The Plan ®

As we were planning the bathroom the big design problem was the vanity - originally when we were going to use the travertine throughout the bath a dark wood vanity made sense, but then we scaled the travertine back to just the shower area, and decided to paint the bathroom the lovely dark green of the bedroom alcove.





Ok now what we need is a beautiful antique white vanity. Now these are more limited. I saw one at Lowes in Hamilton - but that wasn't going to help much and it still would have busted the $500 budget for vanity and counter that we had. As would have ordering one from Vintage Tub and Bath (although I do still highly recommend them for well priced vintage look pieces). After much futzing and searching and debating costs. I found a gorgeous perfect vanity at Home Depot (hey even Sarah Richardson just used this same vanity last week on Sarah 101). It's solid wood (poplar with walnut veneers), has really nice organized storage inside, and is just a lovely piece - only problem - it's still dark wood.


However, by this point I had been gaining a bit of confidence with my spray painting techniques and decided "what the hell, it's perfect, it's inexpensive, it's gorgeous, I'll just spray it". I'd seen some of the gorgeous results of others having cabinetry and furniture resprayed - it made sense. Ok Ok - it also scares the dickens out of me - I've not done something thing complicated before. However, Home Depot was having one of their 20% Off Bathroom Events - with that price and that deal - I could throw in a bisque cultured marble countertop and still be under my $500. Sure I was still gonna have to buy a mirror and a medicine chest, but it was still not a big stretch beyond our original budget plan.

This had the added advantage of being able to buy the mirror, medicine chest etc that I liked and were cheaper options than buying the matching pieces to THAT set. So I was able to pick up a lovely unfinished cabinet at Kent for $60. I've done these pieces before and really had some fine results with them. Although to use this on a wall we had to turn it upside down and rebuild the drawer.

I was also able to pick up a nice framed mirror from Walmart for $30 instead of $200. I got a nice tall narrow butler's pantry cabinet (12"x14"x60") as well - did I mention there's a storage issue with this bathroom? I'm not sure we'll be able to use that one - it may not fit comfortably and I'm still debating more storage options so we'll leave that to last.

Now at one point I did chicken out and called a local fellow who does professional respraying of cabinetry - for the 3 bathroom pieces - $600 (taxes in). That kiboshed that idea. However, very worst case scenario - he'll spray the vanity for $250. I have a back up plan if I manage to completely ruin this beautiful piece of furniture. And if that doesn't work - well I guess I could paint the bathroom the same gold as the bedroom and buy the vanity again during the next Home Depot sale for $450. Ok - I have 2 back up plans.

Still I'd rather get this right the first time. First coat went on this morning. It's going to take a minimum of 4 or 5 sprays to get a nice even sweet finish - so I'm holding my breath for the next couple days (hopefully I can get two coats a day on - morning and evening).

I'm using the semi gloss hard wearing 'Trim, Door, High traffic' paint that has done such a lovely finish on the baseboards, door trims, and windows.

The colour is the same lovely 'Ivory Palace' that all the trims in the house were painted originally, and we've stuck with a) for simplicity and b) because it really does look fabulous back dropped against the chestnut hardwood and the wall colours of the master bedroom. It won't have the same 'aged' look of some of the other off white victorian style vanities, but it's also not going to be $4500.


The bathroom itself is going to have to wait for the painting to be finished. Because of the size and weight of the cabinet there wasn't much hope of painting it in my basement spray booth - so it's being painted 'in situ'. I'd hoped that I could work on 'non dusty' tasks around it while in between coats - but there isn't enough room to swing a dead cat in that bathroom so it's just going to have to wait a day or two.

The wonderful thing about paint is - if you screw it up, fixing it isn't that big a headache. But, I'm already behind and don't really want to get into a week of painting the master bedroom.

And of course, I'm all about using what one has, and is available or inexpensive and working it - rather than get locked into an idea or plan that can prove expensive. The problem with this is - the more creative you get with what you already have available - the more difficult it becomes and the greater the chance of messing it up.

Welcome to the master bedroom. Way back when we moved in - I hated, the boring builder beige. A colour so nondescript that ICI has discontinued it. Nevada Sun 20YY 61/231. My original plan had been to do a faux finish in greens (my private forest schema) - Country Cottage light undercoat, Tall Evergreen dark overcoat and accents of Louisiana Hot Sauce and Golden Retriever.

As things go, when we decided we were gonna sell up, that scheme seemed a bit too dramatic, and it went to the wayside. However, the beige was still boring so we decided on a accent in the window alcove - we tried the Country Cottage - too bright (but perfect for the kitchen) and ended up with the Tall Evergreen. (That was when we decided to do the master bath in Tall Evergreen with the ivory marble shower).

All this seemed to work with our bed linens (which had always meant to be a complimenting part of my forest greens theme) which are sorta-mostly paprika-ish red and dark wine and gold duvet cover.

So far so good.

So Walmart has a linen sale on with the perfect King sized comforter sets for $59, very nice, and as our usual linens are inundated with dog fur - an extra set for showings would be a good idea. Except we couldn't get the red; but there's a very nice dark green/blue/gray tones with brown/gold accents set which will still work with the greens and the wrought iron look of the room. I think.

This morning cleaning the walls in prep for doing the hardwood flooring (chestnut bamboo) I decide that parts of the walls are in rough enough shape I should just spruce em up with a quick coat of the last 2 litres of Nevada Sun. But if I'm gonna go to the trouble of painting the walls I might as well brighten it up with a nice finish and some .. depth. In comes the plan for a slightly deeper tone of the same colour, and a dry brush technique to give it a bit of a linen look. Sounds great.

Except - Nevada Sun isn't on ICI's books any more - so we get a VERY close next colour Farmer's Almanac. (20YY 61/231 vs 20YY 63/258) and work from there into a deeper accent of either Moonstruck or Cairo Gold. Still with me?

So ... we got Nevada Sun on the walls now, Cairo Gold dry brushed over it, accent alcove and master bath in Tall Evergreen, Chestnut bamboo flooring, current linens in paprika red with wine and gold duvet cover, and back up dressing linens in green/blue/gray w/brown/gold accents.

Does it work? Frankly I haven't got a clue now. I suspect I may have to keep the back up linens packaged away, and maybe look for a different comforter/duvet cover. But hey, it's only till the house is sold... the next bedroom I start all over again with a fresh scheme!