Master Bath Makeover Begins

For many, Spring Break means vacations, relaxation, and fun.  For me, it means projects.  During the school year, especially now that I'm in the middle of Master's classes, I'm doing good to get dinner made and keep the house presentable.  But during Spring and Summer breaks, it's project time!  This week...the master bathroom. 

These are the before shots...

It definitely wasn't as bad as the Tiki-inspired guest bath, but I've never been in love with the striped shower curtain (especially after I accidentally dropped the toilet bowl cleaner last week and some splashed on it and bleached spots).  We registered for it when we registered for wedding gifts for lack of anything better.  I love the oiled bronze accessories, but I wasn't digging the curtain.  I found one I loved at Bed Bath and Beyond.  It wasn't quite the good deal that my Pottery Barn clearance curtain was, but a 20% off coupon sweetened the deal a little.

 

I found my paint color in the Restoration Hardware paint chip book.  I'm not above finding expensive paint colors and taking them to my local Porter paint store and getting the color copied.  In this case, it was R.H.'s Graphite.

 

The lighting in the bathroom isn't great...which is another issue we have to work on (and might have to enlist the help of my husband's bff, Dustin).

I've hung the new shower curtain, and brought the other accessories back in.  I plan on getting some frames for wall art tomorrow, and matching tp holder and towel bars at Target this weekend to finish it off.  Nick's encouraging me to paint the mirrors and vanity black.  I'd thought of doing that before I bought the shower curtain, and I think I still like that idea, so I'm thinking I'll be buying a bigger container of my cracked pepper paint this weekend as well.

I'm loving that I can reuse the accessories I already have.  I'm also loving what came out of my flower bed today...

Be Careful What You Wish For...

is a lesson that I got a good reminder in recently.  Earlier this week, southern Indiana had it's first somewhat vicious spring thunderstorm.  At school later that day, I jokingly said that it wouldn't bother me if a few shingles got ripped off our roof so that I could get it replaced.  My siding is beige, and my shutters and garage door are now black, but the roof is a brownish-red.  I'm not in love with it by any long shot of imagination, especially now that the shutters and garage door are finished.

I was getting ready for bed the night that I made that joke and looked up at the ceiling in the kitchen.  Right next to the light fixture was a wet spot.  Well crap.  Then in my infinite wisdom, I got a chair and lightly poked the spot to see if it was wet, or if I had just missed that discolored spot for over a year (not likely).  Next thing I knew, the discolored spot looked like this...

Fantastic!  You'd think one of these days I'd learn to stop messing with things.  So I had to call the roofer the next morning, and he very kindly accepted my 8 am phone call and came out the next day to check out the roof.  It turns out the rubber boots around the bottom of the attic vents had dry-rotted completely off, which was the cause of the leak.  There's also a couple of strips of edging that need to be put up, so that will be done next week.  It wasn't as urgent as the rubber boots. 

It was a bit of a scare thinking that some of the tax return money that was going to go into the beach vacation fund might have had to be used to pay the insurance deductible for a new roof...although I won't lie...I already had the new shingles picked out in my head.