Bathroom Makeover Part 3: DIY roman shade & FULL REVEAL OMG.

Have you read Part 1 and Part 2 of the Bathroom Makeover? Just checking.

Let me preface this by saying there are some excellent DIY Roman Shade tutorials on Pinterest (click here to see them all), however they were all a little too much work. I'm all for doing as little work as possible.

So I made up my own DIY tutorial. This is not a working roman shade, meaning you can't make it go up and down. It's just for looks.


First, you'll need fabric and a cheap rod. I got my rod at JoAnn Fabrics for around $5. The fabric is one that I had ordered for a client to re-cover her sofa, and I completely fell in love with it, and jumped at the chance to use it for my bathroom makeover.


I highly recommend using a striped fabric. It makes it really easy to make straight cuts and line up for sewing.

I suggest measuring the width of your window, and then adding on an inch on either side so you have enough to fold over, like in the picture below.


Now, since this shade isn't going anywhere you can just fold it over once. Don't worry about the raw edge because you won't see it. Sew the sides first. You could even use hemming tape for this, and make it a no-sew shade.


Sew the top by folding over a bigger portion of your fabric. You want enough room so that you can fit your rod through it. That's what she said.


Now Here's the fun part. Did I say fun? I meant tricky.

Lay out your fabric on the floor, wrong side up. Meaning all the raw and icky edges that you don't want to see are facing up from the floor. The bottom part of the shade is the only part that you haven't sewn yet (cause you've sewn the sides and the top, right?). You want to fold the bottom onto itself TWICE. So you are kind of "rolling it up" like a fruit roll up.


Next, fold that previous fold under itself and then back up. Like you are making a paper fan in elementary school.


Then, carefully flip your fabric over so that it's RIGHT side up. Meaning all the good stuff is facing up now. and pull the two "layers" apart, just a tad. I pulled my bottom layer about an inch away from the top layer.


Next, you'll want to pin your "layers" or hold on for dear life, as you just sew the top two inches of ALL the layers together. I added two white lines the the picture below of where you need to sew.

Step 5 is me doing what I just told you to do in step 4. I don't really know why there's a step 5 actually.

Final step! Hang that ish! The fabric will drape a little bit in the center.

The bamboo shade is from Overstock and cost $26. It's the easiest shade I've ever installed. It's just two brackets, two washers, and boom you're done.

We repainted the walls Fond Memory by Ben Moore. It's got warmer, more brown undertones than Marry Me, which has black undertones and feels very cool. Marry Me was great when the tile was black, but felt way too cold as we started to re-do the bathroom.


We also (read: my husband also) repainted the ceiling in Fond Memory. It's amazing how much larger the bathroom feels now that there's not that break between pink walls and a stark white ceiling.

I am anti-ceiling paint, in case you haven't figured that out by now. Check out Lulu's ceiling in this post.


I couldn't be happier with how this turned out. All in all, it took about a week, and including all the paint, shade, fabric, hardware and materials it cost us $121.

I would love to hear what you think!

If you're feeling inspired, but need some help, I'm for hire! Click here to book a free consultation!

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Bathroom Makeover Part 2: Painting your Vanity, Painting Hardware, and DIY Moulding.

If you have a builder grade vanity in your bathroom, this post is for you.

It's extremely easy to add moulding.

You'll need to buy little itty bitty moulding from the "baseboard" section at Home Depot, or wherever you go normally. They have a few different styles, but I had this 1 inch moulding leftover from a previous project, and I was able to use every last inch of it in this project.

I suggest measuring about one inch away from all sides of the edges of your drawers. By doing so, everything is even and looks good by default. See that little yellow thing on top of the vanity? You'll need a level to make sure the top is straight. It's easy to add the other pieces when you are 100% certain that the top piece is good to go.

If you are lucky enough to get your hands on a miter saw, get your hands on a miter saw. They are sooo much fun. We had a guy putting in our new door for a day, and I took full advantage. If you don't have access, you can always buy a miter box. They are sort of sucky, but they get the job done.

Once cut, you can pop on that moulding with my favorite little glue combo (E6000 and Gorilla Super Glue). I dotted the backs of the moulding with each glue. It's super strong and not going anywhere.

I used regular scotch tape to hold the moulding on until it set. I didn't even take the door/drawers off. That's how easy this is.

Once the glue was dry, I caulked around the sides just using my finger to smooth out the edges. I use Eco-Bond. I like to be environmentally friendly to my fingers.

Then I started painting! I chose Benjamin Moore's Dior Gray in oil based high gloss enamel finish. It takes about 24 hours to dry, but is well worth the wait. I got my color inspiration from a picture featured on Design Manifest. It's a great blog run by Naomi, and she's right here on the Main Line. Let's get coffee girlfriend!

Done.


The hardware was silver and needed to be brass. So I spray painted it with one coat primer, and one coat metallic gold.
 

Both spray paints are Rust-Oleum. I think it is the absolute best.

I ran into a wee little problem with the hardware. I really wanted hardware in the center of the moulding, and on the "faux drawer"... but no holes in the faux drawer, and the holes were not centered in between the moulding.

Easy fix! Same glue situation as the moulding.

Just little dots.


Pretty little dots.


Tape it bam bam bam.


While that's drying, would you like to see our new faucet? Isn't it lovely? Did you know that you cannot have a new faucet installed with frozen pipes? Let's just pretend.

