Shower Power

A little while ago, I tried to angle the shower head down when I was taking a shower. I prefer the stream to hit me more in the chest than the head and I can’t move back in my shower because it’s very narrow. It’s the kind of shower I picture on a space ship. I barely have enough room to bend to shave my legs. But anyway, I digress... I was trying to pivot the shower head downwards when I hear a snap and the shower head came flying off!! Turns out the shower head is fixed in one spot and doesn’t pivot at all. The fixture hit me in the head, and then I was assaulted by the thinnest, most powerful stream of water I have ever felt. It hurt!! To add insult to injury, it was a work day morning and I was fully lathered with soap and conditioner in my hair when this happened. I used my palm to deflect the hard spray of water then turned the water pressure down as low as I could, and had to rinse off with the most pathetic dribble of water - at least it didn't hurt... Needless to say, this was not a good start to my day.

I thought the shower head had just popped off, but it turned out one of the rings with threading on it had snapped so it couldn't reattach. I considered buying a new shower head – something I could bring with me to the condo – but then thought better of it and tried to fix the broken ring instead.

Before I go telling you what I did, just keep in mind that I’m not a plumber and know nothing about plumbing. Also, I’m sorry my shower looks like the scene of a horror movie. This is the result of bad lighting, a not-so-clean shower, and a crappy iPhone picture...

So I tried to glue the ring back together using Gorilla Glue. It didn’t work too well. The ring seemed to be holding when I screwed it on, but the shower head fell off again when I turned on the water. Booo.

Kevin and I headed over to Home Depot where I bought a replacement ring. I think it was about $5. I thought I would have to buy a whole new shower head and was quite pleased to hear I could just get the ring. We got back to my place, attached the older shower head with the new ring, and guess what? Now my shower head pivots! Faaaaancy. The beating I took from the shower head the day before was definitely worth being able to now swivel my shower head

Mini Bathroom Makeover

My bathroom is black and white, configured strangely, and windowless. I wanted to inject a bit of colour, but I didn’t want to overwhelm the small space. I bought a cute wall decal (from Dollarama…gasp!) not too long ago thinking it would be a great non-permanent way to bring in that colour I wanted.

Here’s what I was working with before. The square footage is small, but the bathroom has 9-foot ceilings and a soaker tub, which is most definitely appreciated.

This is the decal I bought. It only cost $2 and says it doesn’t leave any residue, so I figured it was worth a shot even if it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. This is the only picture that shows the real colour of the decal. Unfortunately, due to the lack of window in the bathroom, the rest of the photos are taken under florescent lighting (CFL bulbs) so the colours look a bit yellow and washed out.

It was super easy to stick on the wall. I stuck the sections on exactly how they’re shown in the example photo on the packaging

I also styled the top of the medicine cabinet with some items I already had and some super discounted items I recently bought at Indigo.

Here is the before and after – the view is from the door. It makes me happy to see some colour in here when I walk in

 

Have a great weekend and make sure to check back on Monday – I’m doing my first giveaway!

Dan Marentic's Canadian House & Home Tour

I saw this condo tour on H&H OnlineTV and just had to share it because it is spectacular! 

Dan Marentic is an interior design consultant for Ctrl/Alt/Delete. He lives in a one bedroom, one bathroom 565 square foot "soft loft" condo. I love the way he altered some of the standard finishes of his unit to give his space a unique high-end look. These are the kinds of tours I like to see because they inspire me on how to upgrade my future condo.

Some of my highlights include:

• The floors - they are gorgeous
• The strip of tile he took out in the shower and replaced with marble to give a custom-look
• The storage along the head of the bed with built-in bedside tables. He used store bought closets and gave them custom doors for a high-end look
• He had a straight line kitchen but added extra cabinetry up top and perpendicularly to create an L-shaped kitchen
• The custom counter-high table that can be used as extra prep space and a dining table
• The ethanol fireplace in the living room, which has a cutout on the back so it can be enjoyed in the bedroom as well. 
• The sofa sectional is gorgeous and is large enough that it can function as a sleeping area for overnight guests.
• The way the balcony is set up with a dining area and 2 chairs overlooking the view.

