Bathroom

September 28th, 2010

Our pink bathroom has been pushed aside and ignored for a loooong time. We won’t be doing any major overhauls on this retro pooper due to the cost prohibitive nature of a gut and rebuild and I might feel bad since most of the tile and fixtures are in pretty decent shape. Don’t get me wrong though, I would LOVE to rip it apart and make the room more functional and way less pink.

Instead of the sledge hammer method, I want to do a super cheap and dirty upgrade to make the place feel a little less forlorn and neglected.

I don’t know about you guys, but I kind of hate every shower curtain rod option in the world. I plan on customizing basic plumbing pipe to make a more stylish curtain rod as well as some towel holders (we’ve had NO towel holders for over two years! Inexcusable) kind of like this:

Months ago I bought a basic white canvas shower curtain from CB2 on super discount sale (which after a quick google seems to be discontinued). Why is it so hard to find a simple white canvas shower curtain with out any frills or patterns or weird things all over it that doesn’t cost a bajillion dollars? WHY stores? WHY!

Otherwise, the poor Ikea bathmat has seen better days, so a dark option that blends into the floor is a must or maybe a crazy rug. Who knows.

The lighting also desperately needs to be addressed. That might mean that the PH knock-off could find a new home or we could just throw up a pair of simple porcelain fixtures with clear bulbs – like we did in the office. I’ve also been contemplating installing a wall mounted vapor tight light fixture on the wall near the mirror or vapor lights everywhere, but we will see.

Maybe I need a Tomado shelf to mount somewhere. We have to figure out how to store our shampoo and ugly things while in the shower…ugh. Stupid pink bathroom. I want to tear you apart.

FILED UNDER: bathroom, before

64 Comments »

Thrifty!

September 27th, 2010

I found this strange vintage lamp at The Salvation Army for the low low cost of $6. I can’t decide if it is barfing up the lights or slowly devouring them. The petals at the bottom look like some sort of crazy fish mouth or, well, um…a flayed penis.

It was made by Tower Craftsman Incorporated in New Jersey and may be the last decent thing to come out of that state…I’m going to go throw it in a hot tub and see if it breeds.

It’s flaccidly flipping off The Captain! Rude.

FILED UNDER: bedroom, lighting, thrifting, thrifty

24 Comments »

Cleaning Vintage Paintings

September 24th, 2010

Lisa H. emailed asking for some advice on how to clean an oil painting she recently found at a thrift store.

Above is an example of a filthy painting I just pulled out of my garage. Since I buy so many paintings at thrift stores, I use a little trick that gets years of grime off easily and quickly. The secret?

Bread! Doughy white bread to be exact.

Well, we didn’t have any white bread laying around except for this old bagel, which if you hate carbs would count as evil evil bread. What you need is the interior surface of the bread exposed. Either get a precut loaf of bread or cut something in half. Just get to the squishy white part.

Rub the soft side all over the painting. Don’t push hard, just gently run the bread all over the surface. The bread will pick up all the grime and grossness like a sponge.

Once your bread is filthy, toast it up and slap some jam on it. Or throw it away. That’s your call.

Use an extra clean piece of bread to do the final gentle rub down and your grime should be gone.

The grime may be gone but there will be residual bread crumbs all over the place. I use a clean soft bristle paint brush to wipe them all off and get rid of any remaining gunk.