Harry Potter and the...Master Bathroom?

Alright. So I’ve been thinking lately (shocking, I know) about this idea I had to do some sort of themed post every week. Kind of like how YoungHouseLove gives away prizes once a week and how the HGTV blog does a Color of the Month, so I’d like to be able to give everyone something to look forward to on a regular basis (besides some stunning pictures of me weeding, or scrubbing grout, or whatever other glamorous thing I’m currently up to). Now, I’m not going to be able to give away prizes just yet (sorry; maybe someday), but since I do need to work up some more mood boards for the rest of the rooms in our house, I’ve decided to implement “Moody Mondays” (a name fitting in more ways than one)!

Every Monday from here on out (unless otherwise arranged), I will be coming out with a new mood board for another room in the house. These mood boards will always feature a product list and links to the items that inspire me, just in case you feel inspired by them, too. And, just to keep things interesting, once I get done doing all of my rooms (or maybe sooner, depending on how well this goes) I’d be more than happy to whip up a board for anyone else who wants one! I think it will be a lot of fun, not only to work on my own rooms, but also to branch out and try doing a little bit of design work for others, as well. J

So without further babble, I’m proud to introduce the very first Moody Monday Board…

My Hogwarts-themed master bathroom!

So that may not sound like the most grown-up thing in the world, but I don’t care what anyone says: the Harry Potter books are genius. They are ART. And I would be proud to have my bathroom stand as a homage to their fabulousness.

Now, before you write me off completely (or before you start getting visions of Snitch-patterned wallpaper or maybe a life-size-Dobby-replica toilet paper holder), take a minute to please remember back to last Friday, when I showed you this little teaser:

Remember that? Well, those prints are where this idea really began for me. I was inspiration scouting on (what else?) Pinterest, when I came across these very vintagey, Harry Potter inspired works of art. I loved the colors used in them, as well as the subject matter, and I immediately began thinking of a way to incorporate them into our home. Where’s a good place to display a small set of postcard-sized prints? Someplace where they’ll be able to fill up the space properly and where (let’s be honest) I won’t have to look at them ALL of the time (because, while I do love them, I don’t love them enough to hang them over my mantel, ya know?)?

Answer? Why, in the bathroom, of course!

So, having the location settled, I started looking for a some bathrooms that inspired me and could be tweaked for my new Hogwarts theme. This one was my absolute favorite:

Now that I had loads of inspiration, I began piecing together some ideas about colors, accessories, and foundation elements. I pretty quickly put together this little mood board (there’s really only so much you can put in an 8x8 bathroom, so it didn’t take too long).

1. Using the colors found in the postcards, I began searching for an acceptable color palette.

2. Design-Seeds proved it’s worth yet again, coming up with this calming palette of blues, grey-taupes, and corncob yellow.

3. I went to the Behr website and searched around a little bit longer to find this tone (called “Lion”) for the walls and this color,

4. “Pot of Cream,” for the trim. I haven't decided if I want board and batten in there or not. I'm sort of playing with the idea of doing large horizontal stripes on the walls in almost-identical shades of grey for a subtle effect, so we'll just have to see how it all plays out.

5. Our current three-paneled, red-oak medicine cabinet is hideous, so I’m thinking of replacing it with this espresso-stained, window-ledge mirror from Lowes. I think the narrowness of it will make the space look a little larger and will make room for

6. a couple of these aged-bronze vanity lights. The frosted shades will cut the glare in the bathroom and by moving them from on top of the mirror to the sides, I think the lighting will be much more natural (not to mention, flattering—which is always a bonus).

7. And, just to play around, I thought to add this little yellow toothbrush holder in the shape of a bird. I was briefly tempted to go with this owl one but thought that might be going a wee bit overboard with the whole HP theme (and that’s “Potter,” not “Packard,” for the record).

8. Lastly, I think this new theme deserves a new shower curtain. Although our semi-transparent one that we have now, keeps the shower nice and brightly lit, I think something similar to this yellow chevron one will be attractive and nearly as bright ('cause I absolutely hate washing my hair in the dark).

