thought processes.......

As soon as I had finished my mini bathroom makeover, I started updating it, and adding things to it.

The positive comments I received about my yellow bath, made me re-assess the look.
Let's face it, I'm probably never going to get it re-enamelled in white, so I'm embracing my retro vintage yellow bath.
The walls are grey, and yellow and grey go together, right.......... so I thought I'd mix it up a bit more......

I thought I'd add a colour I would never normally use........

um....yes....I painted the chair in AS Emile.
I bought a match pot of this and Paloma when I went to the shop in the previous post.
All the gorgeous blues and greens were drawing me towards them (all the gorgeous blues and greens that would have gone great with yellow !) but no, I was trying to think outside the box.

I think I like it, I'm still not sure......I quite liked it when it was white !
I painted a little wooden pot in the Paloma, distressing through to the cream and adding charcoal as highlights.
I like this........a lot.

.
Then I tackled the gap on the wall.

I had always wanted something to the left of the round mirror and originally envisaged some empty white frames and then I thought an eye chart would be great, because it would make more of a statement.

After embracing the yellow retro/vintage bath and painting the chair I thought maybe something colourful would be better, like a circus font, maybe saying 'HOME', or a Mexican style floral skull (done in colours to suit my bathroom of course).

I liked the idea of both of these, but knew they would take a while, when I remembered I had some old artwork in the under stairs cupboard........................

 

and where I found a couple of near perfect (colour wise that is, I'm not saying my artwork is perfect) pictures.

 

 

The yellow is nearly identical to the bath, and the pink ties in with the chair, and they're perfume bottles (in fact one of the perfume bottles is in the cabinet on the right). I painted them for a company that used to print my stuff and give me royalties. I never made much money out of it and I'm not sure I ever showed them these.

 

 

Anyway, I played around with displaying them.

 

One went on the shelf. Actually I tried both on the shelf and managed to break a pretty pot in the process, but c'est la vie. That's what you get when you keep re-arranging stuff.

 

 

Then I painted an old gold frame in turquoise and then in grey (because I tried to live with the turquoise and couldn't) and distressed it, to frame the yellow picture.

 

 

And although there are lots of different colours in here now, it still feels like a restful place, and I've tied them all together in yet another project, that I'll post about next time.

And thanks to my thought processes, I've added more empty frames, eye charts, circus font artwork, and skulls to my looooong list of things.to.do !

Btw, I was drawn to Paloma because I used to wear Paloma Picasso perfume and because of Paloma Faith, She's an amazing singer and recently did an incredible performance on a chat show. You can see it here.

shopping for chalk paint

The first time I bought some AS chalk paint was in Blakes in Hove. They had some beautiful furniture, but the owner wasn't particularly friendly, in fact she was rather snooty.

So the second time I wanted some chalk paint I went to a small shop only ten minutes from the first one, in Portslade. There wasn't much furniture to look at but the owner was really pleasant, so a couple of weeks ago I drove there again to get some red for the chairs at work and maybe a couple of sample pots for me !

I was really happy to see that they had moved to much larger premises, and were showcasing loads of gorgeous things.

As you can see, it was a very sunny day. I love all the chandeliers, and the way AS fabrics were being displayed, as a banner across the ceiling.

I got a litre of Emperors Silk and made a start but as we need somewhere for the customers to sit (and I don't want a house full of furniture), it'll be slow going.

One down, quite a few to go !

 

It wasn't my intention to match the paint to the fabric because we intend on changing it, and it's a bit of a scarlet red, as opposed to the pillar box red that we have used elsewhere, but I will paint some of the other chairs in a different shade. It wouldn't suit the café if everything matched.

I like the look of the red against the dark wood though.

Btw, Blakes the first shop, seems to have gone from Hove, but moved to Devon, although it's now selling a different make of chalk paint !

 

 

sometimes.....................

Sometimes are styles are similar, sometimes they are different.
Sometimes things happen in our lives that seem different, sometimes they seem the same.
Sometimes I just want to say 'here is that thing I was talking about, that thing I mentioned to you in passing'.

Here are some of those things........

Donna recently posted about buying some brass candlesticks, and creating a beautiful vignette with blue and white pieces.

I went straight to my bedroom and took this photo of my old Laura Ashley candlestick and some blue and white.

because great minds think alike !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kirby has a beautiful powder room with a sink on top of an old cabinet and she considers it really small, but you wouldn't even have to sit on the loo to get this shot.

I, on the other hand, have this view when I sit on my loo, because it literally is a loo in a cupboard, a water closet in every sense,

and I promised Kirby a picture.

My not-so-pretty WC

Maureen lives with her beloved 'barbarians', furry creatures who love to demolish everything and anything. They also love to watch tv,

This is Clara Jane

just like my dog. He'd touch the screen if he could, and when creatures run off the screen, he tries to look for them round the room !

Cheryl (who doesn't have a blog - yet) has been posting over at Danni's place while Danni has been doing some major diy to her new house. One of the posts was all about her collection of heads.

It made me go and rescue a small ceramic head from my shed, that had been broken. 
It'll be fixed and hung indoors because, thanks to Cheryl, I remembered how much I love it.

Finally I was talking to CJ recently. She only lives about an hour away from me, so I may get to meet her someday. She is a stockist for Miss Mustard Seed milk paint and soon I'll post about my efforts with the milk paint samples she sent me.

We spoke about getting around to doing things. We all procrastinate and put off the less interesting tasks. We all have huge lists of things we want to create, someday or other.
We'll do this stuff when we get around to it.

