Here fishy fishy fishy...

So about my post last week-- if you guessed "fish" than you'd be correct!  I've always thought that vintage/antique pictures of fish are so cute.  As I was perusing Etsy for maps I stumbled upon the most awesome fish picture ever.  It was an 1886 chromolithograph of various fish-- and it was spectacular.  I wasn't going to buy it-- I was just admiring the fish-- but when I showed it to Doug he really liked it too!  And since Doug loves to fish I thought that it would probably be a fun addition to our home.  There's a lot of "me" in this house-- we needed a little more of "Doug" in the house.

So I bought it.  Then I waited for it to come.  As I was running out of the house for preschool pick up the other morning I found the package on my front step.  I didn't have enough time to open it (it was REALLY well packaged) so I figured I'd save it for later.  In the car on the ride home I told Caleb that there was a special package waiting for us to open at home.  I decided to play a little guessing game with him-- "Inside the package is a picture-- a picture of an animal."  "Monkeys!!!"... Caleb says.  I go on to tell him that it's a picture of something Daddy like to catch when he has free time.  "BUTTERFLIES!!!"  Caleb exclaims.  Nope-- Doug does not catch butterflies in his free time... not as far as I know.

So we get home and I begin to open the package (only after a long discussion over why Caleb is not allowed to use the knife to help... and no he doesn't have his own knife... and no he cannot have his own knife...)  And as I pull it out of the envelope I find this...

Most adorable packaging ever.  I was not expecting it to look this pretty!!  And there was a card-- I read it.  It says:

"Thank you very much for your order and for visiting Bananastrudel (the name of the etsy shop)!  We've included a 1931 BC map that we thought you might also like."

What!!!?  I guess they must have seen all the other great items in their shop that I had "hearted".  Look at how cute this freebie of a map is...

How's that for great customer service?  You really should go check out Bananastrudel for other really cool stuff.

So I love my free map.  But you know what I love even more?  My fish.  I started giggling when I saw the fish.  They are so cute.  They make me happy.  I've decided to hang my fish in the bathroom.

The fish are accompanied by Caleb's bathroom toothbrushing portraits.  Now that Eme has 4 (with a few more on the way) teeth she's going to need a toothbrushing photo taken too...

And then my photo shoot was hijacked.

Oh my.  Don't you love those post nap pre dinner hours?  You know-- those hours when the kids go a little crazy?

Anyhow.  My bathroom may not beautiful (yet) but it's fun.  And those fish makes us happy... right Caleb?

How hard could it be?

So on a quite regular basis, I look over at Doug, smile, and say as sweetly as possible... "Hey honey, I have an idea."  And he knows... I've dreamed up another project.  Here's my latest idea.  This one's for the bathroom...

Now what's the common element in all of these pictures?  A super awesome one of a kind vanity.  Honestly-- it can't be THAT hard to build a base, throw down a slab of countertop or paint/stain and seal the top, and finish it off with a great sink like this...

This sink is only $70 from Ikea.  Yup, it would pretty much be the coolest and cheapest bathroom vanity ever.  Now, I know that I would be losing quite a bit of under the sink storage-- but maybe I can scheme up another way to store and conceal all of our bathroom junk.  Our upstairs bathroom is a long narrow room-- so I think that having a vanity with open space underneath would really open up the room and make it feel more spacious.  Well, that's my bright idea for a rainy Monday morning!

All images from pinterest

It was time...

... for another project.

Last weekend-- or maybe it was the weekend before-- Doug and I were sitting around with nothing to do.  I came up with a spur of the moment, totally free, make work project for us (actually Doug, not "us") ... creating floating shelves in the bathroom.  I've hinted at it before but I'll say it now-- any projects that require any amount of specialized skill are executed by Doug!  I'm the creative brain who dreams all these crazy things up... Doug is left to figure out how to do it!

So after I shared my vision with him, Doug sprang into action.  He pulled out some scraps of plywood and MDF and turned on the table saw.  In about an hour or two he had the 2 shelves in place.  Here's how he did it:

1.  Created a frame with scraps of plywood-- screwed into the wall... making sure it's level, of course.

2.  Pinned a top and bottom piece onto the frame-- these are capped off by a front piece with mitered corners to give it a more seamless look.

