Bano!

If you give a girl license to paint a cabinet, she will notice and redo the caulk in the room, then move forward on the wall color, and fixtures, and..... Bam! Presto chango!

Mr Alex and I considered a number of paint colors for our bathroom - exhibited in the mirror, here.  We knew it only really had to suit us, and that the brushed nickel fixtures hanging around were not our favorite things, but not the worst option available in the world.  We also determined that a tall slim towel cabinet was not a longterm solution, and that the bathroom wall cabinet was not in the best location.  This is fine, I had just thrown it up there when we moved in so things would have a home, and knew it wouldn't live there forever.

So, I took the cabinet down, stored it in the living room (classy!), and had things everywhere.  That's how we knew it needed to go back up.  While Alex was away seeing his other wife in Austin (aka business travel), I took to the walls.  I removed the fixtures, all hung with anchors of varying types (including a pair intended for concrete? that held up a four-inch glass shelf), cleaned the walls, slapped up some patches and painted our bath.  We chose Sherwin Williams Spa, in Behr Paint and Primer in semi-gloss, and it is gorgeous in our well-lit, small bath.  In bright light, it's a cheerful blue, but in low light and the evening it's more sea-colored. The teal is a perfect complement to our subway shower, as well as our Sea Salt cabinet, and closely related to the ceramic knobs we added. Basically, as close to one of those beachy bathrooms as one can get, without adding seashells because we have real things to store in here.

I was able to pull this off in an afternoon, as this type of Behr can be recoated in two hours.  I rolled most of the wall space, let it dry and stuck the paint tray and roller in the fridge, then painted the trim with a sweet little Wooster shortcut brush (fantastic for ladies with small hands) and rerolled at the two hour mark.  I did recoat the trim above the shower so we could resume normal life activities, but left the rest for when we know what is going on in here, someday, someday, someday...

Alex tested out his new tool belt while rehanging our wall cabinet and fixtures for towels, etc.  He estimated it made him five times faster because he was able to move forward without putting things down and needing to find them again.  The struggle is real.

The remaining plans involve adding shelves for odds and ends, and possibly updating the light fixture to something old and cruddy that should be loved for what it is.  Or something new that serves us better than the builder-grade mirror and round globes even my grandpa thinks are "dorky."  His words, not mine.