I'm very lucky as I have a 'round tuit' of my very own (that my father gave me in the 1970's).

Don't you all wish you had a round tuit of your very own !

Can I just also say that you're truly honoured, seeing a picture of my loo with the horrible blue carpet - sorry folks. I would have waited till I'd repainted the toilet to match my newly madeover bathroom, but I wanted to do this post.
I also normally avoid showing the corner of my living room with all the horrible boxes and cables that my tenants left, and Rufie's little collection of toys. I have plans, big plans,
when I get a round to it of course !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

budget bathroom makeover

If you haven't been here before, I've been working on my bathroom since last October, which you can read about here, here, here, and here. With a limited budget, there was no chance of changing the yellow bath or the shower but I knew I could make it look a lot better, and I must say I'm really pleased with the result.

I've put tongue and groove all the way round the room, painted the walls, changed the window treatment, made over the chair and a cabinet, moved the shelves and added a couple of new things.

As I mentioned in the last post, there is now a colour above the new white tongue and groove panelling, albeit a very pale colour. I love Farrow and Ball's Lamp Room Grey, but wanted a lighter version. I had a match pot of it and mixed the grey shade I wanted, then copied it with 5 ltrs of cheap white emulsion and some colourises. It turned out really well, it sometimes looks washed out and almost white but mostly it's a soft pale grey which sets off the whites and driftwood really well.

I put another bit of driftwood under the mirror which balances out the stencilled piece on the other wall.

The tongue and groove wraps round the whole room, but the trickiest bit was sorting out the area around the shower door. There were tiles stuck to the front of the shower tray and up the right hand side.

I took the tiles off and put some skirting along the front, then tongue and groove and then a quarter round to neaten up the edges around the shower doors aluminium frame.

 

I even did a bit of 'plastering' up the right hand side of the shower.

 

 

I love the room from every angle.

I love the look of the old shabby door with the crystal handle, the smart white woodwork and the grey walls.

 

 



I love the way the t and g wraps around the built in shower.



I love the newly displayed shelves that look way better than before.

 

I love the view I see in the morning, as I come along the landing from my bedroom.

 

 

I love it because it looks so much better than before.

 

Before and after.

 

The mini makeover cost me about £120 , which was mainly the t & g, the wood trim, primer and topcoat and lots of filler. The mirror and the mesh, baskets and fabric for the cabinet cost less than £25 so the total cost over the 6 months I've been doing this has been less than £150.

 

Ironically the shower broke in December so we haven't been able to use it, but I'm saving all my tips from work to replace it, and I think I'm about half way there.

Did I mention that I love it !

It's all thanks to you really. You keep being creative and it inspires me. You never stop doing stuff and that makes me want to do stuff. You think outside the box in which I dwell and that makes me want to push myself, so thank you, all of you.

linking up with

 Amaze me Monday @ Dwellings - The Heart of Your Home
Project Inspire(d) @ An Extraordinary Day
Mod Mix Monday @ Mod Vintage Life

Make it pretty Monday @ The Dedicated House

Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays @ Coastal Charm

Knick of Time Tuesdays @ Knick of Time

Inspire Me Tuesday @ A Stroll Thru Life

Wow Us Wednesdays @ Savvy Southern Style

What's It Wednesday @ Ivy and Elephants

Blissful Whites Wednesday @ Timewashed

Home and Garden Thursday @ A Delightsome Life

Show and Tell Friday @ My Romantic Home

Fridays Unfolded @ Nancherrow

What have you done every Friday @ Redoux

Shabbilicious Friday link party @ Shabby Art Boutique

Party Junk @ Funky Junk Interiors

Silver Pennies Sundays Link Party @ Silver Pennies

 

 

 



giving my chair a little bit of storage

I bought these two chairs a couple of years ago from a charity shop. I really liked the one with the barley twist legs and thought I'd leave the other one. Unfortunately (or fortunately) my bff was with me and you know how bff's love to spend your money for you, so I came home with both.

I painted them both in AS Old White and then realised that I actually preferred the one with the wavy back and detailed front legs, so I did it up for my guest room.

 

The other one sat sad and dejected, unwaxed and unloved for ages, until I moved back here and decided it belonged in my bathroom.

 

Now that I'm giving my bathroom a mini makeover, my chair needed finishing, but I also need a place to store toilet rolls so I came up with a little solution.

 

Here is the chair, pre-finishing with a white basket balancing underneath, but on the right because there is only one crossbar.

 

 

Solution, add a couple more crossbars.

 

 

I got my brother to cut one and then I did the other one and thank goodness for filler because neither of us got our measurements right !

 

And now I have a chair with storage, and it's the perfect size for 8 toilet rolls, because there's no room for them in the cabinet I made over.

 

I took off the faux brown leather, and stencilled a bit of fabric with some numbers and re-covered it. I stole this idea from somewhere but can't remember where I saw it, sorry. I also scrounged the fabric from my artist friend David and the basket came from Ikea ages ago, so I haven't spent any money on this at all.

 

I'm glad I didn't distress the new tongue and groove, because the chair would be lost if I did, and I like the different textures together. I've also convinced myself that the bath isn't acidic yellow, it's white.........................it looks white to you too, doesn't it !!

 

 

 

 linking up with

Make it pretty Monday @ The Dedicated House

Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays @ Coastal Charm

Knick of Time Tuesdays @ Knick of Time

Party Junk @ Funky Junk Interiors

Silver Pennies Sundays Link Party @ Silver Pennies