bathroom re-do ~ finally!

This post has been a long time coming. I painted the bathroom many months ago in the sweltering heat in a bathroom with no windows (and I did not want to keep the door open since I was using a regular type paint (not no-VOC like i usually do). I chose Behr bright white paint with primer in it since the original color from the old owners was icky cranberry red and I did not want to paint a bunch of coats.

I am not a rich color person. I prefer brighter, cooler colors. I decided on white because of the tiny size of the bathroom and I just like the feeling of fresh and clean in the bathroom.

Here are some before (and during) photos:

 Talk about dark, huh? ugh!

So I made some changes. First as I mentioned, paint-white paint. As you can see below, I am a messy painter. And guess what? Some (most) of this paint was scraped up from the floor of our garage. Yup, I dropped the whole gallon of paint on the garage floor. The floor and my car still have white paint on them to prove it! I am not one to waste, so I scraped up as much as I could and put it back in the can. The upside? I did not have to stir it.

Next I made these awesome map towel holders. This was the impetus for the whole change. I saw Martha make these on her TV show (before she went to the Hallmark channel which we don't have! bummer!). They are maps decoupaged onto painted wooden plaques from Michael's.

 I chose places we have been this year. I got the maps free at AAA! The hooks are from the Home Depot for about $4.00 each. The plaques were about a dollar and the paint I already had.

I finally got around to making this towel holder for the one near the sink. I had another map one there on a rectangle plaque, but I wasn't feeling it, so I decoupaged on fabric (remember this post?). I first decoupaged it on some card stock and then onto the painted plaque.

Love it!

The center piece of the room is this large USA map on a bulletin board. I covered it with fabric (an old bed sheet) and pinned a Dollar Store US map on it (I cut off the white boarder first).

 I bought map pins from the office supply store, but they did not have the colors I wanted, so I spray painted the red ones. I wanted at least two colors. The green ones are places we have been with our son and the white ones are places my husband and I have been together. Our son choose the color spray paint he wanted for the places he has been- lime green- a great choice!

This is the old mobile from our son's room when we replaced his with an owl mobile. It works great in here!

And lastly, I made this TP holder today. It has been in my mind for moooonths! For real! I'll post a tutorial later this week. We have absolutely NO storage in this tiny bathroom, so no place to store TP. Problem solved.

I love how it all turned out!

p.s. I painted the dog painting probably 10 years ago when I really wanted a dog, but could not have one in my apartment. I love white!