Quickie bathroom refresh: New shower curtain and repainted register

Our main bathroom was calling out for some attention. We did a gut renovation in early 2010, but a quickie refresh was in order. First, a new shower curtain.

The old one was water-stained and snagged, and I was growing tired of it anyway. Changing out a shower curtain is so cheap and easy, there's no sense in living with something you don't like anymore.

I found this one at Target for $20. They have so many pretty options right now in their Threshold line, but I loved this all-over floral design the best. We definitely need a white curtain in this bathroom. The window is in the shower and when pulled closed, a white curtain still lets much of the light through. Getting rid of that swath of dark black at the top definitely brightened things up.

Quick change #2 was repainting the register. I feel like this is something I post about all the time. I think I've done like three other posts about painting registers (!) so I won't bore you to death again, but I just love our house's vintage cast iron registers. Especially in this room, it's an important period detail that's very noticeable.

I stripped and repainted it in 2010, but since then a bit of rust had started to peek through the paint. I had even used a rusty metal primer, but I guess the humidity in this room is just too much for even specialty rust products. We have an exhaust fan and use it all the time, and the rust probably would be worse if we didn't.

I did two thin -- almost drybrushed -- coats of black latex enamel and called it done. It took three years to start rusting, so I didn't even bother using another coat of primer. I may come to regret that decision in the future, but I really didn't want to buy any more paint. (Have you seen my stash??)

I went all black this time instead of two-tone. Looks pretty slick! Definitely an eye catcher. Plus, the black should mask any rust that starts popping through again.

p.s. if anyone in the STL spots a vintage cast iron register like the one above at an antique mall, e-mail me at erin (at) lansdownelife (dot) com or shoot me a message through Facebook. I'm trying to scoop one up for my kitchen, and I've seen them from time to time, but of course, now that I'm on the hunt for one, I never ever see them.

Project FAIL: Painted bathroom sconces

I don't think I share enough of my project fails with you. Not that I have a ton of them, but when they do occur, I'm usually discouraged and it hardly seems worth the effort to put together a post about it.

But I don't want to give off the impression that everything happens without incident around here, so here's my latest fail.

When we remodeled our bathroom, I chose these vintage-style sconces. They were from Lowe's and budget-priced at $30 each (although I don't think they sell them anymore). But I still find myself lusting after fancier, pricier painted shade sconces such as those at Schoolhouse Electric.

Photos: Schoolhouse Electric: 1 / 2 / 3

I even considered purchasing replacement shades for the existing sconces just to give them a bit more style, but who knows if they would actually fit in the fixtures correctly. Plus even that option would have me spending an unnecessary $70+.

And then I had a giant "duh" moment: I could just paint the shades I already had!

After removing the shades and washing them in some soapy water, I cleaned them with rubbing alcohol (per the instructions on the bottle of craft paint).

Then I taped off my first stripe. It took a while because I was trying to match the decorative edges in the shade.

After burnishing the edges of the tape down, I painted the exposed area with three thin coats of glossy craft paint.

When the paint was dry, I peeled off the tape and... bleh. Not only did the paint bleed a little under the tape, the stripe just looked heavy and sloppy. I had planned to do a second thinner stripe, but just scrapped the entire project once I saw the results of the first. Project fail.

Luckily, craft paint is pretty easy to clean off glass, especially when it's fresh. I soaked the shades in some hot water for a while.

And most of the paint scraped right off without much effort. I did have to scrub a bit to get the last little bits off, but they cleaned up completely. And we're back to where we started. Hmph.

Fixing a wiggly towel bar

I've been on fix-it patrol lately: mend this, glue that, touch up paint here and there. But the biggest fix-it around here was our bathroom towel bar.

Before

It was new not quite a year and a half ago with our bathroom remodel, and on a number of occasions since then, it has pulled away from the wall. My dad tightened it up a couple of times, but it eventually got wiggly again, and I decided we needed a more permanent solution. The towel bar was just too heavy for the drywall to support it. It needed something stronger to hold it up.

Before

My dad cut a piece of wood to fit between the closet door molding and the corner. I wanted it to stretch the full length of this wall to minimize the lines. Then he pre-drilled some holes for me in both the wood and into the studs and left me to finish the rest on my own.

I gave it three coats of paint in the same white as the rest of the trim (which was matched to the tile). Basically, I just wanted it to blend in and not draw attention to itself. Then I mounted the board to the wall and the towel bar to the wood.

