Extreme (more cosmetic, really) Makeover: Bathroom

On our return from the camp at the weekend I persuaded my ever loving husband that we should makeover the bathroom- "It will just take a couple of hours, it's all just aesthetic stuff: it will be an easy win." Oh, how wrong was I. It was painful. Not so much for me, I got to just make up crafty things. But Tim got stuck with laying the stick-on tiles that, erm, didn't stick.

So, several arduous evenings later we have almost finished. I wanted to share it so that it gives the impression that we are doing more than ignoring our unpacked boxes and ripping the odd bit of paper off the walls when we happen to be passing. Hehe.

What we used:
24 slate coloured stick on tiles from B and Q- £24
Fluro orange spray paint- £5
A utensil to scrape off ceramic animals
Some old containers and crockery
A vegetable rack

I wanted to go for an "industrial meets natural" feel, metal and orange with a dash of woven fibres to add a bit of a homely feel. I love it. Tim thinks it is a bit weird. What do you think?

BEFORE:

Meet the duck. There were ducks, dolphins and shells glued on all over the place. Alas, they didn't fit the new theme. They will be missed.

The floor was just really quite minging. It had to go too.

It is really quite small, so nice looking storage of things was proving to be a challenge.
INBETWEEN:
This is me in the back garden painting and spray painting random objects haphazardly. It was a lot of fun.

AFTER:
To sort out the storage challenge I spray painted some old biscuit tins. They house the million peices of rubbish bathrooms (well, all our rooms) gather- old sun tan lotion, vitamins, more vitamins and more sun tan lotion...


These beauty little safe boxes have been sitting in my stock room at work, I had to put them on show so gave a little extra into the petty cash for them. Definitely my favourite bit, and practial too, storing even more extras.
I spray painted some orange dots (I fashioned a stencil out of the front page a swanky RSA bookletI got in a charity shop for 20p.) We pulled about 8 of these white tea pots from a bin last year- no lids, so not good pourers but perfect tooth brush holders amongst other things!


These frames once held those bright fake gerbera flowers -know the ones? Now they hold plastic tikis, shells and string, in colours that are very on-brand for our new bathroom, courtesy of that lovely spray paint once again!

Serious bit of bumpage...26 weeks

Just a quick little visual update on the baby bump...

26 weeks and only just at the point where strangers can ask my due date without fear of offending someone with a chubby tummy, and where women give me goggly knowing eyes.

We are off tomorrow to run a social action stream at a youth camp in Epping Forest for the week, then back to work for some urgent business then off again for a week of camping. Very excited!

Extreme (or maybe more quick and dirty) Makeover: Kitchen

The kitchen was right up there as being one of the worst rooms in the house. It was a mix of Little House on the Prairie and Little Shop of Horrors. Dirty pine covered everything, making it feel dark and oppressive. While we realise we eventually need to give it a serious overhaul, we have decided we will do this when we are on the way out so that we don't have time to put our hot burny pans on the brand new surfaces. (Ahem, not that this is a, er, regular occurrence or anything.) And in the meantime we got to create this rough, fun, vintage look just with a can of white emulsion and some sandpaper. It has created the perfect canvas for some of our lovely car boot finds and has really lightened the whole space up- and all done in a couple of hours. This is my kind of makeover...

BEFORE:

AFTER:
We took the slat door off the end cupboard to create a magical little cubby hole for some knickknacks...

This is some of my Jessie Tait crockery- I am a little bit addicted to its loveliness- and you can find bits everywhere. This makes me a collector, eh?

The distressed look on the cupboards was done with just a lick or two of white paint, then I just took some sand paper to the edges and corners to pull out some of those nice curves. I'd wear gloves in the future though...

Sadly not many of the other rooms are going to have this fast a turn around, we have to, like, strip wall paper, and plaster up wonky bits and stuff like that. Bummer eh. I'm all about quick fixes/ botch jobs. He he.