before:

after:

This currently may well be my favorite space in the house.  Yes, the bathroom.  It’s just so calm and serene and (very important) everything is where it’s supposed to be.  No clutter.  Sun-shiny views of snow covered forests, offset by lush greenery inside.  Plus, unlike many of the other rooms in the house, it’s the right color.  While there may not be right and wrong colors in general, there are right and wrong colors for me and this one falls quite comfortably in the “right” category.

Paint Details:

Ceiling- Imagine .01

Doors and trim- Imagine .04

Walls- Water .02

All by Yolo Colorhouse.  The ceiling is a warm bright white.  The trim is a linen white that gives everything a classic, old-fashioned feel.  The wall color is extremely difficult to capture accurately, especially since it changes throughout the day, but it’s somewhere around the intersection of blue, green and grey; lovely and mellow and calm.

  The original exhaust fan in the bathroom was broken.  Since moisture and potential mold growth are a huge issue for us, replacing it was a high priority.  I finally settled on a Ventamatic NewVent light/vent combination fixture.  From their site; “The factory is 100 percent powered by wind generated power, 95 percent of all waste products are recycled and the packaging is of recycled cardboard.”  Sold.

Some other little fixes: we added in a towel bar and toilet paper holder.  I’m not really sure how the family of five living here before us didn’t have a towel bar, but there you go.  I didn’t want to spend the money to replace the light fixture above the sink, so I rigged it up to support a vintage tinted glass shade instead (a $6 investment).  A little basket from another part of the house corrals washcloths and hand towels.  Window wise I found the huge picture window, looking out over the woods, very peaceful, but the little one next to the sink faces the front yard and driveway.  I don’t even really think you can see into it from the outside.  But somehow from the inside, it felt less private then it should.  I liked the idea of these lacy window films, but worried about the safety of the materials used to make them and had no desire to pay $86 dollars to cover half of one small window.  One day I thought of some cotton lace I had leftover from another project.  With my tiny embroidery scissors I clipped the lace, following the edge of the pattern.  A little sewing, a bit of ribbon trim at the top (also from my stash) and a tension rod (less then $3), finished it off.  Much less expensive and perfectly safe.

  I’m still feeling a bit wish-washy about the plant holder.  I just made it a couple weekends ago and it doesn’t look quite how I pictured it, but I think it’s growing on me.

And what is that around our toilet you ask?  That, my friends, is our Squtty Potty.  Yeah, I actually typed those words together.  And I’m going to say more about it.  The way I see it, I have 3 young boys at home and a little girl who thinks that everything they say is brilliant, hysterical and well worth repeating.  In other words…I’m pretty much immune to any kind of embarrassment about potty talk.  And this is important, so someone has got to talk about it.  The theory goes, and this is supported by much scientific research, that human beings are meant to squat to eliminate.  It is amazing the number of problems that can be improved, prevented or cured with this one simple lifestyle modification.  Those of you who remember my Healing Home series, know that I am serious about creating a house the encourages health and wellness on all levels.  We have gut issues, there’s no getting around that.  Leaky gut, IBS, Celiac Disease, crazy food allergies, family history of stomach cancer, you name it.  I’m supposed to be going in for an assessment for possible Crohn’s Disease.  The combination of Elhers-Danlos and carrying/birthing lots of large babies means that I have all sorts of issues with prolapsed pelvic organs.  Not to mention the extra need to quickly and efficiently eliminate toxins from our bodies.  None of this is particularly pleasant to talk about, but there isn’t any way for other people to get help unless someone puts the information out there.  All of these things and more (hemorrhoids, anal fissures, constipation, colon cancer to name a few) can be helped or prevented with this one simple measure.  So, yeah, someone has got to say something because people are suffering and they don’t have to.  What’s more, we are raising generation after generation that are developing problems and in pain when they don’t have to be.  And I want more then that for my family.  Who knew I felt so passionately about such a thing?  Certainly not I.  Until I tried it.  And I can honestly say, it makes a big difference in our quality of life.  *Stepping off my strange soapbox now.*  For more information you can do your own searches on the web or check out the wealth of info on the Squatty Potty site.  For such a serious, yet taboo subject, those guys have quite the sense of humor.  Ours is the Squatty Tao Bamboo, which is actually on sale right now.  Call me crazy, but I actually like the way it looks in the room.  I think the bamboo adds an appealing, earthy element that breaks up all the white with a bit of warmth.  It’s a nice touch.  The kids all think it’s fabulous, as they no longer have to sit uncomfortably with dangling legs.  And it stays tucked out of the way, under the toilet for anyone who doesn’t wish to use it.

I think that about wraps up the bathroom tour.  Oh, except for Hector!  Hector the luna moth, named by Elijah (congrats to the .02% of you who actually got that joke).  That’s obviously an old picture, as we haven’t seen Hector in many months, but all summer long he took his daytime rest on our bathroom window.  I especially appreciated his efforts to color coordinate.

There is still a lot I want to do in this space.  A bit of custom built storage.  I might add some artwork, I might not.  There is still a vintage medicine cabinet up in the attic waiting to be fixed up and installed.  Steve wants to replace the floor some day but that is a long way down the line.  I’d love to replace the switch plates with something like this, but I’ve yet to find an excuse for spending nearly $30 on switch plates.  Steve is entirely convinced that there is no such excuse and so we live on with the plastic ones.  But it’s better.  Much better and time to move on to other more pressing projects.