Check out the tour HERE.

And just so I don't have a picture-less post, here's the Emily-Jane Bisectional from Style Garage :-)

Does anyone have $3000 to spare?

Have a great weekend!

If I Were The Landlord Series - Part 3

I'm a woman who loves her bathroom products, but our bathroom medicine cabinet isn't spacious. We have a small wall-mounted one and I'm constantly trying to reconfigure it to fit all my products. I bought a free-standing medicine cabinet that stands behind the toilet so I could have extra space, but having 2 medicine cabinets jutting out from the wall made the bathroom look smaller.  Also, because our lighting fixture is directly above the medicine cabinet, the light is blocked by the cabinet and doesn't shine down onto the vanity area very well... and good lighting is key for makeup application!

If I were my landlord, I would install a much bigger medicine cabinet in the wall between the studs so that it lays flush with the wall. That way it wouldn't impede with the lights at all and future tenants could store more bathroom goodies. I absolutely l.o.v.e the bathroom in image #1 and the cabinet here is what I consider the perfect size for a single sink. And the paint choice and light fixture location in #2 look very similar to that of my apartment.  

#1 via; #2 via; #3 via; #4 via

Totally random and off-topic, but I really love beadboard in bathrooms :-)

A Little Caulk Goes A Long Way

If you're laughing at this post title, you're not alone.


Seriously, I can't read that title out loud without laughing. I also can't hear the word "duty" without laughing either. A couple weeks ago I was in a meeting with my coworker, Kim, when her supervisor said, "Whose duty is that?" and we burst out laughing. Ohhh geez. Judge me all you want. That's how I get my jollies.


So anywho, on to the post. 


I posted several weeks ago about repainting my bathroom window frame. If you take a look at the "after" shot, you can see there are gaps in between the window and frame. Every time I took a shower those gaps were just asking to be filled, but for some reason I thought it would be a lot harder to do. When I went to Home Depot with my Dad on Father's Day, he helped me pick out the right kind of caulk and lent me his caulking gun for the job. When we were at the register paying (and by we, I mean "he".. it was only $2 after all and he was buying a bunch of other stuff) I said, "Dad, don't forget to lend me your gun." The cashier was like, "Whaaaaaa?..." I'm not sure if she was more surprised that I called this guy Dad (we look NOTHING alike) or that I was asking to borrow his gun lol I assumed the latter and clarified so she wouldn't think we were crazy. 


When I got home, I googled how to remove old caulk*, and then got to work. 


I filled in all the gaps around the window - as it turns out, there was very little caulk in the window. There couldn't have been more than a foot's worth. Unfortunately, when I was working on the bottom of the window, a huge strip of paint came off and I haven't had a chance to repaint it yet, hence no "after" shots of the window. 


I did, however, manage to caulk a bunch of other things in the bathroom while I was at it. Caulking is such a little thing, but it made the bathroom look a lot less dingy.


Here are some before and after shots:


The vanity may or may not be breaking free because I routinely sat on it so I could sit super close to the mirror to apply mascara..... Lesson learned! I apply my mascara from afar now!

This one might be a bit less obvious. I recaulked where the short side of the tub edge meets the tile. 

All in all, I caulked the window, the vanity, the tub (as shown) and the exterior of the tub where it connects to the bathroom floor. For $2, I'd say (Dad's) money well spent!

*There are more steps involved, but for me, removing old caulk basically consisted of cutting it away with a utility blade, scraping away any residue, and then thoroughly cleaning and drying the area.

Birdie on a Wire

For my birthday last year, my friend bought me a water colour painting from Kerry Ainger. She lives in British Columbia, Canada and has a shop on Etsy, named This Tinder. She'll be away on vacation for the next couple weeks, but check out her Etsy shop in July when she gets back. She also has a blog, named This Tinder where she displays her beautiful art and blogs about her life and other creative outlets.

