Eamonn & Jack: Bathroom

Framing a Memory

September 06, 2011

For my birthday last March my aunt J sent me a small antique Limoges mirror that had belonged to my Great Aunt Margaret. I really liked it, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what to do with it - I'm not the type of girl who carries a mirror in her purse, and it was too pretty to be just tossed into my purse where it would disappear to the bottom and probably get damaged. That said - I also didn't want to store it away somewhere where nobody could admire it.

My birthday present - an antique Limoges mirror

It took me a while to figure out to do with the mirror, and once that was figured out, it took even longer to find a key component for my idea to work. The plan was to frame the mirror in a shadow-box type frame. Unfortunately I couldn't find exactly the type of frame I was looking for - I was looking for one where the glass was spaced about 1/2" away from the back of the frame - all the frames I found had no space, or they were true shadow boxes for mementos and the glass was a couple of inches from the back of the frame.

After some fruitless searching at all the big box stores (and some little box ones as well), I finally found what I was looking for in a thrift store. My new frame cost $6 which, let's be honest is a little steep for a thrift store, but it was just what I was looking for.

I decided that I was going to hang my mirror in the bathroom, so one of the first steps after completely dismantling the frame, cleaning, and then re-assembling it was to spray paint it silver to match the chrome accents in my bathroom. This was my first experience with spray paint, and quite a bit easier than I had thought.

I taped off the glass on the front a back, and set the frame on some 'Painter's pyramids' I had bought for another project but not used. I set the entire thing in a big cardboard box to spray as I was doing it inside (I don't have a garage or outside space that's solely mine).

I decided that I would back the mirror with black velvet, but I needed to figure out a way to mount the mirror on the velvet. Two sided tape was out as it could potentially damage the mirror, but luckily the mirror was framed with a rope pattern that was constructed in such a way to leave tiny holes around the mirror. Using a beading needle and some clear thread I sewed the mirror onto the velvet using the tiny holes in the rope pattern to secure the mirror to the fabric.

I then mounted the velvet on some thin cardboard (from a frozen pizza) using spray adhesive and placed it in the frame. I then added a piece of thicker cardboard to ensure the mirror was positioned securely in the frame and anchored it all in place using the original nails. Using spray adhesive I glued a piece of brown paper to the back of the frame to neaten up the back, and also to help keep out any dust. My last step was to add a small label identifying the mirror.

Dedication lable on back of picture frame

Here's the finished product:

Here is the cost breakdown of the project:

Thrift store frame: $6
Velvet fabric: $6 - King Textiles - $14.00/yd. and it was 20% off
Needles and thread: $2.01 - Fabricland - the location was closing so it was 50% off
Spray paint: $7.19
Painter's pyramids: $6.80 (I bought mine at Lee Valley, but Amazon has them too)

For a total cost of about $30 (tax. included) I think I got a pretty good result.

Bathroom

Bathroom Makeover - Part 2

May 22, 2011

It's been a while since I've posted anything even remotely related to my home - first I was sick, and then my trusty computer sputtered and died. My new computer finally arrived on Wednesday, but I spent the past few days doing absolutely nothing blog related - it turns out I missed the internet dreadfully when for two weeks I could only access it at home via my phone ( it's just not the same on a 3" screen).

Anyways, back to my bathroom. The second stage of the makeover has been the replacement of what I've been calling the 'bathroom bling' - the light fixture, and the sink faucet. Here's a reminder of the old fixtures:

The aim of this makeover was to do it without spending a huge amount of money. This therefore precluded going to any of the fancy lighting or bathroom stores about town (darn) - I stuck with Home Depot.

Here is my choice for my new light fixture:

Not bad for $59.99 right?

And here is my new faucet:

This is where my low-cost bathroom makeover went off the rails. The faucet was only $69.99, but unfortunately I ran into a little trouble with the installation. The short version is I looked under the sink to locate the water shutoff before removing the old fixture and didn't see it. That was a wee problem as you can't remove a faucet without first turning off the water (well you can, but you won't like the results). A call to the building management the following Monday (because, like all good DIYers, I was doing this on the weekend) confirmed that there wasn't an individual unit shutoff - in order to change my one measly bathroom faucet I had to get the water turned off to the whole building. Sigh - why can't anything be easy? In the end I arranged for the building handyman to turn off the water and install the tap, and in return I received an invoice for $170.

