Redoing the Bathroom Feels Like Giving Birth

My hubbs and I have talked about redoing the bathroom for a few years now. There's a section along the ceiling that peels no matter what we try to do with it. I know. Not nice, right? Still, I was ready for a complete change. Large sections of wallpaper had been stripped away by fascinated little hands. The old baseboard had been flaking for so long I couldn't sweep around it without causeing more of a mess, and even the tap on the bathtub had a little hole in the front - thanks to our incredibly hard water - that shot out a tiny stream of water...much to my children's delight.

So we decided to take off all the wallpaper, take out the baseboard, pasting various holes and the the irritating portion of ceiling, and do things right this time.

I'm loving the results. Granted you can tell amateurs were at work here, but not bad at all! Here are a few pictures:

We never have enough hooks in the bathroom - not for a family of six. So I found some handy-dandy hooks and stuck 'em right next to the tub. Just right for bathtowels.

Here is a long view of the door/sink. We repainted the cabinet, and I can't begin to tell you how much that one thing changed the atmosphere of the bathroom. And if you look WAY down at the bottom, you'll see the very first baseboard I cut. That's right. I cut it. I borrowed my dad's mitre box and saw, and did the baseboards myself. Too bad I didn't think to take better pictures of the baseboards, but that might not be as exciting for you as it was for me :)

Here's a closer look at the cabinet. The early morning light doesn't do the color justice. The light peach makes the bathroom feel so much warmer than before. Up above the sink we turned the mirror so it's more vertical than horizontal. It seemed to open it up as well (who would of thought?).

I tried a few pictures in just regular tones, but you really couldn't see the color, so I put the camera on vivid. You can see the colors better, but it really is brighter in the picture than in person. Still, I love the effect. I went with a sort of "celery green" as the base. That was almost enough of a change itself, but to me it felt cool, rather than warm. So over the top I sponged on the light peach.

Here's one more look. at the paint.

There was a lot of hassle fixing the toilet, which rocked so much I often felt as though I might take a header off the bowl when sitting down. That was an adventure all in it's own, including hubby hammering at the phlange from the crawlspace, me trying to drill holes through the phlange screw-holes into pieces of wood too hard to drill through, and a piece of the tile breaking. Ugh! Yet we were able to get the new phlange on, stuck the pieces of tile back in place, and managed to get the toilet back on. I'm happy to report it rocks a lot less :)

So why, you might be asking, is redoing the bathroom a lot like giving birth? It's gonna take a few years of forgetting the pain and agony to convince me it might be a good idea to try again.