It just happened. I went to Staples for ink and suddenly I was at Home Goods falling madly in love with an enormous bubble mirror. What? How did I get there! That mirror was a sign…you know, the sign that says you need to do something right now with that {gross} awful {gross} bathroom in the studio even though you don’t have the time or money to deal. Buy me, I will make you happy!
Come on, how gross…?
gross. gross. gross. gross!
OMG. I can’t even bear to look at that picture. Poor Megan. We used that bathroom for months. Booooo.
So back to the mirror. I guessed it might be the perfect size to fill the back wall, and to tone down the brick effect. Don’t get me wrong, I love textures and I love brick but not this smeary blood red painted {gross} kind, as Juli put it. Besides, its a barn, we don’t need brick.
$89 (I had a $40 gift card, hence the real reason I ended up at HG and not Staples) and 10 minutes later I was putting this enormous bubble mirror in my car, not so gracefully.
Now what? Well when I get something in my head there is no turning back. Next stop Home Depot just down the street to buy paint, if I didn’t go quick I might change my mind. And if this was not a rental situation and I had any decent budget, I would have thought more about doing cool things like running vertical planks of barn wood up the back wall. But not the case, so cheap and instant was my mission.
Speed design/shop:
*Black satin finish paint to further hide the brick so I can get the smeary blood out of my head forever.
*White enamel paint for vanity to create contrast against the black along with the toilet.
*White satin finish paint on the other walls since it is a small dark space, but accent it with some fun stencil in black to bring the colors together.
*Black deck/floor paint to hide the gross vinyl tile on the floor.
*Deep base gripper primer for the floor.
*Rustoleum brushed nickel spray paint for gross pipes.
*Roller brushes and paint trays.
$87. Go!
We gave that rusted pipe 2 coats of rustoleum. All our other paints were low VOC, but this one was seriously potent. I’ve found that with most spray paints. Face mask-it and go far away while it cures.
Then we painted the black brick wall 2 coats. Ahhhh…. so much better. Next we painted the other walls and ceiling white. They were already white so only 1 coat.
Now what? Stencil design. Play off the mirror, do something that has movement, simplicity, and a medium scale. The overlapping circles seemed to meet that criteria so we put a few up to test out scale. We tortured ourselves because we didn’t develop a stencil for the painting, just a basic one to get the general circle shapes lined up in a diagonal. Don’t advise painting circles freehand. Not that fun. Leaves room for lots of imperfections, but hey, its a barn. We painted the circles using a black acrylic that we already had in the studio.
Next we painted the vanity cabinet – 3 coats did the trick. Much better.
At this point I actually considered leaving the vinyl tile as is. I kind of liked the checkered pattern and it was a coordinating black-white. But maintaining vinyl tile stinks if you aren’t going to buff it frequently. And if you are installing a low budget vinyl Im going out on a limb to say you probably don’t want to deal with that kind of maintenance. It stains and shows wear pretty easily for a material that is supposed to be like superman. But the worst thing you can do with vinyl, aside from buying it in the first place {sorry}, is dispose of it. The stuff never dies. It will sit in a landfill forever. And if it is not incinerated properly it will release dangerous pollutants known as dioxins into our air. So I decided to cover it like I did that brick and forget about it forever with black paint.
black painted floor, window frames & heater
We also painted the window frames black, but left the old windows in tact. I love them just as they are.
Finishing touches include a vintage locker bin I found last year at SoWa for necessities, and an Ikea plug-in wall sconce $29.
Ikea wall sconce for a softer quieter light option.
Still thinking about a less barn-like way to treat the sconce wire, and hope to change out that ceiling light fan which sounds like a plane taking off. But with the new sconce we don’t even need to turn that one on anymore.
So there you have it. $205. What do ya think? Come for a visit!
Decapod 