William Morris and The Bathroom

We have been working on our tiny downstairs bathroom since November 2011. It took us an unconscionable 12 weeks to tile the area around the bath tub. It's taking even longer to finish up the "little" things.

Little things like painting it.

OK, so not exactly a small thing. I didn't want to buy new paint for this room, even though I wanted to use something darkish, like Hale Navy by Benjamin Moore.

lonny

Isn't that gorgeous? (Though to be fair, that's not Hale Navy.)

This is the boss. I figured that as long as I could come up with a colour that's already in these tiles, I'd be OK.

(I still like these: I just wish I hadn't bothered with the yellow/orange ones. I've decided to ignore them.)

In keeping with our goal to spend as little money as possible, I decided to mix up what we had on hand into a "dark blue-grey."

I stirred and mixed and tested and still I managed to create....wait for it.... purple.

Can you can see the purple right by the green frog tape by the window trim?

I adjusted things mid-stream, remixed a bit, and declared myself satisfied. I'm not, of course. I really want either a navy or a really dark indigo.

 

We sent out the mirrored door on the medicine cabinet for a new mirror.

And so of course, I couldn't paint that until I got it back.

I know that many would love the patina of the original fifty year old mirror, but I didn't. Not in the bathroom. I don't need age spots on my mirror when my ageing eyes are hardly able to see those scary straggly grandpa brow hairs of mine (even though they're huge!) (They seem to be appearing with alarming regularity, now, too!)

I painted all the woodwork: baseboards, window trim, door trim, the third coat over the bath tub area and deep breath, the door. I don't know why, but I dragged my feet on that one.

Can you see how yellow that door is in comparison to the trim? That is BM Cloud White on the door and BM Simple White on the trim. The entire bathroom was painted cloud white which next to our new tile just looked old and yellow.

The above picture was taken the last day of April. I finished the door (and all that trim painting) on the nineteenth of May. Yes, nineteen days to paint the door. One side of the door.

I've cleaned hinges, hung hooks and towel racks and I was waiting to post this until I was absolutely completely done with the room.

See that hole in the wall by the floor next to my chevron painted toilet paper holder? Good. You'll be glad you did.

But it is dragging itself out, of course. What's left?

Two very small, very teeny, very tiny things:

1) Spray painting the heat vent cover.

It goes over that hole in the wall by the chevron painted toilet roll holder. Aren't you glad you saw it before so you won't have to scroll back up, now?

and

2) sewing a new set of curtains (though I do love these tea towels. I wish I had bought more of them.)

Rain has been to blame for the former, and the second...well that'll be a whole post by itself. Maybe by next WM Project Day. Fingers crossed.

Linking to the William Morris Project hosted by Jules at Pancakes and French Fries.