Recently, I shared a photo of what my bathroom used to look like: a pit, really, painted gray-blue and with only a small north-facing window for light. All the fixtures were over 50 years old. Maybe the toilet was replaced in 1972, but other than that….it was very sad.
My carpenter pal Rob Saunders is 74 and does (still!) beautiful work; he built me beautiful bathroom cabinets. He worked with his son to take out all the crap in my old bathroom; once the drywall was patched, this is what I was assigned to paint…
…along with this…..
I took the photo above from the bathtub. It’s a very small bathroom, a little over 8 feet deep and not quite 5 feet wide. Aside from beautifying things, the purpose of the remodel was to maximize the small area with as much cabinet storage space as possible.
Here are the very sad looking towel racks from the old bathroom:
I started with a coat of primer. Even in the middle of the day (remember, it’s sunny here in the winter so there’s lots of daylight) I had to use a very bright, scarily heat-producing lamp to see what I was doing.
I left the original blue where I knew the cabinets would be placed; you can see some of the color I picked to go over the primer, a nice soothing warm color called Parchment, appropriate I think given the amount of time folks spend reading in the bathroom.
I also took this time to do my own “remodel” of my small hall closet, which is 2 feet deep, 2 feet wide and about 8 feet tall. Here’s a view from floor level:
Like the bathroom, the closet is blue: and let me just say that once you put something in a dim dark blue closet it’s impossible to ever find it again. Here’s the closet once I took out all but the 2 highest shelves.
My goal was to turn the closet into something I could use for shoes, coats, bags…like any normal hall closet…so that my front door area could be tidier, and not look like this:
I painted the closet Parchment, too. And because I no longer had a bathroom mirror, I didn’t notice that painting such a narrow space made me get paint in my hair, which was pointed out to me at work the next morning.
I put in a dowl and some small hooks for hanging stuff up.
Once I finished painting, Rob and Tom put in my new cabinets, new sink and new water-saving Toto toilet. The cabinets have recessed lighting and a recessed fan. I can now see myself in the mirror, and the bathroom is nice and bright.
Now, if you didn’t notice the disgusting green tile in the background….that’s being replaced next month with something much nicer. Be prepared for another bathroom blog post!
