Hello hello hello! I'm back today with an honest-to-god reveal post. Two posts in one week, I've practically got my sh*t together! Maybe I'll start getting dressed before lunch time and occasionally being on time for things.....or maybe not. Baby steps.
Yeah, so I was going to title this post "guest bathroom reveal", and then I realised I'm not actually American, so instead you get a terrible pun that was more relevant a month ago when I started this makeover.
I wish I was sorry but I'm just not.
So what happened was I woke up new years day with a crazy urge to do...something! It was raining, the kids had their friends in and Gavin was doing something on the computer so I was actually left alone long enough to follow my own train of thought for once, and that train led me right out to the shed, to examine my stash of stuff left over from work we've done on other parts of the house.
I had most of a tin of "Sail White" paint by Dulux left over from the kitchen that I thought I could use in the playroom (as that was what I had originally planned to be the first thing I got working on this year) but when it came to it I decided I'd rather do the downstairs toilet instead. I wanted something I could actually finish instead of just getting started on something I would have to finish later....when I had some money! So this was going to be a seriously cheap makeover, using only stuff I already had.
This is what I had to work with:
A bit sad, a bit 90's, a bare light bulb and the same green/brown thing going on as had been in the kitchen. Not my style.
I had no plan, no money, just what I had to hand....it'd be a challenge! And I had been wanting to tart up that room for a while now. It's the bathroom that gets the most use in this house, it's something practically every guest gets to see, and it's where I do some of my best hiding, illicit chocolate eating and occasional quiet weeping so it should really be somewhere that I actually liked!
So I launched into it with more enthusiasm than care or finesse and I got the bulk of this makeover done the first day I actually started doing it!.......aaaaand then it took me a month to actually finish the damn thing.
We all got sick, the weather was crap, we were broke. You know, all that good stuff that makes you feel like closing the curtains and hiding for a few months. I wasn't feeling it.
Sometimes I feel like getting shit done and writing blog posts about it.
Sometimes I feel like sitting around binge watching American Horror Story in worn out leggings attempting to eat my weight in cheese.
What'cha gonna do? The heart wants what the heart wants.
Eventually I came out of my cheesy, benylin induced haze and decided to get on with it. So it's finally finished...or at least as good as, and that's good enough for me! Let's get to the good stuff!
Drumroll puh-lease........
Isn't that better?!!
I started by painting the walls with three (yes three, painful. Note to self, undercoat!) coats of Dulux Sail White. Love the colour, which is a nice warm white that I had left over from when I painted the kitchen over a year ago.
I then painted the door and skirting with black chalk paint. The idea was to use it like a proper public toilet and have guests leave obscene and insulting messages on it, but so far I have loved the look of the matte black so much that I've kept it clean.
The feather art is a framed €1.50 tea towel from Penneys!
I painted the charity shop hexagon mirror I already had in here with a sample of "at the smithy" by Valspar, and I used regular white gloss to paint over the backsplash, just like I did in the kitchen.
The shelves were from a set I bought in Homestore before we even had a house. They aren't great quality but at the time I'd never been in close contact with a shelf that wasn't already on a wall so I didn't pay that much attention! They were cheap though and they look good in here so it wasn't a total bust.
The art is all free printables, you can find the bike here, the fern here and the octopus here. The "wash your hands" sign I had to make myself, seeing as my taste in inspirational messaging runs a little more towards the....aggressive than anything I could find on Pinterest!
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| Yes, the octopus isn't printed properly. Yes, it has since been fixed to fill the frame. I just really didn't want to wait the extra week it would probably take me to get the time (and light!) to take another picture of it! |
The plants are all from LIDL or Tesco and were all €1.99 except for the one above, which was €2.99.
My collection is getting a little out of hand but they just make such a difference to a space that I can't seem to stop myself if I see a bargain
The copper soap dish and vase (*cough, toothbrush holder) were bargains I found in Dunnes one night when I was making an emergency milk run. (I often get asked how I find these things, the answer I guess is that I am always looking. I'm sure it's annoying to anyone I'm with!)
The towel is from Penney's.
The awesome copper light fitting is also from Dunnes (I removed the ugly white insert thingy that it had that was totally ruining it!) and I got the bulb in Ebay (but I've since found much a much better LED version in Ikea, or Harvey Norman also sells similar)
The Tricer-a-pot (I'm sorry) is from Tiger, and the minute I saw him I knew he had to be mine.
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| Look at him there, gazing wistfully into the distance, dreaming of a day when he can have this plant removed from his back and live a normal, fulfilled dinosaur life. |
I created a bit of interest on the wall by once again just lashing some tape I had up there. I used washi tape this time, which is very easy to remove and doesn't damage the paint.
I didn't have any plans at all for the colours in here. Like I said, I was just using what I had, but once I had put the tape up there I found a Valpar sample of "Zephyr" that was a great match and really worked with the greenery so it looks pretty pulled-together.
I gave our nasty, paint-splattered step stool a couple of coats of "zeph and added some interest with the same washi tape as I used on the walls. I use this stool for painting all the time so it'll probably get ruined again but day to day it lives in here so Em can get to the toilet by herself so it was about time I made it a bit more presentable.
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I feel like I need to mention....that fine animal you see there is Mr. George B. Luga, a stuffed beluga whale my husband found on a bench when he was working in a park in Australia ten years ago. After looking after him all day in case his kid came back, he brought him home at the end of the day cos he "couldn't leave him there on his own". He's currently Max's best buddy and constant companion, and I think that story tells you more about my husband than anything else I could ever say :)
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I also took the glass out of a lantern I found in Penney's for €10 and I'm currently using it to store extra TP. Who knows if it'll stay in here but for now it works!
It usually lives on the floor, but the floor is the same 90's tile as the kitchen one and still offends me to my very core so I refuse to take a picture of it! I will be changing it but as it runs into the utility room as well I need to make solid decisions on what I'm going to do in there before I go trying anything.
All I bought new for this makeover were the copper dish and vase, the towel and the "tp holder", everything else I already had, so my total spend for this project was a gigantic €24! I'm happy with that!
All in all this was a quick, satisfying little makeover and I'm really glad it's done. Yes, it took forever for the perfect storm of events that is the "clean house, quiet kids, bright enough for pictures" trifecta to happen and let me get the post finished, but overall it wasn't too bad!
I've started work on the playroom now so I'm hoping my momentum and new-found enthusiasm will continue long enough to get that done in the near future!
Now if I could just figure out how they can sense when I'm trying to do something that I really don't want their "help" with.....
What do you think? Ever updated a room using only what you had to hand? I'd love to see it if you did!