I filled in the screw holes with some painter's caulk (I'm kind of obsessed with the stuff right now), and when it was dry, did some touch up painting over that. Wood fill might have worked a little better, but I was feeling impatient and didn't want to make a mess with the sanding wood fill would have required. You don't really see the indents too much when the towels are hanging up anyway.

It's so sturdy now, Elise could probably do chin ups on it. Kidding. Please don't tell her to do that.

Bathroom renovation tub length solution

One thing we ran into during our bathroom renovation was an issue with the tub length.

Before

Our old tub was an odd 63" long, and most new tubs are all 60" or five feet long. In addition, the plaster and lath walls and tile we removed were a lot thicker than the new cement boad and tile we installed. All in all, we were left with about a 6-inch gap between the width of the tub and the width of the room.

In process

We dealt with this by building out the wall to the width of the tub on the back wall of the shower. I was wary to lose any space in our small bathroom and thought this build out would look very conspicuous.

But because we took it all the way up to the ceiling instead of just building it up to the height of the tub, it looks less like a compromise and more deliberate.

I think it even adds some visual interest and character! I chose to line up the tile with the corner to simplify the lines.

As a side benefit, building out the wall allowed us to include a very functional niche for shampoo bottles, etc. Hooray for no tub deck clutter!

Bathroom renovation addendum: The Closet

Excuse me while I show my nerdiness for a moment. Our renovation wouldn't be complete without making the closet just as pretty as the rest of the bathroom.

The bins and containers used in the previous incarnation of this closet just weren't cutting it. This is a small closet in a small bathroom in a small house, and I wanted to maximize every inch.

I needed bins that fit the shelves appropriately, so I went a little crazy at The Container Store. (And by "went a little crazy," I mean "spent $60.") I wanted to use plastic bins, not baskets or fabric containers that could be ruined by oozing shampoo or lotion bottles.

I labeled bins for our everyday personal items with these little frames from the dollar bin at Michael's. I think they add a little character to what are otherwise boring shelves.

I used clear plastic shoeboxes for our giant stockpile of toiletries. This way, Dan can find what he's looking for easily without having to sift through a jumbled mess like before.

The black drawer unit at the bottom is an alley find from several years ago. Really, it's a piece of junk. But it looks cute and it's suitable for the light duty of holding the toilet paper.

Before you get the crazy idea that every closet in our house looks like this, think again. I've always wanted a magazine-perfect organized space and this is close enough for me!

Our DIY bathroom renovation is DONE

Our bathroom renovation is finally complete! Let's take a quick look at why we did this renovation in the first place.

There was so much wrong with this bathroom. The 1980's vanity ate up way too much floor space and was suffering from a poor paint job. The tub was peeling from a bad recoat. The toilet was from 1938! All of the tile was original to the house, but it was cracked and stained. I'm not even going to go into detail about the white tile paired with the off-white paint and yellowing faux-marble shell-shaped sink.

We replaced nearly everything: the walls, tile, fixtures, lighting. There was not much worth saving, but we did keep the doors, door trim and the vent cover. We wanted to keep this renovation in the style of our 1930 house and I loved the existing black and white color scheme and vintage vibe of the tile.

Although it took much longer than we had planned, we are thrilled with the final result. It's so shiny and fresh and new, I almost don't want to use it for fear we'll mess it up!

It's so satisfying to see all of the things I selected individually functioning as a whole. Because we did all of the work ourselves (my dad - 95%, me - 5%), we were able to complete the entire renovation for under $3,000. No small chunk of change, but for a gut job on a bathroom, that's pretty cheap!


Sources
Paint: Olympic from Lowe's, Wall - Eiffel Tower, Ceiling and trim - Dogwood Blossom;
Tub: Villager by Kohler from Home Depot;
Pedestal sink and toilet: Brianne by Gerber;
Medicine cabinet: Kohler from Lowe's;
Wall tile: 3x6 flat subway tile from Lowe's;
Floor tile: Black and white hexagonal tile by American Olean from Lowe's;
Faucets: American Standard;
Lights: Sconces from Lowes; Ceiling light/fan by Broan from Home Depot;
Towel bars: Restoration Hardware.

Linked to: Get Your Craft On with Today's Creative Blog, Thrifty Decor Chick: Before and After Party, House of Hepworths

Bathroom vent cover makeover

The cast iron vent cover in our bathroom had about ten layers of crusty, dusty, grimy paint on it. You could barely see the grooved detail around the border of the vent.

My dad stripped the paint off all of it revealing a patent date of 1906! Then I repainted it: the middle with black glossy spraypaint and the frame with the nice crisp white I used on the bathroom trim.

This is the last mini bathroom update before the reveal of the whole thing later this week. Promise!