Finishing Touches

After tiling was complete, all we had left to do was put stuff back into its place and add on all of the finishing touches to the bathroom.

First up: install the new vanity. We heaved that bad boy into the bathroom and set him in his new spot. It was nice to have him out of the living room after 6 weeks. Once it was in the corner, it became apparent that either the floors or the walls were a tad uneven. This is actually really common in all houses - you just don't notice it until you're putting new stuff in and need a level surface. But my MacGyver fashioned some small foot pads for the vanity to level it out and then screwed it into the wall to give it even more stability. The back panel of the vanity wasn't the right shape for our plumbing in there, so he used a jigsaw to cut out a nice nook for it all.

Next mini-project: the mirror. The mirror that came with the house was nice, just the wrong color for our new bathroom. Instead of spending $100 on a new mirror, we decided to save some money and just spray paint the frame of the old one. We went to Home Depot and picked out some paint that we thought would match the vanity cabinet. Matt disassembled the frame and set it on some cardboard in the yard. Then it was just a matter of evenly spraying it and letting it dry out. The reassembly of the mirror was a little tricky, but he was eventually able to caulk the mirror back onto the finished frame. The color matched pretty well, and it looks good on the wall!

After that, I went out of town for a few days and Matt did some work that didn't require assistance. He installed the new fixtures for the bath tub on one day, put in the new toilet the next, and put on our cute new little toilet paper roll. That's all I have to say about that because I wasn't there for it - ha! But it is nice to come home after traveling and have a lot of tasks completed!

For our lovely new linen closet, we decided that a little organization was in order. I don't have any great before pictures because I am so embarrassed of the wreck that I let happen in that closet. It was bad - blankets and towels shoved onto the shelves in total disarray. While we were walking through Home Depot, we happened to spot some cute cloth organization bins in a color very close to our Tropical Lagoon paint. So we bought a few and I printed out tags on the computer to indicate what was in them. I let the "fancy" towels that match the decor stay out on display, but hid away the ugly towels (that we use to wash Jordan) and the mis-matched sheets and blankets.

And then there was our new lighting fixture. The old one was disgusting. I took great joy in throwing that thing in the trash - Goodwill wouldn't even want that piece of crap. The new light is a mix between modern and traditional - a theme that we carried throughout the whole bathroom. The light install carried a lot of pains - mainly because all of the work that you have to do is over your head and thus exhausting on the arms. But Matt managed to get it done and when the power was flipped back on, we cheered at the fact that everything had been wired properly (gotta celebrate the little things!). Then it was a slight lowering of the mirror to get it into its optimal position and we called that portion done.

Lastly, I took a little trip to Bed Bath & Beyond to pick up some accessories. The funny thing is that we already had really cute accessories before we started the remodel, and we initially planned to design the bathroom around them. But it turns out it is easier to get the big things out of the way first and then match accessories at the end than it is to find tile and vanities that match a soap dispenser :) The new accessories are beautiful and simple and they go very well with the room. We also picked up some cute faux flowers at IKEA - I think I'm going to make it a "thing" to have flowers (even if they are fake) in all of the rooms in my house. They make me smile every time I walk by.