Adding Accents to the bathroom

I have found that I've always looked at things I like and wondered  if I could make them better- and since buying a house and becoming more budget aware I've been wondering that more. So while looking for things to add to our ocean/penguin bathroom we decided on hooks instead of a towel rack since we don't really use a towel rack correctly, we just shove the towel in between the rack and the wall. I found theses pretty hooks on Amazon.com :

They are $22 for the set but I still was thinking that was a bit more than I wanted to spend since I wanted four hooks. and while I liked them I didn't LOVE them so I decided to make my own! I have a big bag of sea shells that my Mom bought me last year sometime that I've been slowly using to make things and I decided this would be a wonderful use! So I pulled that out and when I went to Home Depot to return a light-switch that didn't work with our fan's light I got standard robe hooks...


These were $3.28 each. So with my giant bag of shells that was $20 (and I barely made a dent in it) each hook ended up costing between $4-5.

Because of the style of the hook I attached it to the wall first then I used hot glue to attached 2-3 shells per hook. Now, the screws ARE covered, but that is why I used hot glue- because if we need to move the hooks, peeling hot glue off is not impossible. Not easy but not impossible. The end result was:

I like my result much better than the hooks I found on Amazon, and they were a whole lot cheaper! Win!

That's all for now! 

~)O(~ Elfie ~)O(~

Bathroom Makeover, Pt 2: Hanging stuff up!

Yay! Bathroom makeover is mostly complete! Ok, well the painting and stuff is done, I'll be slowly working on adding stuff to hang on the walls as I get more to hang up. Problem is I haven't found things I'm willing to spend the money on at this point to hang on the walls, but the walls need...SOMETHING... but that will come in time. But yea, moving on. So, on Wednesday I came home armed with a teeny tiny paint brush, you know, the type that come with the kiddie paint kits and I cleaned up the edges. Our ceiling has texture on it and it meant the tape didn't lay quite flat so the edges were bumpy and that was just irritating me. So what did I do? I took a teeny tiny paint brush to it. So I was up there on my step-ladder listening to The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan as I was fixing up the edges (To be fair I was also listening to it during the main painting.. and when painting the trim, it's freaking amazing. Seriously, go listen to it). So I did that. Then on Friday after Snickers got a bath so she no longer smells like a Basset Hound who possibly was rolling around in goose poop I taped up the bathroom again and painting the trim, and the inside of the doors. It looks like a whole different bathroom. There is one little issue we didn't think about. The shower and the bathtub are off white so it looks a little bit odd, but not enough to truly bother us.

So today we hung up the new mirror. We were a little worried it might be too small but I think it is JUST right. I think it would look nice with some small (and I mean really small-possibly just seashells) around it. I also put the storage baskets back up. I got that idea off of pinterest and used the shower curtain hooks that I got from my Mother-In-Law to hang the baskets on the towel racks. You can't see what is on them, but they have penguins on them. The bathroom is now a penguin/beach theme. It works way better than one might think because these are surfer penguins. Think of the movie Surf's Up.

Last week Superman installed our new showerhead. We were far more excited about this then mid-twenty year olds should be. It was even more fun since the previous owners had used a type of plumbers' glue to get the old shower head on. So we had to make another run up to our home improvement store in order to get the right wrenches (instead of just pliers) to get the stupid thing off. But once we got that it took no time at all for him to install the new one. Doesn't it look nice? We also have sticky sea shells on the walls of the shower. Those were meant to help keep us from slipping in the shower but they won't stick to the shower floor. BUT they will stick to the walls so TA-DA! We have shells on our shower walls. Yeaaaa...don't judge us k?

I also was pretty excited to hang up this awesome carved wooden turtle we bought from a homeless man in the inner harbor up in Baltimore, Maryland. We were up there for a show, I don't remember which one, we've seen a lot in Baltimore, I'm leaning towards Phantom of the Opera but that might have been when we bought the painting from the homeless guy. Anyway that's not my point. The turtle was bought from a very talented homeless guy at the inner harbor and he's been migrating to different locations since we bought him with the intention that SOMEDAY I would hang him up and well, today was that day. I love the turtle! He's TOTALLY AWESOME MAN!







CHECK OUT THIS toothbrush cup. Ok, I'm not sure if it was actually MEANT to be a toothbrush cup, seeing as they had another shell with the holes that usually say "Hey, put your toothbrush here" but I liked this one better. I think I'm going to go back and get the soap dispenser that goes with this set. I resisted that day but I don't think I can for much longer. It's really quite a pretty set. Yay seashells!

I also got new bathmats because our old ones were blue and that would have been entirely too much blue. But now we have pretty shell ones as well as the surfer penguin one from my Mother-In-Law. Pretty awesome right?




So there you have it, these are the things I bought for our bathroom makeover, and the things we've gotten hung on the walls. We'll be getting new light-switch plates and a new plate for around the electrical outlet, I just haven't ordered them yet. We'll also get a new towel rack but meh, that also hasn't happened yet. For now we'll keep sticking the towels on the edge of the tub.
Here are a few more pictures of the bathroom though that aren't things bought or hung up for this project, but they show how pretty the bathroom now is. YAY for room makeovers! Next up....the bedroom....

These walls CLEARLY need something... possibly tentacles looking like they are coming out of the wall? WATCH OUT FOR THE KRAKEN! Also notice the awesomely big bag of seashells that my Mommy bought me, cuz I love seashells and the ocean. (Can't you tell?)














I'm happy this area turned out because when I was painting the area around the shower top had white splotches, but as it dried it evened out so it's all good now. Also notice how nice and even the paint at the ceiling looks.






~)O(~ Elfie ~)O(~ 

Upstairs bathroom makeover pt. 1

We decided to kick off 2013 with a makeover! Thanks to gifts cards from our very generous family we've been able to buy stuff for the house, including a bathroom makeover, and the first step was taken today. But first, the before pictures!

Now, one of the reasons we decided to start with the bathroom is.. well.. it's small. So it's easy and relatively inexpensive (in the grand scheme of things) to do. That and the previous owners tore the towel racks and toilet paper holder out of the wall and did a HORRIBLE job repairing it, and it bothered us. There is also the issue of the bathroom light switch- there are two sets, the one by the second door is on the outside of the bathroom door  instead of inside the bathroom. So we took off the big mirror so that eventually we'll be able to get the light switch put in the correct place. Below are the after painting pictures! However, the pictures DO NOT do the color justice at all! The color is more of a turquoise, robins egg blue- instead of the light blue it looks like here.