The past several weekends have been busy with various events so I haven't been able to get any projects finished (or started for that matter). I'm slowly plugging away at a project that will hopefully render one room in my home useful. Unfortunately if I start the use the room for it's intended purpose it can no longer be used as a place to store all my junk. It's a bit of a catch-22.

Anyway, as I'm sure you all know the first rule of painting is that no matter how careful you are you'll end up with paint everywhere. This anomaly seems to increase dramatically if you're not using basic white paint, or have various events you need at attend where it's not advisable to show up all speckled and splotchy like this:

PS - I've suffered a set-back with my bathroom makeover . I'd used two Command adhesive hooks to hang the painting, but one keeps falling off. I'd used them in order to avoid drilling any more holes in the wall tiles, but I'd rather not risk the painting fall off the wall and break my new shelf. Before I break out my drill does anyone have any other suggestions?

I'm happy to report that my bathroom mini-makeover is finally complete! Yay!(If you haven't been following along you can catch up here with the inspiration, the great paint debate, part 1, part 2, and part 3).

Here are some reminders of what I started with:

And this is my favorite part:

Do I wish that I had managed to do the makeover within my original budget? Yes, but even though I ended up spending quite a bit more than I had originally hoped to pay, I'm quite pleased with the final results and I think it was worth it - do you?

This is the part of the bathroom makeover that I was dreading - trying to figure out how to add more storage to my bathroom without:

Next up was trying to figure out where to hide my hairdryer and straightener when they aren't in use. I first considered adding some hooks inside the door of the sink vanity, but this is where I store the cleaning supplies and toilet paper - two products which can go up in flames when heat is applied. While I think the chances of my hair styling tools causing a fire are rather small, I decided not to chance it. My second idea was to use an over the cabinet hook, and hook it over the rim of the toilet tank. I actually really like this idea, and I think it would have worked beautifully had I not come up for something else that made this impossible (more on this below). In the end I realised that there was a gap between the sink vanity and the bathtub which was ideal for hiding smaller items. Two inexpensive hooks later, and my tools are hidden out view, but still easy to access.

After a few more brainstorming/teeth brushing sessions I had my plan and off  I trundled to Home Depot where I got all the supplies I needed:

Did you know that Home Depot will cut your wood for you? This meant I didn't have to have any fancy tools for this project - I just needed to have all my measurements ready. A word to the wise - have a calculator handy. Also, even though this is Canada and we've been using metric since the 1970's, wood is always measured in the inches. This means fractions(ick!) - if you're planing on making anything with wood brush up on your math skills. Here is a refresher of how to add fractions.

The construction of the shelf was pretty simple. As I wanted the drawer to be over the toilet, I built two squares/rectangles that would go on either side of the cutlery tray. I then nailed the plywood to the top and bottom of the rectangles to form the top and bottom of the shelf. I had the guy at Home Depot also cut me a piece of plywood that fit on the front of the shelf - all I had to do was cut it into three pieces to cover both sides of the drawer and act at the drawer face. I countersunk the nails, used some wood filler and then primed and painted the new shelf (I apologise for not having pictures of the building process).

The last step was to drill through my wall tiles in 4 places  (two on each side) to hang the shelf bracket. I was a little nervous drilling through the tile, so I recruited my dad's help when my parents came to visit. I figured given the amount of work my parents did around the house while I grew up he had some experience. The drilling was easy and when off without a hitch. If you're planning on drilling through tile, make sure you have some water handy to cool down the drill bit. You don't need a lot, just enough to drizzle over the bit as it's working (I tried using a turkey baster, but just using my fingers worked better). When we were done my father said that he was glad to have the chance to help me as he'd never drilled through tile before. I'm glad he waited until after we were done to tell me.

Here is the finished shelf:

And here is the drawer:

As for the cost of adding more storage to my bathroom - here's a breakdown: