The White Apartment

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Upstairs Bath Update

Hi there, I hope you had a great weekend! We went to Louisville for a wedding. It was one of my best friend’s from college and so I got to spend time with so many old friends, it was the best! And, Louisville is actually pretty cool! If anyone’s interested in things to do there I’m happy to share.

Anyway, today I’m giving you a little update of where things stand in our upstairs bathroom. This is the one we use pretty much all the time. You probably remember that I already added drawer pulls and that I had some problems with the clawfoot tub in there, but I finally made a shower curtain that’s working really well. I thought I was pretty close to being done, but there have been a few more hiccups along the way than I was expecting.

Really all I wanted to do was add a mirror and paint the walls. Both simple things right?? Well, not quite. I’ll start with the mirror. The biggest mirror I’ve been able to find is 30” x 40” (roughly) and that’s just not big enough. The whole vanity is 85” and I wanted something that spanned almost all of it. I thought about settling for one of those 30” x 40” options, but the sinks measure 45” and I think it will just look weird to put a mirror up that isn’t at least as wide as the sinks. Then you would stand at a sink, look in the mirror and part of you would be cut off. No, I wasn’t into it. Unfortunately the sinks are too close together to put a mirror above each one. If I wanted to do that and keep them from touching each other they would end up having to be really tiny. Then it thought about getting a floor mirror and mounting on the wall sideways. I found one at the West Elm outlet that I really loved, but it was so heavy. Like wayyyy too heavy for our plaster walls to support so that was out. And all the other ones I looked at were either too expensive or I just didn’t like them. So, we decided we would just see what a custom mirror would cost. I assumed that it would be crazy expensive, but it was actually really cheap. Now, it’s just the mirror no frame or anything, but we’re pretty sure we can add something. All we have to do is figure out the size. Well this is where the painting thing comes in. You can’t tell from these pictures, but right below the piece of painters tape on the top of the wall is very uneven. It looks like maybe there was something mounted there at some point and then was taken off. It’s really bumpy and weird looking. It’s about 2.5’ wide and 6” tall. Plus there are some other uneven spots around the room. So I was just going to sand everything really well and then give it a nice coat of paint. Welllll, it occurred to me that since the house was built in 1910 there’s probably some lead paint in there somewhere and it’s not a great idea to sand it. So, we thought maybe we could make the mirror larger and cover the weird area. But, now the proportions seem off to me and I haven’t been able to pull the trigger. Where the tape on the sides stop is how tall we were planning on making the mirror which seemed really good. So I need to decide on the mirror height so I know what’s happening with the ugly spot on the wall so I can decide how to fix it or hide it so I can paint. Or wallpaper? I’ve been really wanting to wallpaper it lately because I feel like it needs another pattern in there. I love the rug that I got, but that’s the only color or pattern in the room and it’s on the floor. I feel like there needs to be something else to balance it out.  

I also need to organize the drawers of the vanity. There’s a lot of storage there, but right now we’re not using it that well because the drawers are so deep. I want to find something that can go in there and separate the depth in the middle so I can use the bottom half and the top half. Then I’ll be able to get most of the stuff off the counter, which will be super exciting. After that all I need to do is accessorize.

So, there aren’t that many projects left in there, but I think I’m still a ways away from finishing just because it’s taking me a while to decide on what I like and want to do. Just as soon as I make my way out of indecision purgatory I’ll update you on everything!


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