Behind Closed Doors

This post is a little uncomfortable to write. I hope to do it with as much grace as possible, well, as much grace as someone talking about tampons can have. ;S

I'm a bit shy, when it comes to things behind closed doors, I figure there's a reason you close the door right?? So I thought about when I'm at a party and I realize my eye makeup is smeared and I need a q-tip, or I'm there and I realize that one hour of nervous chit chat with your husbands boss has used up 13 hours of your 12 hour deodorant's promise. Whatever it is . . . things happen at parties.
We're hosting a few holiday parties this month, and I made up a little kit to deal with . . . well, everything.

I call it my Powder Room Party Kit.

I thought of a few situations I've been in at parties (I bet you're looking at the picture thinking I've been in a couple of those situations), and made up a kit to handle each of them.
1) Matches in the bathroom. I'm not sure if I need to say anymore but I will for those of you who don't know what matches in a bathroom are for. When matches are lit the sulfur dioxide smell masks the 'other smell'. Better than any air freshener on the market ;).
2) Tampons, there is nothing worse than having to casually ask the hostess for a spare. Especially if she's had a few too many egg nogs and keeps screaming "What?? You Need What??" over the music, because I guarantee the second the music goes dead you scream out TAMPON!
3) Mouthwash, with a few little plastic shot glasses from the dollar store. There is also a roll of dental floss inside there, you could also offer some toothpicks.

4) Panty liners.
5) Some Medicine, Aspirin, Tums, and Benedryl. I always make sure to keep an allergy pill close at hand when entertaining and would suggest others do the same even if they don't have allergies. You never know when someone might really need one.
6) Small deodorants from the travel bins at Target. A couple of little deodorants is a good idea. I have a small note on them, suggesting people take them home if they used them because honestly we aren't going to re-use them, and throwing them out would be a waste.
7) Q-Tips, always handy.
8) A travel bottle of strong hold hairspray, a hair elastic, and a bobby pin!

We keep our kit in our main floor powder room, under the sink. Oh and I almost forgot to mention . . . EXTRA TOILET PAPER always make sure there is extra toilet paper! 

Powder Room Art!

Blue and Green go together like ice cream and hot fudge, like politicians and scandal . . . like cheese and . . . everything!! :)

With my blue and green scheme in mind I went on the hunt for artwork. I knew I wanted something green but I didn't want to buy something JUST because it was green I had to LOVE it too. So I waited and waited some more, until one day we were at Canadian Tire . . . Lee was getting oil for and oil change on the cars. I was browsing their very sparse Home Section when I came across some canvas art Clearance Priced at $5 and there she was All Green and Perfect!

 Some times what your looking for is in the last place you look . . . like finding your future husband at a volleyball tournament when your wearing no make-up and a sports bra ;) haha.

I hope you're enjoying the Blue and Green as much as we are!!

Powder Room Reveal

We've finially finished with our changes to the powder room, just in time for Christmas. I wanted to make sure this room had some wow to it. I figure almost everyone who visits our house will visit this room at some point so I wanted it to be pretty! I thought about a fabulous bold wallpaper, but Lee said . . . "absolutely not!" I have no idea what it is about men and hating wallpaper? But they all do!!
So we went with Martha Stewart's Rainwater.

We had a big blank wall right when you walk in so we needed some art work, but because it's a small room I didn't want to overwhelm it with a HUGE picture, I thought small 4 x 6 photos with HUGE white mats was the way to go.

I Love little pictures with HUGE mats (if your like us and don't have the budget for huge custom mats, use white poster board and cut it to size using an exacto knife, we matted all three for $3, compared to $33 each for custom mats).

Photos are little postcards from Ikea ($5).

We added a new light, not a  typical choice for a bathroom but we used a track light. I wanted something simple and modern,

and I loved the little shades!

Some special touches, the towel ring:

A towel bar (I like a great big towel in the powder room for guests to wipe their hands on, there's nothing worse then trying to dry your hands on a small damp hand towel at a house party).

And last, a pretty soap dispenser (from Target), I like to keep my soap pump on a little porcelain tray, so that any spilt soap gets caught in the tray and doesn't sit on our granite counters waiting to be absorbed.

There's our new little powder room.
Before:

After:

And because I've been trying to add some more perspective shots, here's a picture of how it looks from the hallway!

Powder Room: Sneek Peek

Since I couldn't make up my mind about the barn door color, I decided to paint the powder room a color I knew was perfect! With Christmas around the corner it was time to style-up the powder room (that's right STYLE-UP :)
Here's a Sneek Peek:

The wall color is: Martha Stewart's Rain Water, and the trim is Heavy Cream.

We still need:

• A new Mirror??? Maybe a new paint color for the mirror
• Definitely a new light fixture
• some art work
• Maybe a bright multi colored, padded toilet seat ? ? ? hehe Just Kidding!

Check back tomorrow I've decided I need to make a decision on the barn door and just paint it!!! I'll post pictures tomorrow!!!

Matches in the Bathroom . . .

Matches in the bathroom . . . you know why!