3.  Once the nail holes were filled, sanded and the edges were caulked, I needed to convince someone to paint it for me.  Thankfully I had a very willing helper...

And done.  The shelves are for pretty things right now... but in the future they will give me some added storage for towels and baskets full of other things you need in a bathroom.

One day I will renovate my bathroom... but for now... the shelves and the roman shade pretty it up enough for me.

Oh, and the total cost of this project?

Free.

My not so renovated bathroom...

y bathroom... needs work.  Yup, this is where the tour of my house begins to get a bit less interesting since this is where we started to run out of money and energy :)  Actually we never had money, just energy.  And then we lost all energy.  Anyways... bathrooms are the most difficult room of the house to renovate for many reasons.  First of all, they are expensive to renovate-- you're not just dealing with paint and flooring, but tile, lighting, plumbing, and more!  Secondly, changing your bathroom requires commitment.  You have to really REALLY like the tile you choose since you'll be stuck with it for a while.  And lastly, the bathroom is the most inconvenient room to have out of order-- you can always wash your dishes in the bathroom but you can't... I'm not going to finish that sentence.  You get the picture.  So I've made a few cosmetic changes in our upstairs bathroom to make it a little bit prettier, but it still needs some work!

Here's the bathroom when we moved in.  Not too bad-- actually painted a normal color!  With one exception-- stenciling around the window.  You can't really see it in this picture, but it's there.

And here's the bathroom now.  Let me show you what I've added and what I still want to change!!

As you can see we painted it a bit of a lighter shade of blue to brighten it up a little.  We also added crown moulding-- we had a few left over pieces sitting around in our garage.  They were too small for any other room in the house except the bathroom.  A few months ago, Doug and I were sitting around the house one Saturday afternoon when Caleb was napping and were feeling a little bored-- suddenly I came up with the idea to put up the crown in the bathroom.  Within an hour or two Doug had it up and we were starting with the painting.  We tend to be spontaneous renovators.

 

Eventually I would like to make a few changes.  First on the list, tile the shower.  The surround is okay, but there are a few cracks appearing here and there.  Tile would be so much nicer.

The bathroom floor definitely needs an update-- the lino is beginning to show its age.  I'm thinking that we'll tile the floor too.  I'm feeling excited to start a tile project-- in our condo I tiled both bathroom floors when I was 6 months pregnant with Caleb.  As can be imagined, I was sore for a few days after a weekend of laying tile, but it was a lot of fun :)

I've made a few simple (and cheap) changes to update the bathroom in the interim.  First of all, I swapped the pre-existing plain jane mirror for this one that was in the downstairs bathroom.  It was too big for the small downstairs bathroom and looked much better up here.

I put up a few fun pictures.  As some of you may remember I took these pictures a few weeks ago when Caleb wanted to show off his new toothbrush to Auntie Trish.  They were so cute... and I thought they would make fitting artwork for my bathroom.  Caleb approved.

I also put up this cute little picture of Caleb in the bathtub when he was just a wee little boy.  The frame used to be ugly.  I whipped out a can of spray paint one day and was transformed.  Spray paint makes me happy.

There are no towel bars in this bathroom except for one small one that only holds a hand towel.  To solve this problem I put up these cheapo Ikea hooks on the back of the bathroom door and also on the back of all three upstairs bedroom doors.  Problem solved!  Now there is no excuse for wet towels left on the floor... right?

One of my favorite bathroom updates is this fixed roman shade I made.  I ordered some cheap but cute fabric online and had my Mom help me figure out how to make it.  It was really easy.  The best part is that the panel is attached to the window with velcro.  If it gets dirty, all I have to do is rip it off the window, throw it in the wash and stick it back up.  Brilliant!

It doesn't exactly keep out a lot of light, but it sure looks pretty!

I also made a few of these cute little roman shades for my kitchen.  I'll show you those in a later post!

And this is my bathroom... for now.

[Daily Drop Cap by Jessica Hirsche]