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Organizing the Bathroom Cupboard

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Organizing under the bathroom sink is one of those jobs I’ve been procrastinating for years.  Once upon a time, it was organized in little bins and we could find Band-Aids, sunscreen, and Kleenex pocket packs in about 10 seconds flat.  Then, life happened and the kids grew up.  Suddenly we needed to store multiple braces and bandages for sprained knees, ankles, and fingers.  Nail polish kits became the birthday gift of choice, and everyone seemed to get picky about the brand and SPF of sunscreen they wanted for the Summer months.  Things were pretty ugly underneath this bathroom sink, friends.
For Christmas, I put $1 shoe bins on my wish list.  My sister-in-law came through with a bundle of 12 containers.  
Pulling everything out seemed like such a daunting task.  I put the job off for another month, but this past week I finally decided to tackle it.  I was thinking it would take a while to sort through all of the bottles and packages.  Ha!  A job I thought would take forever, took about 20 minutes.  
This was the best 20 minutes I’ve ever spent organizing.  I can find stuff again!  My label maker came in handy for organizing the bins too.  I heart my label maker.

Money can buy happiness, friends, and it only costs $12.
Happy organizing.
(If you’re wondering why I did black and white pictures for this post, it’s because I can’t stand the coloring that comes from taking a photo in a room with no windows and you’re forced to take pictures with overhead lights.)

My New Barn Door

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I have a door!  I HAVE A DOOR!  Do you hear angels singing?  I do! I’ve lived in this house for TEN YEARS WITH NO DOOR!  I don’t know who designed this house, but why would you not put a door on a bathroom?  It doesn’t even have a door to a separate toilet area – just NO door at all until NOW!  
Here’s the before shot.  You can imagine how this must light up the room, when someone gets up in the middle of the night or gets up early for work.  It was an extra wide opening, so we had to special order a door that would fit.
Because of the shape, you couldn’t really just add a door frame without cutting the wall and evening out those corners.  Even if you cut the corners and ordered a frame and door, it would still all need to be custom because of the size.  Custom = $$$.

I don’t care anymore.  I have a door!  
We went up to The Door Store in Marysville with our measurements and my PInterest board filled with barn doors.  They said, “Oh, sure.  We can totally do that for you.  The door will be about $1,500 and the track is about $500.”  Then I mentioned that I want the cheaper version.  They showed me the cheaper version but it still wasn’t in out budget, so I forced them to get a little creative.  They said they could do a special order door, that wouldn’t be a true barn door, but would at least have a couple of panels.  They found an unfinished door for me, so I could finish it myself and save a little more money.  The unfinished 4 panel door cost us $350, which was a much better price for this project.  It’s solid and heavy, which is what I wanted.  
I was a little disappointed in the finish on the door.  We have been stripping, staining, and varathaning all of the doors, cabinets, and trim in the house.  It’s been a long project and we are only about half way done.  When I was staining the doors (we bought a new door to the garage too) I ran out of Varathane.  I took a picture of what I wanted and sent my hubby to Lowe’s to pick up a new can.  Well, either I took a picture of the wrong can or he bought the wrong thing.  (I’ll go with me taking the wrong picture since he’s always nice enough to run out and pick up anything I need for my hairbrained projects.)  Well, the lighting in the garage isn’t very good and I didn’t even notice how shiny the doors were turning out until I had them hung up.  They are shiny.  Really shiny.  I must have had my hubby buy semi-gloss instead of satin.  Grrrrr.  It really, really, really bothers me when I look at them, but I have no desire to take the doors back down and go through the whole process of refinishing.  So, the doors will stay.
The hardware was another area we had to get creative to cut costs.  The barndoor hardware I really wanted was about $450.  A bathroom door in my master bedroom, that no one will ever see (except my blog reading friends) is not the place I want to spend $450.  So, I asked my Door Store friends if they had any other bright ideas.  They sent us over to the economical version of a track for a sliding door.  This one was only $80.  Perfect!  My first thought was just to spray paint it black and call it done, but then I thought that a burlap valance might be a nice way to hide the track.  My neighbor also suggested a barnwood cornice.  I do have a few pieces of barnwood in my garage, so that may be an option.  For now, I will just be happy to have a door!  I have a door, friends!!

Yep, angels singing.  

I think I’ll go down to my local Farm and Garden Feed Center to see if they have any barn door handles.  
It’s a happy day!

Bathroom Barn Door

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I’ve been pinning barn doors for quite a while now.
 
 
Sadly, I seem to be frozen with indecision.  I guess I don’t know what I really want.
 
Here’s the problem.
 
We’ve lived in our house for almost 10 years now and we’ve never had a bathroom door in our master bath.  Let me say that again… We’ve never had a bathroom door!!! Our bathroom entrance has an odd shape.  It’s not a regular rectangle.  It’s more like a giant hexagon.  It’s also an extra large entrance.  So, when my hubby or I wake up in the morning and flip the light on in the bathroom, it lights up the bedroom too!  I have no idea why any builder would ever think that having no bathroom door is a good idea.  It doesn’t even have a door to the toilet area.  How dumb is that?  The only reason it has taken me almost 10 years to get a door is because it has such a large and odd shape.  I had no idea how to fix this without hiring a contractor.
 
Enter the barn door solution…
It’s the perfect solution for our problem.  A sliding barn door, mounted to the outside of the odd shaped entry, is perfect.  It’s also pretty cool and trendy right now.  A few weeks ago my hubby and I made a trip up to the door store.  Origionally, we had visions of a cool old barn door, and I even started saving barn wood.  In the end, it just seemed like a lot of work and a lot of hassle to build the perfect door.  So, we bought a door that isn’t exactly a cool old barn door, but hey, IT’S A DOOR!  That’s a step up from where we’ve been for the past 10 years.
 
Now for the “frozen with indecision” part.  I have no idea how I want to finish it.  I assumed that I’d just stain it the same color as my trim.  My hubby, on the other hand, seems to think that something different would be fun.  (Suddenly someone thinks he’s a design expert I guess!)  Well, I started thinking about it, and I have to admit that he may be right.  Maybe we want a different look for the barn-ish door. 
Oh, what to do?  What to do!?!
 
I’m stumped.  In the end, I would bet that I’ll stain it the same dark color as the trim, because that’s the safe thing to do.  What do you think?  Do you have strong opinions about barn doors?  I’d love to hear them because I’m absolutely frozen and my unfinished barn door is sitting in my garage.
 
Help!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


I love this!

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I took my dog to the dog groomer, in downtown Snohomish, the other day.


Snohomish is a small historic town, down by the Snohomish River. It’s filled with antique shops, specialty shops, bakeries, and my dog groomer.

Snohomish was settled in the 1850’s and established as a logging community shortly after. Don’t you just love small towns with history?

When my grandma was a teenager, she lived in Snohomish.  She graduated from Snohomish High School and her father was a Presbyterian minister at one of the churches in town.  I have always imagined that the church looked something like the one below.  My grandma says the church is no longer in the town.

Anyway… back to my story.
I was taking my dog to the dog groomer, in Downtown Snohomish, the other day and saw this sign in the window of one of the little shops.


 
It looked so cute, mixed in with all of the antiques and vintage linens.  I knew I had to have it.  I’ve been loving all of the subway art that I have been seeing all over the place lately.  The big sign (that I really wanted) was $90.  The small sign was only $22.  Guess which one I bought.  Yep, the small one.  It’s perfect in the main floor bathroom.
 
I love small towns… and my new little treasure.
 
Happy shopping!

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How to Strip… Cabinets, That Is

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I promised a few of my bloggy friends a “how-to” on refinishing outdated cabinets.  So, here goes.

Start with ugly, orange, builder cabinets.  If you can do this in the garage, I highly recommend it.  It’s cold and rainy here, so I opted to do this in my hallway.  It’s a really smelly job! I put down a big piece of cardboard.  Don’t use newspaper.  This stuff is really sticky and the newspaper is just a disaster waiting to happen.

Paint stripper onto the cabinets and let sit.  It says to let it sit for 15-30 minutes, but I found that if I waited any longer than 15 minutes, the stuff was too dry and I had to reapply.  I used a cheap disposable brush and bought a clean paint can to pour the stripper into.


If you are stripping something with lots of varathane, you will see it bubble like this.


Most of my cabinets did not have much varathane left, so I couldn’t really see the bubbling.


Once it’s done sitting for 15 minutes, use a plastic scrapper to scrape it off.  I did a second round of stripper, after that, to remove any stain still on the wood.  That’s it.  It’s really simple.  The only annoying part is that I always forget that I haven’t done the back side of the doors.

We’ll talk sanding, staining, and varathane soon!

Happy stripping!  (That just doesn’t sound right.)

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Master Bath – In Progress

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Once again, I start by saying that I have absolutely no decorating sense. There were a few classes in my Family and Consumer Science major on textiles and design, but I really have no formal training. I love to read decorating and design books and magazines. I know what I like: warm and cozy, contrast in colors, texture, natural materials, and FABRIC! Oh, how I love fabric! When I’m starting a new room I have no vision of my own. I could not create a space, of my own design, if my life depended on it. I’ll admit it… I’m a copycat. I look through books, magazines, and catalogs until I find an inspiration room. I love to watch Rate My Space because it validates stealing ideas from other people.

Our master bath screams 1991! Here’s the picture from real estate brochure, from when we bought our house. It’s a nice size bathroom, with lots of counter space, but that’s about all it has going for it.

I ran across this picture in a magazine and fell in love. It has everything I love; natural materials, texture, contrast in color, and a warm and cozy color on the wall.

So, here are the first updates in our master bath redo. I’m trying my best to copy the picture.

Painted cabinets (painted but not glazed yet):


Spicy orange walls:

Texture and contrast:
I need to learn to roll towels so they look spa-like, not shoved onto the shelf.)

We’re well on our way. Tile and flooring is on the to do list next!

Here are a few linky parties I like to participate in:
http://homeiswheremystorybegins.net/linky-parties-i-like-to-participate-in/

Bathroom Tile

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The kids are actually brushing their teeth in their own bathroom again!

Diane and I decided to spend the President’s Day holiday working on tile in my bathroom. The kids played happily and we went into, “Look what we can do without our husbands!” mode.

We set up the tile saw outside. It was a cold day, but it was dry. My neighbor, Tammy, came out to see what project I was working on this time. I’m sure I looked great in my safety goggles. Safety first! We started laying out the tile in the bathroom to see what it would look like. You can still see a hint of the lovely mauve laminate on the edge of the counter, in one of the photos.

We worked on the bathroom from 9-12. We took a break for lunch and swimming at the new YMCA pool. By early afternoon the counter looked great. It needed to dry, so grout came the next day.

I’m not too confident in my plumbing skills, so I decided to let my hubby put the sink back in. After a two week wait, it’s finally back in and kids are brushing their teeth in their own bathroom again! I love it and I’m so proud of myself! This is by far my biggest DIY project. I loved using the power tools! Now all I need is paint and flooring. Then I’ll check that bathroom off the To Do list.