A brand new half bath

The last touch to the bathroom was finished this past week - crown moulding! I loved the way the hotel room we stayed at in Palm Springs used dark crown moulding at the intersection of the walls and the ceiling. So I stole the idea for my bathroom makeover.


The crown moulding at Home Depot - you know the stuff labelled crown moulding was wide. Too wide, in my opinion for my little half bath. So I found some trim I liked instead and painted it.

Then I bought some new accessories - towel and soap pump shown here and finished the room off. I love the mirror in this room - it came with the house.

This is an awful crooked picture below, but it shows the toilet paper/flower pot thingy that I bought (that AB laughs at). You can also see the green color that has to go at some point.

Yay! I am really happy with how the half bath came out. February goal was a success!

I can't say much for March yet... I bought a few hooks for the closet to hang my belts and shawls/scarves. We will claim 10% complete on the status of the closet. By the end of the day if I am lucky I might be able to see the floor. I can't claim any status on the quilt - not even a trip to the fabric store to buy the supplies. Though we are slowly working our way through the freezer... last night we had both sturgeon and salmon from the freezer - and it was delicious.

Tonight we are having paella... of which nothing came from the freezer. Oh well.

Goals Update

I spent this past weekend working on my February goal. I am actually really, really pleased with myself. It is not 100% complete. But I have a very good chance of it being completed on time and within budget by the end of the month.

I, with the help of a good friend, painted my little half bathroom on Saturday and finished it up on Sunday. It took about an hour to tape it all and get it prepped. She came over and manned the roller while I crawled around the floor painting around the toilet and sink and chatted away. Normally AB does a lot of the painting with me, but it was nice to have a friend to help.

My little tiny bathroom went from blah white to elegant and spicy! (If I may say so myself.) I am really, really happy with the bathroom. I had to run to Michael’s on a secret errand this weekend and ended up buying a few decorative elements for the bathroom. I haven’t been happy with this little cabinet I have in the bathroom that sits on the floor that I use to hold the TP. So I got a tallish metal cylindrical vase thing and stacked the TP in there. Ok, so AB thought this was about the most ridiculous thing ever… But I like it. It looks stylish. I think.

AB loves the bathroom and commented that it looks like it belongs in some other house… not our house! It really did change the feel of the bathroom.

The one thing I have left is to paint the crown moulding and have AB install it. He is pleased about this revelation of mine that I suddenly “need” crown moulding in the bathroom because it lends credence to his long standing claim that he “needs” an air compressor and nail gun.

When we were in Palm Springs last week I loved the look of the black crown moudling in the hotel room. I opted for “espresso” to match other elements in the bathroom and the furniture we have in the front lower level of the house.

Once the crown moudling is in and I have bought a few hand towels that match the bathroom better than the ones I presently have… and a new valence… and a soap dispenser… then I will be done!

Which brings us to the topic of March.

March is going to be multi-faceted.

I want to finish the quilt I started (yes, the one I swore would only take me 3 weeks to do the top, and then the dog killed the sewing machine…). I want to finish that for spring so that I can pull my duvet off the bed and have smooth lines of a pretty quilt. My biggest issue is trying to figure out how to “quilt” a king sized quilt. It may be that hand quilting – which I HAVE done before (a long time ago) – may be my best option. Yikes. Not sure a month is long enough for that.

My closet has recently fallen to absolute disaster levels. Not only does it need cleaned out, but I need some more hooks for accessories and I need a good purge of the clothes I no longer wear.

The last one that AB has challenged us to? Eat our freezer to the bottom. This isn’t entirely possible. Because I am NOT eating the four or five chicken pot pies I have saved in there. And I think we probably have 15 containers of spaghetti sauce. I have seriously like 3 weeks of food if we only ate chicken pot pies and spaghetti sauce. I have a tortierre from a friend that I am saving for a special occasion to savor in there too. All the other stuff? The meat and such that we have purchased and not cooked? Bring it on.

The other tasks on my list for 2011 are (in no particular order):

Patio for the backyard (we may opt to take the backyard remodel that we want in steps and just start with getting a nice concrete pad out there).

Hardwood flooring for the office and formal dining room.

Paint the foyer/dining room/office.

Master bedroom… just take my word for it, it needs a serious overhaul.

Hola February

I have really been looking forward to my February goals. I needed a change up from organizing and picking through stuff and trashing stuff and sending stuff to Goodwill... I need a pretty project.

So here it is my tiny half bath on the bottom floor of our house. It is most commonly used by my kids. Next would be guests. Last would be AB and I. I want something pretty and elegant, a bit edgey and fun.

I never used to have a hard time picking paint colors, but I have seriously been all over the map with this room. Partly because I want a unified theme for the entire first floor. Specifically the office, foyer, dining room and half bath. I have lots of two toned woods, grey carpets that will hopefully see the curb this year in favor of hardwood and clayish, terra cotta-ish colored tile.

And this green foyer. The green foyer is going bye bye. I can't coordinate anything with it. It's killing me.

February is a short month, so I can tackle the half bath and get a start on my redecorate the front first level of the house.

I started with some brown/deep purple/plum colors. I want something a bit dramatic and am not overly concerned with making the space appear small. It is a half bathroom after all, it is never going to appear spacious.




The main color I was targeting was the one next to the mirror. (Don't you love the wooden mirror? I do.)

I went a tone or two softer to test because so many people said, "you can't go that dark in that room".

And well... maybe they were right. But I also couldn't do the mauve.

Back to square one.

One evening of after Christmas shopping I came across these iris paintings on a great clearance. And I love irises. Reminds me of living in Boulder and the iris field on Broadway as well as my wedding flower.

See in addition to the dark color and the mauve, I had also picked out an "acorn spice" color. When we put it on the wall we said, "ewww, breastfed baby poop". (The mustard on the right by the window. Yes, I will be replacing the valence.)

Then I put the picture up.


And suddenly the breastfed baby poop color wasn't so bad. The gold on the frame really popped!

But I wanted to play with the color a bit more, I am not a fan of yellows that much... I was attracted to the color because of the name... acorn spice.

I went and bought a few more colors. Four more to be precise. And this is the collection so far.

See the color at the top on the right? Loving that for the bathroom. Just enough orange and gold to bring out the gold on the frame. On photo #2 it is the color to the left of the picture.

See the brick color on the bottom? Loving that for my foyer. AB has issued a "we'll see about that" decree. (He still loves the green.)

So President's Day - a forced day off since the kids' school is closed - I hope to paint the bathroom. Then we will need new rugs, a new valence and I would like some decorative element to go on the little cabinet I have in there that holds the TP and all that stuff.

I had kind of hoped to piggy back on another goal this month. But it is seeming short enough as is. My March goal I am hoping to devote to backing my quilt and quilting it for spring use in the bedroom.