Did you win last time?
Did you win the time before that?
Why are you doing it if you don’t win
anything?
These are the kinds of questions you are likely to hear
from friends and family if you participate in Calling it Home’s One Room
Challenge™.
If you do another one, I will break
your fingers.
If you ignore me and do it again, I
will divorce you.
If you completely disregard our 10 yr
marriage vows and disobey me, I will cut off your wine supply.
I will not help you anymore.
I will not, absolutely paint another
GD wall.
I am not swapping out any lights.
Do not buy another lamp or rug or
piece of fabric.
I sanded your damn walls and hung your
stupid, old light fixture…
These are also the kind of statements you are likely to
hear from your spouse if you participate in Calling it Home’s One Room
Challenge™.
6 weeks is no joke whether you are participating as a
featured blogger or as a linking participant – as I have done both. No matter. It is a train wreck of real deal Holyfield
fun. In spite of threats of imminent divorce or people failing to understand the simple thrill of pulling a genie out of my hat in 6 weeks, I cannot deny
my design junkie ways. My nights will be
filled with boozy anxiety for the next six weeks while I participate again in the ORC linking event.
The first time, as linking participant, I did my master bedroom:
Last time, as a featured participant, I did my kitchen:
In both cases, it went down to the wire
because I am a procrastinator extraordinaire and an indecisive fickle feck
wit. As a matter of fact, I decided to
do this one exactly three days ago. The
mister is less than pleased. He made me
promise both times that I would not do another one. But the ORC trials and tribulations are much
like pregnancy and labor. The further
away you get from the aftermath, you think it wasn’t so bad/hard/difficult/insane/painful/divorce-inducing/neverhavingrelationsagain labor. That’s where you would be wrong.
Without further ado, I am tackling our bathroom but let
me manage expectation up front. I have
no plans to do any major demo work. The
tile(s), vanity, and shower hardware all have to stay per the mister’s
orders. The toilet is a Toto and is the only
muy bueno thing
in the joint. Because it's a Toto and it flushes like the dickens. No lazy river here.
Some might say ‘not so bad.’ A few, like my mister, might even say ‘not a finga!’ But I am here to tell you that I am over
it. Boring. This was the absolute first DIY
project my husband and I tackled right after we got married. I did not even know how to use a power
drill. With one bathroom, it got sporty
with a quickness. That whole ‘don’t have
a pot to piss in’ became reality for two solid weeks. An orange Home Depot bucket in the back yard
did the trick but it proved to be the first of many tenuous moments in our
marriage involving DIY renovations.
Needless to say, by the time we got around to picking the fun stuff, I
just wanted to use the loo. A matching
vanity/mirror situation sufficed along with a sad builder special vanity light
fixture. Little finishing details did
not get completed and they have annoyed me to no end - things like gaps in the crown molding and
bead board. A patch in the dry wall near
the light fixture that never got painted.
Also, apparently I had a thing for chippy paint. Where is
my bird, you ask? Um.
Why I thought to hang that dumb cage on the wall is beyond me. In a fit of Cottage Living induced fantasy, I
thought it was a terrific idea to use a fallen barn beam as my pooper paper
holder and a random architectural piece to hold my towels. Over it.
So here is what I
plan to do: switch out boob and vanity lighting, vanity
hardware and fingers crossed, faucet.
Get a new mirror because I hate the dumb matching mirror with the dumb
ledge. It is a gatherer of dust,
toothpaste spit, and water stains. Plus,
we have plenty of counter space and drawers.
I felt like now might be a good opportunity to depart from my typically
saturated color leanings and lighten things up a bit with a more neutral
palette. I would super love to switch
out my bathroom door for one with a frosted window to allow more light into the
very small space but after one afternoon of searching for vintage and new
options, I soon discovered that with a smaller non-standard door it was a looney pipe dream. Instead, I might go even darker. Yeah, fickle feck
wit. I figure two
things: a small space might as well be
intimate and jewel-box like; secondly, I want my guests to feel glamorous and
magnificent when they powder their noses in my one little water closet. Who feels glamorous and magnificent in
a milk carton? Who feels glamorous during an anxiety ridden tinkle wondering about a missing bird? But
then again, I have been known to figure wrong a time or two. Case in point, said dumb bird cage.
My inspiration looks and feels like this but as anyone
can tell you who has followed along my boozy design rides, the plan changes
quickly and often in these parts. I found an incredible stash of vintage chinoiserie barkcloth fabric a few months back that I intended to make into a shower curtain. Who knows if that will work out as it has damage in a few spots but it's got my head spinning for a fancy shower curtain sitch. Come to think of it, this might be a lot like the time I painted the kitchen the same color as the kitchen. That BM Smoked Oyster I picked is looking dangerously close to the BM Davenport Tan that is already on the wall. Oy. All I really know is that when I tell mister V that we
are painting yet another room, another part of him will die inside the fire swamps of design despair while he curls up in a ball whimpering, ‘as you wish…’
My
process often starts with an inspiration board filled with beautiful things I
cannot afford. But the plan gives me the
confidence to improvise on the fly when I see things that are similar in
feel but more affordable on the pocket
book. Most of the time, I cannot find
exactly what I am looking for and will likely make it myself. I have a loosey goosey plan for some such chicanery but it is way
crazy, even for my standards, so I am keeping that one close to the vest, or
the chesty larue, in my case, for now to see if I can even begin to pull that shiz off. Anywho, since I am not a professional, I can use all the help I can get. I would love to hear what you would do in here.
Check back next week to see if I have done anything more
than pop open a few wine bottles and in the meantime, let’s go see who else is
playing…
All design, photos, styling and layouts by Emily Vanderputten unless otherwise noted
kisses, mrs. V
