Weekend Bathroom Makeover

While Kevin was off gallivanting around Italy, I woke up on the Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend and thought about what I was going to do over my three days off.  I had been putting off painting the master bathroom for a long time because I couldn't find a shower curtain that we both liked in the right colors.  While I was searching the web for custom shower curtains, it all of a sudden hit me... why not make my own??

Thus began my two-weekend project:

• Paint both rooms of the bathroom
• Paint the faux-wood medicine cabinet since the "wood" didn't match the rest of the wood in the room anyway
• Replace the old hardware on the medicine cabinet
• Spray paint the rusted metal light fixture over the shower
• Spray paint the brass parts of the glass shelves satin nickel to match everything else
• Replace the old worn brass toilet handle with a satin nickel one
• Find something interesting to put on the walls
• Finally put out the green crackled glass bathroom accessories I bought at Homegoods months ago
  
• And last but certainly not least... paint the shower curtain

When Kevin came home, on the way home from the airport he said "So, what did you do all weekend?"  I wanted it to be a surprise, so I just said "Not much.  Walked the dog, watched Design Star."  Couldn't have been further from the truth, I worked my butt off from morning to night on both weekends.  But it was totally worth it... the bathroom is so much more refreshing than the ivoryish-mustardish-beigeish boringness that it was before.

The lighting in the pictures is not very good, and let's face it, bathrooms in general are not that exciting.  But, in person, it looks a thousand times better than it did before.  The paint color is SW Shagreen mixed in Behr Premium Plus Ultra.  The photos on the walls are from our honeymoon... Kevin's bamboo forest picture and some pictures of turtles we saw while snorkeling.

Here's the white medicine cabinet with some wood art I bought in Hawaii some years ago.  The wood art has since been moved into the room without the shower because I was afraid the steam would ruin them. 

I also bought new ivory towels (not shown in these pics.)  I did a lot of research on the best bath towels because the last time I bought some, they were pretty and soft, but not very absorbent.  They became more absorbent after many washings, but I didn't want to wait that long.  I ended up buying Vera Wang towels from Kohl's... they are very soft and absorbency is pretty good... hoping it may even get better after some washings.

Below are some of the details... the picture at the bottom is the bath mat, a Homegoods find.  The pile is thick and kind of wormy, it feels great on the feet.  Sasha likes it, too.  The ducks were gifts from my aunt back when I had a rubber duck themed bathroom in the old house.

The crackled glass soap dispensers gave me a bit of trouble.  They were the whole inspiration for the colors in the room, and I put them out after I had done all of this work and neither of them would pump soap!  I was so totally defeated until I posted on the Garden Web home decor forum, and they told me that you can buy replacement pumps at Bed, Bath and Beyond.  So, I picked up a couple for less than $3 each, and they are now working like a charm.  They have brushed nickel, chrome and oil rubbed bronze options, just in case you need one some day.

The monogrammed shower curtain took me literally an entire Saturday to do, but I love it!  One of these days, I'll make a post on how I did it.

And that's about it!  Did you do any weekend warrior projects over the long weekend?