I had hoped to perform this makeover miracle for under $300, but with the unexpected installation expense I'm now aiming for under $400.

BTW - while the handyman was installing the faucet I had him install water shutoff's on both the hot and cold lines under the sink, this way the next time (yeah right) I change the faucet I can do it myself.

Bathroom

Bathroom Makeover - Part 1

April 20, 2011

So, I've finally started my long put-off bathroom makeover. When I decided that there wasn't really anything I could do with the blue tiles I lost a little of my redecorating gusto (or maybe it was mojo?) . It's now returning in fits and starts, but that might be because in the last few weeks I have managed to collect a rather LARGE number of other projects that I will have to start on soon, rather than any great desire to try to make something of the bathroom.

After my last post on the subject, Rufusfrom Rufus' Food and Spirit Guide commented and suggested I embrace the Smurf blue - well, I think I need to conclusively demonstrate that it's not the colour itself I dislike. For this reason alone I felt compelled to share this picture from last Halloween:

Embracing smurf blue

Yes, that's right, I dressed up as a Smurf. I should add this was while at work. My whole department (even our director) painted our faces blue and we won best group costume, and also Best 80's theme costume!! Ironically I was handy Smurf. But I digress.

Back to my bathroom. The first step was determining how to fill-in the gap at the bottom of the wall between the baseboard and the floor tile. A common occurrence in older buildings is settling, and my building is no different with slightly off-kilter floors and doorways. This was the only immediately visible indicator of the settling in my apartment, and it needed to be disguised.

The gap between the baseboard and the tiled floor

Fixing the gap wasn't difficult - it simply required a quick trip to Home Depot for some quarter round and a little of my time. There were of course the little hiccups - I though I was brilliant when I decided to drill pilot holes for the nails that would hold the trim down, except the drill holes were at an angle that ensured the nails ended up in the gap I was trying to mask. Grumble. Other than leaving me with a few more holes to fill, it wasn't a big issue.

What was a bit of a pain however, was painting my new trim,and then the baseboards and radiator. You don't think about how many nooks and crannies a radiator has until you have to tape around, and then paint one.

I'm pretty sure I used up at least half a role of tape doing this

I'm very much hoping that the fact that the rad was warm while I painted it won't be an issue down the road . . .

Anyways, after giving the trim and radiator two coats of paint, I peeled back the tape I had so carefully applied and revealed this:

Much better n'est-ce pas?

Bathroom

A Nice Hot Bath Will Fix Just About Anything

April 06, 2011

Or that's what they say.

What happens if you really don't like your bathroom? I'm pretty sure a hot bath can't fix that - believe me I've tried (well, I'll be honest - I tried hot showers, but I'm sure the saying applies). It's not that my bathroom is bad per se, it's just not beautiful, gorgeous, awe-inspiring, and divine like these:

1. Sarah Richardson 2. House Beautiful 3. apartmenttherapy.com 4. Country Living 5. Living ETC

Here's my bathroom as it stands now:

My bathroom - storage is an issue

See it's not too bad - unfortunately I don't like it. I wouldn't go a far as to say I hate it, but I feel a good bit of dislike for it.

So what's a girl to do? Unfortunately I don't have the budget for a complete reno, so I'm going to have to get creative.

On my bathroom hit-list:

The tiles. I don't like them. Okay, I just don't like the blue ones, the white ones don't bother me so much. It's unfortunate that the blue ones are so visible.
Storage issues - there isn't much. And what's with the blue and white plastic towel rails? Those will be first to go.
The faucet - I challenge anyone to find a cheaper one.
The lighting - Charitably I'd say the fixture is art-deco style which fits with the buildings age. Honestly, I'd say it was bad 90's.

So, what kind of bathroom makeover can one get on a very limited budget? I guess I'll have to see what I can come up with over the next little while.

Pages

Framing a Memory

Bathroom Makeover - Part 2

Bathroom Makeover - Part 1

A Nice Hot Bath Will Fix Just About Anything

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