Bathroom accessory:

I've had this cross for awhile, but didn't quite have the place to put it. Then I decided the front bathroom would be the best place. Buuuuuuut, it wouldn't stand out on the wall, so I spray painted it white. :)


Sorry, I didn't rotate the photo.


Working on it!


Yay!


The cross made a bit of an interesting design on the paper.


And .... finally on the wall:


I'm happy with it, and even liked it enough to paint another wall article .... I'll show that in a bit.

# 60 — Paint a room in my house (Bye, Bye Beige!!!!!)

.... CHECK!

... well, this isn't *technically* my house, but in September, it will be OUR house, so I'm checking this off of my 101 in 1001 list.

I know some of you have been anxioux to see this .... so settle in because this will be a LONG post (think: play by play).

Wow, I'm not even sure where to begin. I should first confess that I came up with "the black book" for Erik's house. Yup, projects I'd like to see done ... in an orderly, organized, fashion (I DID leave room for Erik to add projects, so don't go feeling sorry for him quite yet!).

This was a room I've been thinking about for a long time. I think the first time I mentioned it, I suggested painting only the top, but it evolved to painting the wainscotting white as well (who wants to look at only 1/2 of a newly painted room?).

Oh, and the chocolate brown color .... where the heck did I come up with it? Well, my college roomie, Jeanel, painted a bathroom brown once and I LOVED it! When I was thinking about this space, that color came to mind and I knew it'd be perfect! Bold, but not overbearing.

Here's the before photos:






When we took the mirror off the wall, we discovered that there was a medicine cabinet in the wall. Erik didn't even know it was there!


Some hardware was rolling around loose in the wall...


There was a hole in the wall that I patched before painting (did I mention I've never patched wall holes before???)


Before I embarked on this adventure, I did plenty of reading up. In my reading, I was told to wash the walls before painting them. Um, the only problem was that I balanced the bucket of water atop the toilet .... and the following flood resulted :-(


This is me thinking my painting adventure is over before it even begins.


And THIS is where the water from the bathroom ended up. EEK!!!! I REALLY thought my painting career was over at that point!


Before I began painting, I took stock and figured out what I DIDN'T want to do. The previous painter was SLOPPY and I wanted to avoid the following:


Then, I taped up the place ... I liiiiiike blue tape!



THEN it was time to make a final decision from all the paint chips! Yikes! Did you know there were SO MANY shades of brown?


Robin suggested we take off the tank only of the toilet ... which Erik helped us with. Thanks, sweetie!


We then got to work priming the top half of the walls. Since we were painting the walls a dark color, the paint store tinted the primer for us!


Robin LOVED the foam rollers. The reading I did suggested the foam over the other common rollers because it wouldn't leave lint on the walls. Heck, I'm convinced now to use foam for the regular painting, too! No bristles in the paint!



This is the first area I painted .... looked a little dark, but it dried beautifully!



Robin pondering my handiwork. (I think she was skeptical of the color at first, but it grew on her!)


In all my excitement, I was too hasty to put blue tape up, so I had to go back and retouch a bunch ... lesson learned for next time!


And Boulevard Wheat, my official sponsor of painting! ;-)


BE PATIENT!!!!!! We're in the homestretch now. I promise!

After the painting, it was time to put back the light fixture ... only I couldn't bear to put the gold fixture in the beautiful, brown bathroom. So Erik selected a new one that looks MUCH better!


We even hooked it up with energy efficient bulbs! Go us!


(Did I mention this was my first electrical project EVER????)

While I was putting in the new fixture, I decided to put in new outlets. Why not? Right? ;-) I took them out carefully (BTW, we killed the power for this ENTIRE project, to be SAFE!), then looked and unscrewed only one part and put it on the new one. I did it this way so I wouldn't confuse or cross any wires.


I have to admit I was REALLY nervous about everything working. I was SOOOOO nervous when I flipped the breaker, but amazingly IT ALL WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!


The mirror is even up! The only piece left is the vent (I still need to paint it) and the closet door (need to paint that, too!). Other than that, the bathroom just needs a new shower curtain and rug! Then we're good to go!


The last piece was a new shower toy .... but I haven't been able to test out the new awesome stream of water because there is no hot water in the front shower :-(.



Thanks for reading all the way down!!!!!!!!

Be sure to leave a comment if you made it down this far, especially about the brown color! :-)