Yes, I've got a chandelier in a box sitting in the corner of my kitchen waiting to be put up. Yes, it has been sitting there for a week. Yes, I've got two light bulbs out on my car port that I've been meaning to change for a while. Sure, I could probably stand to clean out my office closet.... you get where I'm heading with this? Yeah.
So here's a quick little backstory for ya! For the past 4 years, in our bathroom, I've kept all my daily used products in a mirrored tray sitting on the vanity. Things like my night time face routine and my eye cream, my BB Cream lived there along with our can of hair spray and my daily lotions. But it always felt cluttered and not very well organized to me. I'm an OCD clean freak and I was constantly having to clean the tray and what was on it to keep from stroking out. Plus in the mornings my husband would use the hand towel and, instead of hanging it back up, he'd toss it down on the vanity, on the tray, and therefore knock everything down into a big jumble. I hated it. We have limited cabinet space in the bathroom, and I've used every method of organization I can think of in there in the past 4 years, but there was never a good place for me to have my every day things that wasn't on top of the vanity.
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| This is an old photo from when we first repainted the bathroom, like the paint was probably still wet here. You can see the tray on the vanity. Also, be aware that now we have a green curtain hanging over the window and a pink and green floral shower curtain for spring/summer. We use the brown in the fall/winter. |
So about a week ago, it's 2am - I'm an extreme insomniac, I don't sleep more than 3 or 4 hours nightly. - and that's usually when I'm forcing myself to get sleepy. My husband is in bed, and I'm in the living room with the iPad going through Pinterest. We'd been to my sister in law's house that night for the SEC Championship Basketball game (our team lost, we were devastated), and she had just finished redecorating her kids/guest bathroom. It had been a lime green beachy paradise with surfboards painted on the walls and tiki style accents. But now that her kids are both teenagers, they wanted something more adult, so they chose to paint it all a really nice blue. Long story short, she had only a large picture frame and a tall candlestick with a blue candle sitting on the vanity top. I loved it. In fact, I went upstairs to use the bathroom during the game instead of using the one downstairs where we we all were, just so I could look at it again. ;)
So at 2am, I'm looking for a large candlestick and nice decorative picture frame like she had, because I simply loved it, and the idea struck!! I knew I had an old, yucky gold picture frame somewhere, so I quickly dug it out.
Ah, yes, most hideous. This was maybe $5 from Family Dollar a while ago. But I love the scrolling around the edge of the frame and just knew it would look good painted!
So next I dug out my candlestick. I bought this in a set of two from Big Lots in 2009 before we got married, and I don't remember at all how much they cost, but they were super inexpensive.
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| Excuse my copy of Wuthering Heights to the side. And my Germ-X. ;) |
Next I came up with a game plan. The look my sis in law had was very distressed, and I looooove that look. My personal, home decor style has evolved so drastically in the past for years, it's funny to think about it. When we moved in everything was crisp and modern and dark colors, and now I'm all about light, and floral prints and "old stuff," as my other sister in law once called it. The good thing is, spray paint works on almost anything!! I decided against actually spraying the paint, 1) because I was working on my kitchen counter tops, and 2) I had better control over the "distress." Just so happens, as well, that I keep a stash of spray paint in our utility room for when a 2am craft session erupts.
I chose Krylon's Ivory in a satin finish. So I just sprayed a little on top of my Frog Tape container and used a little paint brush and started dabbing away at my picture frame and my candle stick. No sanding, just step one, dab.
Below are the finished products after they were placed. The paint dried SUPER quickly, so I had them set in their new homes before I went to bed that night-- ok, that morning. All it took was a little creative thinking on my part and I found a home for everything on the tray, inside a cabinet, drawer or closet in the bathroom, making way for my pretty new additions on the vanity top.
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| The picture of us was taken a year before we were married in October, 2008! We were newly engaged!! |
Also, while I was at it, I decided to paint my accent lamp that I keep in our kitchen. I miss my Mom's under-counter lights. This lamp was a wedding gift, and I'd always LOOOVED the shape of it, and how tiny it was, but it was the same color scheme as the candlestick, and it simply didn't "go" with my house anymore. I'd been wanting to paint it but I'd kept putting it off and putting it off. For this one, I did actually spray the paint on. I just rigged up an old bath towel across my step-down into my utility room and sprayed away. No overspray on ANYTHING. The lamp was dry in minutes!
Shop whatcha got people! I'm so proud of my handiwork every time I walk into the bathroom or turn the little lamp on! Instead of spending any money, I put a little thought into it and turned things I already had into what I wanted. Do it yourself, you will love it all the more when you are done!
Happy DIYing!
Missy
Thank you, KRYLON, for making spray paint!