So, what do you think? Do you like the idea of Moody Mondays? What about my plans for the master bathroom? Am I taking it too far? Not far enough? Do you wish I would try to find a Dobby t.p. holder? I probably could, if I tried hard enough…

Product Breakdown:

Inspiration bathroom from Welcome to Heardmont 

Harry Potter Postcard set by Caroline Hadilaksono - $22

Color palette from Design-Seeds

“Lion” and “Pot of Cream” Behr Paint from Home Depot - $32 per gallon

allen + roth Palencia Espresso Bath Mirror from Lowes - $119

Victorian Wall Sconce in Venetian bronze from Home Depot - $89 each

Bird Toothbrush Holder from Urban Outfitters $9

Yellow chevron shower curtain from Maison Boutique - $130

Tub Wars: 21 House Strikes Back

Oi. Sorry that this post is getting up so late, but today was rather busier than I thought it would be. First of all, I got my hair lobbed off (finally!), which means that I now have close to a foot of ponytail that needs to be mailed off to Locks of Love. Secondly, I went grocery shopping (by myself, for a change). And, lastly, I…well, it seems like there should be more, but I think that actually covers my day.

I guess I don’t really have a good excuse for not getting this post up sooner, but if you still want to see it, I still want to post it. So, without further adieu, here is the rest of the bath transformation!

After caulking the holes and ridding the entire place of the rebel scum (soap scum, that is), Denny broke out the hardware that came with the curtain rod and began measuring out where he planned to hang it. He wanted to hang it just above the edge of the tub surround, but I convinced him to go up and extra two inches ala YoungHouseLove, which recommends hanging both window treatments and shower curtains up higher than usual to create a taller-looking ceiling. And since our bathroom has strangely low ceilings, I really wanted to add some height by any means.

1. We did some measuring to figure out the placement of the attachment hardware, then Denny held up the attachments themselves and marked out where the screws needed to go in.

2. Using the drill, we put a test screw in to see if there was a stud on that wall or if we needed to use the drywall anchors that came with the rods (yes, I’m aware that we need to buy a stud-finder). Luckily, there were studs on either side so we

3. screwed the attachment partially into the wall and used the level to make sure that it was square before putting the last screw in.

Uh, and that’s where we ran into trouble. The first side went in just fine, but the second side apparently had studs of steel underneath it (sounds like the title of a trashy romance novel, huh?), which resulted in having to put some extra force behind the drill, which caused the screw to go in slightly sideways, which was not what we wanted, which led to us trying to unscrew it, which totally stripped the crap out of the head. Whew! Basically it was just a series of unfortunate events.

4. So we used some pliers to remove the wonky screw, tossed it in the trash, and

5. put in a new one in its place. Voila! We now had two fully functional attachments screwed securely in place.

6. Next we put the rod into place and inserted the bolt which hold the two pieces together.

7. I proceeded (at Denny’s insistence) to very clumsily use a couple of Allen wrenches to tighten up the bolts. We repeated the procedure on the other side and in no-time-at-all had a lovely, curved shower rod ready for the hanging!

We decided to go ahead and get everything shower-related done at one time, which included installing this pretty puppy.

We removed the old shower head and the Teflon-tape remnants, then Denny simply screwed the new shower head into place. We didn’t need to bother with sealants or anything, since the new shower head uses a rubber O-ring instead.

All the while (by which I mean most of the night), there was a lot of Denny perched on the edge of the tub and me right behind him, snapping madly away from every angle, kind of like this:

Anyway, the result (here come the finale pics, by the way, are you ready?) was a curved rod, a (sorta) fancy new shower head, and an overall more functional and aesthetically pleasing master bath. (These pictures don't come close to doing it justice by the way...)

Oh, and if you don’t believe me about the huge difference the rod makes, check out this little pic:

Imagine a rigid glass door in place a couple of inches to the right of where the rod attachment starts. It seriously doesn’t even feel like the same shower. It makes me happy every time I step into it.

Oh, and speaking of transformations, I thought I’d include a tiny before and after pic of my own transformation.

Quite the difference on both fronts, huh?

Tub Wars: A New Hope

This weekend we officially concluded our first fairly-large, indoor project: we removed the nasty shower doors from our master bathroom tub, cleaned the whole thing top to bottom, and hung up a new, curved rod. It may not seem like much, but there aren’t words to express to how great it feels to have gotten it done.

You see, before we bought our house, it had stood empty for some time and before that the people that had lived in it were clearly not…how do I put this delicately? Tidy? Organized? That doesn’t quite work. Okay, let’s just be honest instead: the people who lived in our house before us were pigs. Dust everywhere, twenty years worth of bacon grease under the range hood, hair clippings in the bathroom drawers…you name it, they left it behind. So, obviously, the first thing we embarked on was making the place liveable (aka clean). This process has taken up a lot of our time and there are still portions of the house that need work (now all we have left to clean is half the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom, and a whole lotta windows).

