Old Fourth Ward, Atlanta, 2010

Ugh, I have been more or less trapped in my house since Sunday night and I’m starting to lose it! This drove me to go scope some bright colors from our Fresh New Spaces Group on Flickr. I didn’t need to look any further than this gorgeous shot from A-dab-adu, a.k.a. Eden:

Thanks for cheering me up Eden!

Santa brought me a creature from the deep blue sea this year, and yesterday I gave my bathroom a great makeover in about 20 minutes (hanging a shower curtain is a real pain; I highly recommend dragging out the stepladder for this task or your arms will feel like they are going to fall off by the time you are done!).

Whoopsie, looks like I need to paint the side of the door black (see right side of photo above). Isn’t it funny how you don’t notice these things in person but they show up in a photo? Looks like I could have moved the toilet brush and the bathroom scale to style this a little better. Oh well, at least I remembered to put the toilet seat down!

Santa also brought me some tea towels, which I’ve decided to use as bathroom hand towels. My bathroom doesn’t have a towel bar, and I’m not crazy about them, so I used over-the-door hooks instead.

I’m not too big on too much matchy-matchy, so I’ll probably move the lacquer box to another room, but I thought I’d try out being matchy-matchy for a few weeks and see if it sticks! This box is great for stashing all of my everyday makeup in one place.

I’ve been wanting to show you my good friend Richard’s economic and fabulous bathroom redo for quite sometime, but I’ve been holding back because the pictures are terrible and don’t do it justice. However, bad as my photography skills are, it’s still worth showing. Most of the fixtures including Richard’s dream Murano-esque light chandy came from a big box store, the tiles came from Floor Decor and More, and the vintage clawfoot tub was simply reglazed. So here’s the makeover!

The “Before”: A crumbly moldy bungalow bathroom with a fabulous clawfoot tub that was painted with peeling pink paint, linoleum peel-and-stick tile, a painting covering up a window and old fixtures.

The After:

Simple square white porcelain tiles and decorative black border tiles from discount chain Floor Decor and More:

A simple vanity and mirror from Lowe’s:

A re-enameling of the original tub, and a new shower curtain:

Oh too hard to see, but a fabulous black chandy from Lowe’s replaces the hideous original one, as well as a black paint job from Richard and his parents!

O.K. so I am a HORRENDOUS photographer and in my defense, this bathroom was too small to be able to get good shots of and all I had was my iPhone, but it’s a great example of how to completely redo a full bath with under $5,000 in your budget. In this case, the total elements were floor tile, wall tile, re-enameling of the tub, a new vanity, mirror and fixtures, shower curtain, light fixtures and a splurge on the border tile. Oh, and yes, a father that knows how to tile and plumb, and the sweat equity put in by Richard and his father!

Today’s flickr fave comes from our industrious and creative pal, furniture designer Thomas Wold. Thomas collects and reassembles cabinetry and other furniture and creates spectacular assemblages. I’m especially loving the mix of colors and shapes in this one, and the fact that I can squint at the picture and get a peek at what else is going on in Thomas’s studio and try to guess what’s coming next!