While I'm at it, I'm a big fan of a little happy clutter on the vanity. I think it makes the bathroom more warm, homey, and inviting.



OK! It's dry. Ready?


My goodness what a difference this makes for us. We are so happy with it - and so far this makeover has only cost us about $80.

What do you guys think so far? I'd love to hear your thoughts! 

Stay tuned for more... Tomorrow: DIY roman shade & FULL REVEAL!

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Bathroom Makeover Part 1: Bathroom Tour and Painting Laminate Flooring & Tile.

Warning: these before pics are not particularly pretty.
But here we go.

Welcome to our bathroom. Not awful, right?


 Until you look down.


I mean... that is BAD bad.


When we first moved in 3 years ago, I quickly covered up the old hole in the wall sliding cabinet (it was awful and off center - how dare they!) with a mirror. I painted the walls Marry Me pink by Ben Moore, changed the drawer handles, covered the floor up with a rug, and cleaned like a mad woman. It was fine, until it wasn't fine anymore.

Then, I kid you not, the week that I was like "gimme some inspiration for this damn bathroom, universe!" my sister in law, Carley, like a genius, PAINTED HER BATHROOM TILE. This was just the kick in the pants I needed, and a firm reminder that "you can literally paint anything". It's true.
 

SO... I did a little instagram poll that said "I'm thinking about painting the black tile white, guys, yayy what do you think??"

The overall response?

"OMG NO!"


But friends, I am a stubborn, stubborn woman when it comes to what I want.

Here is my "OH SHIT. What did I do?" moment. (after the first coat of Gripper Primer)


And here's me freaking out internally about the tile around the sink, but painting the floor instead. (this is half way through the first coat of Gripper Primer)


BUT: have no fear... all is well in Belladwella land.

Here is some of the tile after 2 coats of Gripper Primer and 2 coats of Rust-Oleum protective enamel (which is just the regular white, that I chose because it matched our bathtub perfectly, and looks quite purposeful even though mismatched against the square tile).


You'll want to let each coat dry for 6-12 hours on the tile AND the floor. Basically this takes a loooong frickin time, and you obviously can't touch the floor while it's drying.

This is me, trying to get into the tub to take a shower for 2 days.


Here is the floor after. Again, 2 coats of Gripper Primer, 2 coats of Rust-Oleum protective enamel, and 48 hours of François Toulour style gymnastics.


I am SO EXCITED for the full reveal of this bathroom makeover. The whole space just feels cleaner with no more black. So clean, so fresh, and so springy. Is it spring yet? Anyway, SO EXCITED. Are you as excited as I am about this?

I sure hope so!!

 Here's what's next: 

Tomorrow: Painting your vanity, painting hardware, and DIY moulding. 

Thursday: DIY roman shade & FULL REVEAL OMG.

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Color Coding a Bookcase!

Well this was fun! Not only was it a pretty quick project, but also a great excuse to clean the bookcase. Cause let's be honest, when was I ever going to do that otherwise. Never. So exactly.

First, here's my bookcase as it was for about 2 years. Not in bad shape, but with our front room consistently changing this was a great way to bring cohesion and make some sense of an otherwise cluttered space. And I just realized my blanc de chine lamp needs a shade. Oops.

If you decide to do this yourself, you'll want to take everything off the shelves. This may seem self explanitory, but before I took everything off I tried going at it gurilla style just moving things around still on the shelves. It was horrible and taking everything off the shelves is a way better plan. Trust me.
So I made piles of books organized by color...
 

...and a pile for knick knacks and tchotchkes and foo dogs, oh my.

Here are the bare bones! Yikes. Wolverine was allowed to stay. In case you were wondering, these are 4 Ikea Expedit shelves stacked.


Now for the fun part. I filled the shelves with the knick knacks and tchotchkes and foo dogs (oh my), and let them dictate where my books would go. I didn't want the whole thing to seem too ROYGBIV-y, so I just did what felt right.
I like putting pictures and vintage paintings in the way backs of the shelves to utilize the depth (Expedit shelving is super deep), while bringing some of the smaller things to the front.

Then using the tchotchkes as my guide, I filled the shelves with books.

I like a little haphazardness in my bookcase, so incorporating my husbands childhood toys is fine. In fact, I kinda like it.


So happy with how it turned out, and it took under an hour.

BTW, about an hour after I posted the picture below on instagram, Refinery 29 posted these Tips for Bookcases (so now of course I think I'm cool/trendy/onto something).  

I'm always a sucker for a good before and after shot, but holy cow is this one overstimulating!

I think this is definitely worth a try if you're tired of your bookcase situation. 

So tell me, do you think you'll do it? Or DID YOU!? If so, send me pics!

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some thangs...

from my instagram.

My husband and I went to a fahncy dinner in Palm Beach.


My little munchkin went for a walk with her Papa at my grandmother's house.

Stalking my grandmother's living room. I'm pretty sure that's her in the painting.

When we got home, my Day Designer planner had arrived. I highly recommend this. (made by the talented Whitney English).


Our big 'ol door knocker arrived. I switched up the brass door handle situation (with the arrival of our new door) to polished nickel, so, of course, I needed a new knocker.

I made out like a bandit at Home Goods (thanks for the gift card, mom). I'll be using these pretty items to re-do my dresser.
 

Hope everyone had a great week!

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