Up until last week, the master bathroom had still been on that list. The first night we moved in, I hurriedly chose the less disgusting of the upstairs bathrooms (the hallway one, obviously), gave it a good scrubbing, and we’ve been using it ever since. The master bath had been no-man’s land for a few weeks before we were able to find the time and the energy to gut it and clean it.

We started out by removing the ugly, brass shower doors. Now, let me just take a moment to explain that this was not only an issue of taste (I mean, really? Brass shower doors?), not even just an issue of cleanliness (although that played a heavy hand, too), it was primarily an issue of space. The showers in our house are incredibly narrow and that flaw was compounded by the rigid glass doors (really, you should see the bruises on my elbows from knocking into them every three seconds). So when I mentioned to my Mom that I wanted to replace the doors, she suggested getting curved, “hotel”-style shower rods to add space. And let me just say: I’ve never been so glad to have heeded any advice as I am right now. Curved rods = all the difference.

Here’s a (sort-of) quick rundown of how we did it. (And some pictures to go along with it!)

1. See this ugly thing? It simply had to go, so…

2. we carefully removed the doors from their tracks,

3. and were left with this ugly sight.

4. So, Denny broke out the tools and began removing the screws that held the tracks to the shower.

5. He then used a flathead screwdriver to gently pry up the tracks,

6. then pulled the whole thing out (this picture was taken right before the whole thing nearly fell down on his head—we were able to grab it just in time, me with the camera still clutched in one hand, much to his completely-justified-annoyance).

7. Once the tracks were removed, we were left with this nasty mess. This is what was living (and I do mean living) under the tracks for who-knows-how-many years? The very idea makes me shudder.

8. Luckily, Denny is made of tougher stuff than I am (I could barely look at the disgusting leavings) and he used a putty knife to remove all of it.

Denny then proceeded to clean the whole bathroom from top to bottom (bless his heart), leaving me free to work on some other projects (which I will update you all on later!). He worked his butt off on that tub. Just to give you an example of how bad it was, listen to this: When we moved in, we honestly thought the tub was supposed to be beige-colored. It wasn’t. It was actually white and the beige tint was just a few decades worth of soap scum. Nasty, huh?

Anyway, once the tub was clean, he called me back in and asked me to caulk the holes left by the doors while he worked on cleaning out the vanity drawers (remember when I mentioned hair clippings? Yeah, we had to vacuum the drawers before cleaning them…with lots and lots and LOTS of bleach).

So I broke out the caulk (that’s what she said!) and a few other supplies and proceeded from there. (Be warned, this whole next section just sounds wrong, so please bear with me.)

I put some rubbing alcohol on some TP then wiped down the holes, making them completely clean and ready for the caulking to adhere to.

Next, I squeezed some caulking into the hole, then squished it down with my fingers (by the way, please ignore my sadly chipped nail polish, which will be making an appearance in some more photos later this week). I did this until I was sure the hole was completely filled, then I added a bit more (so it stuck up over the edges of the hole) and used the aforementioned putty knife to scrape the excess flat. I had to do this 2 or 3 times on each hole over the course of a couple of days because the caulking kept shrinking and pulling back into the hole. Maybe there’s a way to avoid this, but I don’t know of it.

Anyway, the end result was a flat, hole-free space which you can barely tell ever had a shower door screwed into it!

And now (because there are still 9 more pictures to go and twice as many steps), I’m going to leave you hanging and return back tomorrow with the rest of our bathroom transformation. Trust me when I say that a little (LOT) bit of elbow grease and a new shower rod pretty much changed the way we feel about our place. It was a major morale booster to get this project done and now we feel excited to get started on some other things on our list, like painting the insides of the kitchen cabinets and laying down new vapor barrier under the house. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. I don’t think anything could make us excited about going under the house. But this very nearly does the trick. J

PS: You may have noticed that the blog width is slightly larger than usual. That is to allow for larger photos to be posted, but if it's too large to be viewed on a normal screen, please let me know. My monitor at work (where I am lucky enough to be able to do most of my posting!) is rather large and I'm not sure if the banner will fit well on other computers or not. Also, the sidebar is back to being on the left side, as requested by the one commentor to give feedback on the layout (thanks, Amanda!). Love, Ash