So, this painting had been sitting in my pile of things-to-frame for long enough, so I went to Value Village to see if I could find a suitable frame for it. Now that I have the mat cutter I feel like the world is my oyster :-) I have all these frames to choose from!

I found this nice frame at Value Village - originally from C. Gutenburg Gallery Limited in Toronto according to the sticker on the back. I also stopped back into Deserres to get another mat. The two stores are only about 100 metres apart so it was very convenient.

Here's the after shot once I cut the mat and put in Kerry's painting. I think it looks great!

Here's a close up of the cute little birdie. He's got a top hat! 

The total cost of this project was $8.54 before taxes! Seriously, where have mat cutters been all my life??

I hung the newly frame art above the towel rack in the bathroom. The silver trim looks a lot better than the old frame and the white really brightens the place up, especially now that we have all white trim in there - a reveal I'll show you soon :-)

Bathroom Inspiration

Whenever I come across inspiring home images I like to save them. Magazine pages get dog-eared or just straight up torn out; web images get saved in a folder (although I've recently been introduced to Pinterest and will be testing that out). If you looked at my collection of inspirational pictures I don't think you'd be able to summarize my style of decor into one category... except when it comes to bathrooms. All the pictures I like look the same!

• Light coloured tile floors 
• Double marble vanity (ideally) with under mounted sinks
• Light, neutral colour palette
• Some glossy, sparkly, reflective, shiny elements (lighting fixtures, mirror, faucets, hardware, etc)

I recently read an article on Apartment Therapy, titled 5 Qualities of Luxurious Bathrooms, which were space, light, texture, materials, and detail. Some of the points that resonated with me, as a renter, were:

• Create the appearance of more space by removing visual clutter, choosing a monochromatic color palette, and using a few additional luxurious qualities.
• Like space, light is a commodity that can be in short supply, and its abundance in the bathroom is a luxury. If you're lucky enough to have large windows and no close neighbors, consider going bare.  
• Something as simple as a tray with a candle, a book and some tea, a chandelier or pretty decorative storage can elevate a space.

Here are a few bathrooms from my inspiration folder...


I love this vanity (although I wish it had an undermounted sink..) and the mix of tile on the walls. 

Source

The floor tiles are ceramic hex and the wall tiles are Carrara subway tiles. Very classic look. The chandelier is unexpected and adds a lil' glamour to the place. 

Source

I love the contrast between the dark paint and light wainscoting. The polished faucets, marble counter and tray in the middle are all nice touches.

Source

I love how light and airy this bathroom is! I see at least 2 windows here, so that definitely helps to achieve that feeling. The wall and floor tiles are gorgeous, as is the counter. And notice that they have a tray on the vanity as well.

Source

Refreshed Window Frame

Projects lead to more projects, renovations lead to more renovations. After painting the medicine cabinet, I decided to paint the window frame. I knew it would really brighten up the place if they were both white. And now that I've painted the frame, I want to paint the rest of the trim and the door in there too!

Currently the trim and door are the same colour as the "before" picture of the window frame, which is just a yucky beigey-green colour. Seriously, that was the colour of ALL of the trim in our apartment when we moved in... The living room and bedroom now have white trim (done some time last year) and the bathroom is next on my hit list.

Before painting, I sanded down the frame. Some areas were really rough so I had to sand them quite a bit so the finish would be smooth after painting. After sanding, I wiped down the whole frame with a damp cloth. I also cleaned the rails that the window slides on and the windows themselves. To clean the rails I mixed 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water and added a few drops of dish detergent. I poured a bit of the water straight onto the rails, used a bunch of Q-tips to scrub the dirt free, and then used the cloth to wipe up the water. Note: don't use a nice cloth because it will get DIRRRRTY.

Once everything was all nice and clean, I was ready to start painting. I painted three coats of semi-gloss paint in a colour called White High Hiding. Here are some before and after shots:

My friend, Gary, said the before and after picture of the medicine cabinet "look exactly the same"... so hopefully he thinks these before and after shots are more satisfactory :-P

And here's a painful "after" shot of my finger.. I pinched it when I put the lid back on the paint can and gave myself a blood blister :(

It's Grout Scrubbing Time

While I'm not a particularly tidy person, I love me a clean bathroom!  Whenever my boyfriend or I start using a new toothbrush, I know exactly what my plans are for the old one.

