Greeting The New Year With A Paintbrush...

On New Year's Day I got a bee in my bonnet. I wanted to start the new year off with a house project. Something a little more involved than vacuuming and dusting. You have no idea how much I dislike those glass doors on the guest bathroom tub, but I'll tell you. It's a lot!

Having them on the tub makes it difficult to bathe grandchildren or step into the shower (if you're tall). Let's not even talk about how hard it is to keep them clean! I have to get into the tub to clean the tub - and the doors are always water-spotted, even if you use a squeegee. Gah!

The walls have been that chalky white color for the whole nine years we've lived here. I'm sick of it. It was time to choose a color that would accent the off-white woodwork.

I went to Home Depot and brought home a bunch of paint chips. I love Behr paint and the great coverage I get when I use it. Handsome and I finally settled on this color - Wheat Bread. I wanted to make sure we didn't go too dark, otherwise I might have chosen Mocha Accent. I love the color, but didn't want to darken a small room that much. (I cut the color name off the bottom chip when I cropped this image.)

Anyway, Handsome and I removed those shower doors on Sunday morning and put them aside to donate. We tried the local Habitat for Humanities office, but they said they didn't take shower doors. (Really? They rebuild and refurbish houses and don't take stuff like this?) They weren't grungy or anything. They just needed a light cleaning and we'd been really careful to remove them without damaging them. In the end, we contacted the Suncoast Humane Society Thrift Store, and they were thrilled to have them. Handsome delivered them to their store on Monday while I started painting.

This is the "after" picture of the tub area. New shower curtain, rugs and waste basket. The color is actually truer on the second photo (below). This one looks more tan than it actually is.

This is better. See all those tiles across the back of the shower? They wrap all the way around, and they were installed in the house when we purchased it. There were two young children living here with their parents, and their handprints and artwork became part of the decor when the house was built. Perhaps some day they'll be replaced with our grandchildrens' artwork, but they'll stay for now.

This bathroom is referred to as "Jack and Jill", because it sits between two rooms and is shared by both. The tub area has its own sink and the linen closet is in this section. This is the "before" photo of the sink area.

This is the "after" photo. Subtle change, but we like it so much more in  this color. I decided that the heron print was more appropriate with the seashell shower curtain than the dog images, but I had to keep that Golden figurine on the sink. It makes me smile.

The toilet side of the bathroom has a sliding door between the two rooms. It also has its own sink. "Before"...

and (a blurry) "after" shot. This section of the bath doesn't have a window, which is why I was careful choosing a color. This side could have gotten really dark had we started with a darker shade of paint.

This is the toilet area "before" painting, with my favorite grizzly bear poster on the wall. He's looking at the camera as he scratches his back against the pine tree. This used to hang in our master bath in our northern house, and I wanted to make sure it had a place in our home in Florida, too.

It went back on the wall in our guest bath. So, that's how I spent Day Two of the new year! Day Three (yesterday) was spent emptying and sorting through my studio bath closet. I'm still not finished sorting through all the things that were in that closet, but I took a few bags of yarn to my friends in the knit group at Paneras last night along with two boxes of knitting magazines. I'd say that's a pretty good start.

I'll be cleaning up the transplanted closet clutter out of the studio today and then dealing with my "piling system" in my office area so that I have that mess under control before the end of today. I need to get back to creating in the studio soon. Doing this stuff wears me out!