Inspiring (Though Temporary) Fix

We were at Bike Week last week... Great time, terrible weather, by the way. And while we were gone, Mike's mom (Kathy) was at our house watching out for both Mikey and our two cats. Cool, right?

Well, I returned on Wednesday evening to a few surprises. First, Kathy had totally organized the toys in the living room, with two new shelves, a canvas bin, and a new little table. Now, Mikey can clean up and put away his toys and they'll actually have a place to go.... Then Kathy says to me, "Now look in the bathroom."

Woe. The second I opened the door I was blown away. She'd accomplished something that I'd been thinking of doing time and time again for the better part of six years. She bought a roll of that cheapo linoleum and laid it down on the bathroom floor. It looked AWESOME. I mean like, exceeding any of my cheapo-linoleum expectations awesome. Plus, she got an actually toilet paper roller to go in our built-in holder and a new shade, which she had trimmed with some pink fabric trim to match the rest of the room.

Now, before I post pics, let me tell you just how inspiring this was. I decided just yesterday that this new and clean/fresh bathroom needed to be re-organized. So I started re-arranging all the crud. The four yaffa blocks I had serving as a vanity cabinet (leftovers from college), I moved to next to the bathtub. Nah - that just wasn't going to work. I moved them back. "I just wish these things were thinner," I thought.

Then, I had an epiphany.

Down in the basement, I had two thin plastic rolling drawer cabinets (also leftover from college) that I knew were practically empty. I measured them. I measured the space. This just might work. So I emptied and cleaned them and brought them in to the bathroom. This was going to be good - as long as my towels from the yaffa blocks would all fit in these smaller cabinets. I cleaned out the yaffa blocks and folded the towels.

They fit.

In fact, I had extra room and cleaned out my other bathroom/medicine cabinet, putting some of the bulk purchase items and annoyingly inconveniently sized items (hairdryer and curling iron) in the new cabinets as well!

I only wish I had a proper "before" picture for you. In fact, the only wide shot of the bano I could find on this blog was from 2005. And believe me, it looked much worse now in 2011 then it did then. Let me paint you a picture - the floor was dark green very old linoleum. (or something like that) It was cracked, warped, water damaged, rippled, and breaking all over the place. You'd leave the bathroom with gross pieces of flooring stuck to your feet. Of course dark green gross linoleum matches the light pink tile and teal green bathroom fixtures...not. The shade we previously had was a "temporary" shade made out of paper. Yes, paper. Costs like $2.00 at your local home improvement warehouse. The vanity cabinet, as I said, was made out of two stacks of two yaffa blocks, which didn't exactly fit well under the sink due to the plumbing. The yaffa blocks were made to look as one cohesive unit with a decorative towel draped on top and two cheap kitchen curtains hung across the front on a curtain rod. We kept the TP on top of the yaffa blocks and not in the TP holder because we didn't own a roller. (Hard to believe my husband works at a hardware store.... but I just couldn't spend money on this sh*t hole.)

Now, with all that in mind.... check this out:

In the pictures, the cheapo stuff looks nearly real. The real life view isn't quite as real - but it's 250% better then what it was before. The entire room is so much lighter now... easier to clean.... better on your bare feet.... It's still terribly ugly - but at least we can live with this now until we can manage to redo it for real.

Later on yesterday afternoon I cleaned up and organized the storage in the basement using the yaffa blocks. So that's looking more organized as well. All at NO additional cost. (Love that part!)

I can't wait until we can re-do that basement and get our other bathroom going on down there. But for now, of course, it's summer. And outdoor projects need tending to. Mike will be home today, and rumor has it, our neighbor will be over next week to finish the kitchen drywall so we can paint and trim out the new (now sorta old) window. Next Sunday, Timmy is raring to go on railing installation... After that, steps. After that, siding the other side of the house. After that, (pending funds) new gravel in the side driveway and a fence for the backyard.

That should get us through the remainder of summer.