Deep. Clean. The. Grout.

I'm not sure how often grout is supposed to be deep cleaned, but only two corners get visibly dirty and they seem to stay clean enough if I do it every time one of us replaces a toothbrush.

These are the two gross corners. Interestingly, the rest of grout remains remarkably white That being said.... these corners have been looking quite ahem... NASTY as of late. Case in point:

Oh the horror...

Baking soda and lemon (and the ol' toothbrush) to the rescue!

If you've never used baking soda and lemon/vinegar to clean before, pleeeease try it. You'll be amazed!

Here's how I did it:

• 1/8 cup of baking soda
• 1 lemon (cut in half)
• 1 old toothbrush

1. Dip the toothbrush in the baking soda
2. Rub the lemon half on the wall so it gets wet with lemon juice
3. Scrub away with the baking soda-covered toothbrush in the areas you just wet with the lemon juice.

You'll see a nice fizzy action going on! The baking soda is abrasive so it really gets the dirt out and lemon leaves a very nice scent. Above all, you don't have to worry about any of this:

Source

I kid you not, a few years ago my mom nearly passed out when she accidentally made mustard gas while cleaning the bathroom by mixing ammonia and bleach. Harsh cleaners just aren't worth the risk when products around the house do an amazing job. Lemon and baking soda also works very well at getting the bathroom fixtures all shiny!

 Here are some before and after pics of the bathtub corners:

Take that grout!

Medicine Cabinet Revamp

When we first moved in, the bathtub and toilet were beige... yuck. Since then, our landlord has updated our toilet to the low-flow variety and hallelujah, it's white. We can't do anything about the tub for now, but it's not so bad.. We could always close the curtains when people come over if we thought it was that bad.

So.

The medicine cabinet.

I think someone painted it beige once upon a time to match the beige toilet and tub. Whoever that "someone" was did a crap-tastic job of painting it. Since we now have a white toilet and sink, I figured I'd paint the cabinet white to match. Maybe if the cabinet were painted beige and done well, or painted white and done poorly, I would've left it alone... but a crappy beige paint job? Not in my bathroom!

Here's a before picture. It doesn't look that bad right?

Look closer....ewww

If you that thought that was gross, check out this close up! I thought Riley was my only pet.. turns out I was housing a litter of dust bunnies on my medicine cabinet!

Usually, I would use a reuseable wipe to clean up messes, some messes just call for disposables...

Note: In my excited haze, I forgot to take pictures from here on out lol...

After wiping down the surfaces, I sanded the front and edges of the cabinet door and the sides of the cabinet back. I used a slightly damp sponge to wipe away the sanding debris. I used painter's tape around the edges of the mirror and then taped old flyers to the front of the mirror. I used Krylon white primer - sprayed one coat - and waited about 1 hour before spraying 2 coats of Krylon white glossy paint. While I was waiting the paint to dry, I read the side of the spray can. It say, "Best results when air and surface temperature is 50ºF (10ºC) - 90ºF (32ºC) and humidity below 85%." Ummmmmmmmmmmm, if you don't live in Toronto or know what the weather was like here yesterday:

Source

Definitely not above 10ºC and it was drizzling. Spray painting FAIL! 

In case you're wondering what kind of DIYer I am, I'm the messy, impulsive, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind. This is what the bathroom looked like while I was painting the cabinet. My other half is a very orderly person and was less than impressed by the state of the bathroom when he got home from work... 

I'm impatient and wanted to help along my cabinet in this cold wet weather, so I brought down my blow dryer and had at it for about 10 minutes. By 10:30pm, I was reattaching the cabinet to the wall and revelling in all its new white glossy glory :-D

Here are some before and after shots.

 Before and after straight on

 Before and after zoomed in side shots (same spot)

 

Before and after side shot

Obviously I'm biased, but I think it looks so much better! Why didn't I do this sooner??!