels we were too close to the wall shade.

Oh well, we like it, and it's MUCH better than the yellow.   

So, here is everything, all painted.  This is before I took the tape off (obviously) which was a whole other fiasco.  Let me add in here that I am the MOST impatient person in the entire world and doing the touch-up painting (after the tape removal) just about killed me.

After the painting came the decorations (my fave part of the project).  My mom is "de-cluttering" to try and put her house on the market, so I came into a few wood shelves, one of which I thought work perfectly over the toilet.  We needed something to fill the space of the huge painting we had in there before.  

It was a light wood color, so to make is usable in the bathroom I just sanded and primed the shelf, and then sanded it again to give it a nice used look.  I LOVE the whole antique white wood thing and I think it came out pretty well. I had Dave help me anchor it into the drywall and then set it up with some mirrors I got at Goodwill ($3...YES) and some frames from T.J. Maxx.  I LOVE how it came out.

I also replaced the candles on the sink with some white roses I had in another room of the house.

I'm not quite happy with the candle side yet, but I'll keep working on that.  

Since our blue towels ended up being too close to the wall color we used a tan rug and towel we had from one of Dave's old apartments (for the time being) but those will be replaced eventually with something a bit nicer, and a bit lighter.

So there you have it!  Much better downstairs bathroom.  My first true completed Pinterest inspired project.  Next projects are closet organization (on my side - Dave happens to be very organized) and built-ins around the fireplace.  

Get excited!  Dexter tried, but he just can't handle it.  All the work on the bathroom really wore him out.