It took me a long time and not a little frustration to finally get this job done! I have been working on the guest bathroom for months, in between other projects that is.
You will have to imagine the before picture because I can’t seem to find it. So, imagine if you will… powder blue walls, hospital white cabinets and bead board, and all of it chipped. The ceiling had been taped when the fan was installed, but the tape was lifting too.
But the most frustrating part, yet satisfying when it was finally done this morning was this!
(“Pay no attention to the [wo]man behind the curtain!” The Great Oz, in The Wizard of Oz.)
I finally got the mirror installed, more or less, correctly!
Old Mr. Gains, the man who built this house in the early 1950s, was a cabinet-maker. He built this Olympic-sized medicine cabinet into the wall and it is 42″ wide, by 37″ high, and 9 inches deep. It’s huge and there was no way we were going to be able to replace it with anything new. That said, I really kinda liked it and saw that it had possibilities. So I made the one side into a shadow box! I have far to many trinkets and this gives me a dust-free place to display some of the more interesting ones.
Steps taken to get here:
- Fill, sand, and paint every surface (porcelain objects excepted) Bob helped me with the ceiling by painting in the Kilz and then cutting in the two coats of ceiling paint. (He also gave me lots of ‘atta-girl,” and a few pep talks when the going got tough. I love him for his support when I can’t do it myself.) 🙂
- Have three different plumbers out to fix leaking toilet base five times, yes FiVe! Seems the flange was broken and someone had screwed it down to the floor. Oh, and while the last one was here, he removed the Yeti sized hair ball that was clogging the sink drain (it was hiding way down deep in the line).
- Clean out four layers of old contact paper from the over-sized medicine cabinet. Two of which were painted, and one of which someone had spilled Tigress perfume! Trust me, it does not get any better with age…
- Send out doors of over-sized medicine cabinet for professional stripping, and prepping for painting.
- Paint said doors and install glass into one side. Install mirror on the other side, now REPEAT. (I broke the mirror, trying to install it, the day before my friends came to visit from California.) 😐
- Get frustrated and bent all out of shape securing said second mirror into frame, finally give up, and use contact cement to just glue the lath onto the back for fear of having to repeat the frustration AGAIN. (thankyouverymuch)
So now that it is all done we need to replace all of the porcelain, but do not have a budget for that. So, maybe by the time we can finally afford it, we can pay someone else to do it?
A job well done, makes me smile even on a gloomy day. I will smile all winter I think.
~*~
Life on the Farmlet 
You cracked me up with the comment on Tigress perfume. Bravo to you on working with the Olympic-sized medicine cabinet… I love the shadow box idea. I think that is a key original to hang onto! It feels wonderful to tackle a project like this and feel a sense of pride at the finish. It looks fabulous!
Thank you for your support L. Sun Dog! I also felt that way, that some things are worth working with to save, although it doesn’t always work out for me. I got (mostly) lucky this time. 😉
BTW, do you have a first name (I couldn’t find it) or do you prefer to go by your moniker?
Thank God that is finally over and it is so gorgeous.. poor you, i hate working on bathrooms.. now, do you have guests coming this christmas to use this lovely little room? c
thank you Cecilia! Nope, no guests, and thank goodness too, because I’m still cleaning up the living room from work I was doing on the Quilt room…
You’ll get to see that when the mess is all sorted through, put away, and the window quilt is done!
Yay! You have a finished room to sit and admire the beauty! Odd-sized holes in walls can be a problem, that cabinet w/shadow box adds a nice touch. Dust still manages to get in somehow! Thanks for sharing your progress. Maybe ONE of these days, I can post a pic of our finished bath! 🙂
Hi Patti, Thank you for the cheers!! Don’t I know about odd sized holes in the wall. Had my fill of filling them too! As for dust, well yes, it does find it’s way in, but not so much as without the door! I would love to see your finished bathroom.
Congratulations on what is clearly a job well done!
LOL, Thank you Kerry! “CLEARLY” is what got me started on the medicine cabinet overhaul in the first place. The silver on the mirrors had fogged and looked like I had wiped them but didn’t get all the streaks off. The rest of the makeover was a necessity to make our company more comfortable while they visited. Although, I think they would have appreciated having the big mirror, instead of having to use that little one, in the shadowbox side, for a whole week.
Wow! It looks great! One more week and I can start cleaning “stuff” from my house. I have repairs that I know need doing, but finding them among all all the “stuff” is a problem.
Anita
Oh Anita, how I do recognize that statement! This has been a one year journey to get this all done. I often felt like work on our home was like trying to sort out one of those little hand held tile puzzles. You know the kind, with the scrambled picture that you have to move, one tile at a time, row by row, to make sense of it all? So close, yet seemingly so far away. You will get there I know it! 🙂 Thank you for the compliment!
Hahahaha my small bathroom has been in various states of repair for 10 years ,,, still a mess and no where close to being done .
Well done Lynda, looks fantastic . That Cabinet is awesome .
Gosh Rich, thank you! Been a long time since I’ve heard from you. Glad you stopped by today. 🙂
That isn’t my hairball, I swear! 😀
Never fear Pam, I have never had you confused with a Yeti! 😉
Can’t tell you how I am impressed I am with your persistence on this project and your willingness to tackle a tough challenge. It’s looking great.
Thank you Skip! Sometimes when I work on a tough project I just need some time to detox before I go back to it. Hence, I often (as now) have three or more projects going at once. It keeps me mentally healthy, the job gets done over time, and usually done right. Though there are a couple of places where this perfectionist got to the place where she said: “That’s it! I’m sick of it, and that’s as good as it gets, I’M DONE.” It is a sickness this perfectionism.
Awesome job, Lynda! Congratulations on your persistence, creativity, and resourcefulness. I bet Bob is proud of you and glad it’s done, too! You are lucky to have a husband who, unlike mine, does not insist on doing everything himself. You guys have a great partnership.
Merry Christmas!!
Penny, I think we would honestly be doing things as a team if we were both working. No, I take that back, LOL, if we were BOTH working we would be paying someone to do the work for us. As it is, some days he comes home so tired that I feel like if I want it to get done, then I better figure out how. Learning to use a nail gun, patching giant holes in the walls, and using the electric miter saw can be very intimidating! I got used to them one by one. That saw however was the hardest to get used to. So sharp, so powerful, and I was afraid that I would chop off a finger or my arm… He helps me when I can’t do it myself, like painting the ceiling, or lifting heavy things and I really appreciate it! Merry Christmas to you as well! 😉
I know you are going to laugh Lynda but I am super excited to have finally found your blog..whenever you left a comment on my blog you didn’t add the link to your blog and try as I may I couldn’t find it..so I am really happy I found it today..Great job on the whole make over 🙂 it all looks so elegant
Sawsan, I am not laughing, I am smiling from ear to ear! I had no clue that finding me was a problem, but I am very glad that you did! 😀 Thank you for your compliment today, and I hope to be able to show off the rest of what I have been working on soon! ~ L
(PS: Could you please tell me what the difficulty was in finding me so that I can fix it? Thanks!)
The problem was that when you commented you didn’t write the link of your blog, you only wrote your name and email.
See your comment here..http://chefindisguise.com/2011/08/23/red-garlic-chicken/#comments
There is no link with the name
I found you yesterday because you liked one of my posts and I followed that link back to your blog.
Sawsan, I had forgotten that a few months back someone else had told me that my gravatar information was incomplete. Eventually, I figured out how to fix it and now you can find it by clicking on my picture. 🙂 Thank you for finding me! ~ L