I'm going to address this topic with as much tact as I can, I promise I will resist the urge to make funny jokes about toots and fluffs! haha Not counting that one . . . calling them toots is kinda funny!

With guests coming over for the weekend I wanted to make sure that our powder room had all the necessities to make them feel comfortable. Under the sink is a lot of extra toilet paper,and  a small container with some tampons, Tylenol, tums, floss, etc . . . I do that just so no one feels uncomfortable asking.

This year I thought I would add a little jar of matches. Our powder room is a good distance from the main living area but I still like to avoid any, if not all potential embarrassing situations for our guests.

I took a small candle holder from the dollar store ($1), and I added matches ($1). Now for the lighting part of them, there are two options . . . 1) cut a piece of sandpaper and glue it to the jar. 2) I took the strip from the side of the box and stuck it on using a command adhesive strip.

So for $2 we have a cute little bathroom accessory. I also thought this would be cute during the winter on the fireplace mantel . . . clearly for a totally different purpose! :)

Flowers on Friday: Beauty and the Beast Rose??

Anytime there is a single rose in a bud vase, all I hear in my head is
"Tale as old as Time, Song as old as rhyme . . . "
A single rose screams Beauty and the Beast to me! And when it whilts and we have to throw it away it kind of makes me a little sad, like the beast never found True Love.

That was my long winded way of saying, this weeks flowers on friday is a single red rose in a bud vase.
I LOVE a little arrangement in the powder room, it's almost a guarentee that your guest will have to visit the powder room at some point so it's nice to give them something pretty to look at and smell!

Speaking of Disney:

Powder Room Reveal: White Chrome

If there were only two words to describe our new powder room it would have to be White, and Chrome.
Thanks to our little paint mix up the bathroom is now, white-white, you know that bright, crisp white you see on trim. Our solution, which worked like a charm, was to lower the wattage of the bulbs in the bathroom. As soon as we swapped our 60w equivalent bulbs for 40w equivalent bulbs (all CFLs) the room became less sunglasses requiring white and more crisp, clean sophisticated white.

You might notice the prints above the toilet, they are the same prints that use to live in our dining room. We needed to take photos for the real estate agents and I still hadn't found art for the powder room yet, so we took the dining room photos, then quickly hung them up in the powder room. Turns out I like them more in the powder room, so now I'm on the hunt for dining room art work.

We tried to keep the powder room very plain, it should be good for resale. We wanted to make sure it looked decorated with out looking cluttered.
My favorite part of the bathroom is the cute little succulent that sits beside the sink.

All and all we did pretty well, and came in way under budget. Here's the break down.
Toilet $40
Sink $45 (can you believe we got that sink for $45? Craigslist rocks)
Mirror $24.99 (Ikea)
Faucet $12.25 (Home Depot on super Clearance)

Chrome handle for toilet $4.99

Art work- Free (although I'll have to replace the dining room art so the final cost is yet to be seen)
Chrome Airplane- Free (already owned)

Succulent - $1.69 (walmart)

Toilet Paper Holder $12.00

Towel bar- $9.99

Extra's (plumbing pipes, etc. . . ) $50 (I am always amazed at how that adds up)
Light Fixture- Free it was there before.
Total Cost: A hair over $200 
Because it wasn't a renovation that we would get to enjoy we did everything we could to re-use what we already have, while still trying to make it look nice.

To see what the powder room looked like as a computer room, follow the link here.
To see the start of this project, follow this link.

Can you believe it use to look like this:

This powder room re-do is Linking to FUNKY JUNK INTERIORS for their Home Decor Linky party, check out what everyone else is doing HERE.

Bathroom Progress

Can you believe this is all that's left of our computer room?

So, we've been working tirelessly on the Powder Room, formally known as the computer room. The realtors are coming today at 4 to take photos and everything has to be picture perfect in there.
I'm not going to lie, we've had some set backs, for example, Lee grabbed the white paint we have for trim and painted the wall with it :) I was going. . . to paint the room pale gray like the up stairs ensuite, but alas, there is no time to re paint. The pedestal sink we bought (for a steal by the way), the base is too small to cover the hole the previous owners left in the tile. Yes, instead of removing the very easily removable sink to tile, they just cut the tiles around it (insert angry face here).

But other then that it's gone swimmingly. Right now Lee's touching up paint, installed the toilet yesterday (also for a steal $40 low flow, dual flush, toilet from Home Depot, with warranty), the only thing that implied that the toilet was inexpensive was the plastic white handle, but with a less then $5 chrome handle the toilet now looks like a higher end fixture, bringing the grand total to $45.

We picked out a chrome faucet, for $12.25 also from Home Depot, I was amazed to say the least.

Bought the toilet paper dispenser from Homesense on clearance for $12.00 and the best part is we can take it with us when we move.

So that's what has been keeping us up until the wee hours of the morning, although ordering pizza and chinese food has been kinda fun, we have a weird tradition that anytime major reno's are happening we call for pizza or chinese, last night was chinese food, YUM.
Stay tuned for finished photos.