Hall Bathroom Painting

I'm back on the paint wagon... yay!  I've been hesitating since I just KNOW the builders will be through on their 9 month check to fix nail-pops and settling issues.  And I KNOW they'll put big globs of spackling all over my painted walls... and I KNOW they won't spot-fix the painting with my paint... they'll use the builder's paint (white).  I KNOW this because it happened to my neighbor who painted all of her rooms in the first few months.  She had white patches of wall all over her pretty red, green and yellow walls.  :(  What a pain to fix those....

However... the white walls are driving me insane!!!  So... I paint.

Funny how things work.  One of the first cans of paint I purchased for this house was for the upstairs hallway bath.  95% of the time, it's used by my youngest daughter.  The other 5% of the time, she needs to share it with guests.  Plus, it's the room you see first as you walk up the stairs.  

Soooo.... no pink and purple and princess crowns and rubber duckies.  Well, I could've done that.  But this "diva" prefers red to pink, likes Webkinz over princesses and is way too "old" for rubber duckies.  

Funny how things work.  I wanted to get the guest areas working first.  We had a lot of visitors the first couple of months, coming to see the new digs and coming to help with the kiddos while we moved in.  It didn't take too long to get the guest room ready:

Wasn't sure what to do with the guest bath, though.

And one day, I was browsing around Home Goods when I found a beautiful April Cornell shower curtain. 

 It blended colors I wouldn't have naturally chosen:  sage, yellow and lavender.  So, I went with that... bought matching bathmats and towels.  Then found a few accessories from Goodwill and various thrift stores and figured that's all that was necessary at first.  Within a few days, I found a lovely paint shade to go with it all and bought it.

And that paint can sat.

And sat.

And sat.

I don't know... there's just something about painting around the toilet pipes and shower faucets that makes me cringe thinking about painting a bathroom.

This week, I finally did it.  Funny thing too... it only took me about 4 hours start to finish with many breaks.

Here's the final product:

The color is from the Martha Stewart line at Home Depot.  I had it colormatched to Behr Premium Plus.  Unfortunately I lost the original swatch.  I think the MS color is called "Shortbread".  

Originally on this wall, I had two of those woodchip rose wreaths stacked using Command hooks.  Really classy, I know...  but last October, I had a serious fear of putting holes in my brand new walls!  (BTW, I found these wreaths at Target on clearance for under $3 each).

 The intent was to see if that's what I liked.  I did like that stacking one over the other, but after the paint went up, those wreaths just blended into the paint color. 

So, I went scrounging around my junk pile in the basement.  (See... I KNEW there was a reason why I kept so many things.)  I found this cabinet door.  It's a simple beadboard door that was a sample at one point.  It evens has the information on the type of glaze/stain, etc. on the back:

I hammered some ribbon to it with tacks (bought at Joann's for $1/roll), put a little nail in the front to hold the woodchip rose wreath.  And wah-lah... instant bathroom decor for $7 total.  I told Mike I should've skipped the ribbon, added a door knob and seen how many times people would've attempted to OPEN the door.  LOL

 Here is the little toilet area.  

WHY do they do this???  The towel rack is a standard builder's grade blah-rack (someday when I have extra $$ sitting around, I'll replace it.... i.e. probably never).  But it's at least nicely centered on the wall there between the shower and the closet wall... but the toilet isn't!  Why???  Now I feel like I need to go buy a cute basket or something to fill that space and even things out. 

(Have I ever mentioned my OCD/Math-minded quirk?  I like SYMMETRY!)

 These little do-dads were thrift store finds.  I bought them to "stage" my last house and planned to just sell them in a yard sale.  Ha... they matched!  See that little green vase?  My intent was for guests to use it for toothbrushes, but I guess it's never been obvious.  No one ever has.  I even scrubbed the inside well.  

I suppose I'll have to Cricut some letters to label it next.

Love the double sink area in this bathroom.  My daughter likes to brag that she has TWO sinks and everyone else only gets one.  That would be something to brag about if I could get her to remember to USE them!! (But that's another story....)

The problem with putting a counter from wall to wall though is the lack of room for a hand towel.  I did put a little hook near the shower, but it's for my daughter's towel.  So... I bought one of these little doo-hickies at HomeGoods.

I love these... they remind me of a fancy-shmancy hotel or B&B or something.  The problem is that they are NOT made for regular sized handtowels.  And just how often do you see "fingertip towels" on special to match your others? Uh... hardly.

So, here's how I fix that....  hey, it works.  :)

Well, it's nothing fussy... nothing that makes you go "Wow!  I wish I did that."... but at least it's a finished room and I wanted to share how I can complete a room.  :)  (By the way, I do have bathmats, but they are in the dryer...imagine sage green soft mats on the floor...LOL.)