Half Bath, Part 1: The Idea Machine

Oy! We bought this house waaaaaay back in September. 9 months! It could be our baby...

We've done nothing to it, except lower the value of it. For real. It's in worse shape now than when we moved in. The carpet's all stained from various animals and toddlers. 99% of our furniture was given to us, so it's all junky and mis-matched. When one of our old roommates moved out, the walls in the stairwell got pretty dinged up.

I've been reading all these blogs by people who have freaking amazing design skills. I've finally come to realize that no, their houses aren't always as magical as their pictures make them out to be. But you know what? At their worst, those houses would look better than our house at its best.

Mr. T and I haven't ever really done the whole remodeling thing. He's fairly handy with tools, we just don't own any. And it takes him about a decade to finish a project. I, of course, am next to useless. I've painted walls, but that's about it. I don't sew, I don't...carpent. I don't design. I can barely dress myself. But! We're going to start! Dressing ourselves, that is. And then maybe move on to some renovations.

We're starting out small. Suuuuper small. Think half-bath small. PICTURE TIME:

I'm a foot or two back from the door here. You can see they went for something more...adventurous...in the painting of this room. I'm not sure what you call that style, but they painted it with the darker color and then blotched on the lighter color. The painting above the toilet was done by Mr. T's mom. We've only hung art up where nails were already in the walls. Or where Mr. T threw in a thumbtack. How long have we lived here now?

Now I'm wedged in the corner where the trash can was. You see how the wall cuts in? We're under the stairs here, so the ceiling is really bizarre, too. There isn't a lot of room for anything other than the toilet, sink, and a trash can.

Tried to get a picture of the light. People seem to do that. We'll probably replace it with...something different? 

And here's the super janky ceiling action. I don't understand why this room was built this way. The walls  are uneven. The ceiling is even more uneven than the walls. I've never really paid any attention to ceilings, but it has gotten pretty popular to paint them at least. And you can't do that with the weird speckley ceilings like what we have. I'm not sure how you change them? But that's like...the lowest priority ever. We'll be about 90 when we start changing ceilings around.

So that's what our bathroom has looked like since we moved in. Lovely, isn't it? Alright, so I have a Pinterest board. It doesn't have that many pins in it, I swear! The first thing I ever saw that I wanted to do with our bathroom is this pin:

http://pinterest.com/pin/485755509778554219/

I pretty much wanted to copy her bathroom exactly. I was thinking bright colors to make the smaller room brighter, and I loved the stencil and how she framed the mirror. Even the light is super cool. I even hunted the Web to find the stencil!

But then I saw this bathroom:

http://pinterest.com/pin/485755509779082486/

The entire thing was done in chalkboard paint. And that is just super cool to me. SUPA COOL. Which, I mean, is exactly the opposite of what I was trying to do in the bathroom - make it brighter. It's going to turn it into a cave. But! Here are my thoughts:

1. We still do the birch stencil on the three walls surrounding the sink.
2. We still frame the mirror.
3. Instead of just blank black walls, I want to add picture frame outlines in white paint. I know I've seen this done before, but the closest I can find is this thing I pinned. Which, now that I think about it...having games and stuff in there would be fun, too. lol! We shall see...

I think adding enough white back into the room with the toilet, sink, trim, framed mirror, stencil, and random picture frame outlines on the walls will keep it from turning into a cave. Eventually the floors are going to be hardwood - when we finally get around to putting hardwood in downstairs. At least I think they will. Until then, maybe we can just get a nice rug?

The only other things I have in mind for this room are:

I want to get this little guy up in there somewhere, maybe in a frame on the wall to the right of the sink.

http://pinterest.com/pin/485755509778897803/

This is just too cute! We must recreate it!

http://pinterest.com/pin/485755509778412514/

Also, there are these paintings up in Mr. T's gallery right now. Wait - you haven't heard about Two-Tone Art Gallery?! It's the newest and only art gallery in Murfreesboro, TN! We're open 5:00-9:00 Thursday through Sunday. Except today. Those hours kick in tomorrow. 8}

Anyway, one of the artists has these three paintings up at the gallery right now that I just love. I really want to buy them to hang above the toilet. I'm going to say that I'm not revealing them right now because I want some mystery leading up to a big reveal of the finished space, but in reality...I just don't have a picture of them. Don't let anyone know, though. I'd rather be mysterious. 

You know I can't keep anything from you guys! Ran by the gallery a little after publishing this post and snagged a picture of one of the paintings. The design continues to the left and the right. Sorry for the poor quality. I used my phone, was pretty far away from it, didn't turn the lights on, and then cropped down to focus only on this one painting instead of the entire wall o' art in the actual picture.

Even after all this, our house still isn't going to win any awards. But we will have finally put some personalization into at least one room! Even if it is the tiniest room. :) You've got to start somewhere, right?!