Because I can, in fact, change gears faster than a 1985 Camaro I bring you the latest home improvement project. Our guest bathroom has been in sorry shape from day one. When we got here it had the ugliest mirror I have ever seen. Several inches of fake frosted glass and pink flowers framed the nasty fake brass and unidentifiable wood. Over the years the frosted/painted finish had flaked off with each cleaning til it was a pock marked mess. The matching light fixture wasn’t a heckuva lot better. The brass trim extended to the fixture’s shell motif which matched the shell- shaped toilet seat. Cute. (Matchy matchy is bad enough when it is attractive. Matching ugly is another story.) The walls sported a white primer layer and nothing else. The towel bar had long since bitten the dust.

I had put off addressing the bathroom since bathroom fixtures add up to a considerable investment. We had started off small by replacing the toilet seat and installing new towel bars. What we could do was pretty well defined by the existing oak trim and Spanish tile which was quite nice. Large charcoal and terracotta tiles formed a checkerboard around the tub and lined the separate shower. We replaced the white linoleum tile with one that meshed better with the wall tile.

The rest sorta hung over my head ’til that fateful day when the mirror hardware gave way and it toppled onto the counter in big chunks. Darn. ; ) Seemed like a good time to press on with the remodel. Except that Allen was out of town. Except that I didn’t want to do the job halfway. Except I didn’t want him to come home to a mile long to do list. Except I didn’t know what I was doing. Asher and I put our heads together and decided we could do this. Moreover we would do it 4 days before Allen got home. Cluelessness would not stop us lol!

We started with the paint which was tricky given those tiles. The first choice was waaaay too dark and made the room uncomfortably claustrophobic. We went back to the paint store and mixed a can several shades lighter but in the same color family as the terracotta tile. It was called Morning Glow. Granted it looked remarkably similar to Pink Fluff. We aren’t going to think about that. No, it is the color of the sunrise and that’s that.

Zach was here and did the ceiling for me which was a good thing because I am not sure I could have done that part alone. The rest of the room went pretty well although it took a LOT of coats. Probably could still use another, but it is what it is.

Fixtures required some serious comparison shopping. They add up to a small fortune, particularly the large mirrors. I ended up getting a bronze finish mirror at Hobby Lobby with my 40% off coupon. Woo hoo! It was gorgeous. Funny story here though – I always drive my ginormous van but on this day I had the car since Allen was gone and I was saving gas. You forgot how small a small car can be until you try to cram a 50 inch mirror into it. Didn’t really occur to me til the nice Hobby Lobby man who was carrying it out for me reached the car and gasped. I said well, we better hope it fits or you’re gonna have to follow me home! ; )

With the mirror selected we picked up two light fixtures in a similar finish – Tuscan bronze. Pretty snazzy name for a Walmart special eh? They were ridiculously inexpensive at $29 and $13 each and they looked like they were made for the mirror. They were electric however and I have never wired a dang thing. I knew enough to hit the breaker first and we figured we would tackle the directions and hope for the best. Asher took the ceiling fixture and I took the wall mount. With a minimum of expletives they were both up. We flipped the breaker and Asher’s fixture lit up. Not so, mine. Eventually we rectified the mistake.

We braced and mounted the mirror and framed and hung a print we brought back from the mission in Arizona last year. And all before Allen got home. The night before his flight he told me we needed to head into town when he got back since he didn’t want that bathroom sitting in disrepair indefinitely. We just smiled. He was more than a little taken aback when he walked in the door the next day. One room down – don’t ask me how many more to go! With nine children, a dog and far too many cats something is falling apart at any given moment.

All in all I am happy with it though the pictures do it no justice. It is in an interior part of the house and there was no good way to shoot it without the flash washing out the color. Wish you could come visit and see in person