The Half Bath Fix

My home was built with a large beautiful master bath. This is the sole towel bar in the entire bathroom. It is above my beautiful jetted tub so how did I make it beautiful and functional at the same time?
Ikea again!

I found this clever drying rack at Ikea and had my husband mount it as pictured so when I have fine washables, things I wash in cold and hang dry or wet swimwear, I spread the rack out and it holds my things over the tub below while they dry. Then tucks secretly behind my towels when not in use.


In my previous post my daughter mentioned how we cut the legs off of the cabinets that are made to stand behind the commode in order to provide storage for items we need available in small half baths that are built without a shred of storage. I was particularly fond of this cabinet since the glass is textured to obcsure the contents.

Below, I found this wall mount magazine rack at Pier One and painted it white to match the rest of the cabinetry in the bath.

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If you have a pedestal sink in your half bath...

Half baths are small, they are meant to be. But it doesn't mean we have to put up with inconvenience, especially when we have a pedestal sink. For a guest bath, you may want low light for parties, and there are lovely little lamps on the market and a bounty of candles, but no space to put any ambiance light at all. There are numerous decorative wall mount shelves that can be out of the way but hold this type of thing. I chose this because it matches some other lamps and iron I have in my home. My central theme is bringing the outdoors in and the half circle design with leaves helps hide the cord for the "sassy" lamp and gives me a place to put a votive and some hand lotion.
You may want to use a small fern stand for this same purpose.

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What am I supposed to do with this half bath Mr. builder?

T

Many homes these days are built with one or more half baths. They come in handy for guests and make nice private places in our master baths. At times even full baths now host a pedestal sink, commode and shower... with absolutely no storage whatsoever.

Personally, I wanted a pleasantly decorated space to offer my guests when the need arose. But mine had the pedestal sink, no cabinets, an oval mirror and was stark white.
My solution was to faux the wall, I went dramatic even if it was a small space, I played with color. I used an eggplant basecoat and a green and gold glaze faux I did with a sponge.
I replaced the oval mirror with a nice wood framed mirror, replaced the faucet with a bronze oil rubbed version, along with the tissue dispenser and found this little pair of metal crates with hinged lids (Hobby Lobby) to seat silently at the base of the pedestal. See what I store there in the photo below.

The bins are large enough to hold a roll of paper towels, basin and toilet cleaner, glass cleaner, Pledge, and room freshener spray. The top one holds extra hand towels. My bins are heavy enough that I don't worry about my visiting little ones being able to access cleaning supplies, but if they were present 24/7 I wouldn't store here.

The photo to the right shows a wooden magazine rack and a stepping stool for my grandchildren to pull to the sink when needed. They can reach the sink, soap, towel and light. Works good for us.

The last photo shows a cabinet I chose to hold extra tissue. My guests can easily see where the extra is if needed.



Hope these ideas help you with your half bath storage.
I will share my master bath potty area soon.

If you have to scrap in a closet, add a mirror

I know I am fortunate to have a scraproom to create in. Those of you who only have space for a closet to dedicate to scrapbooking can use the mirror idea to make the space feel larger.

Finally the Scrapbook Closet

I am fortunate enough to have a large walk-in closet in my studio that has truly been a thorn in my side. It houses decades of photos. I wish I had taken before photos because the closet was so filled with clumsy mismatched filing cabinets to tons of Sterlite bins. The lighting was so dim I could barely see inside.

I plan to post the progression of this closet. Bear in mind that I used to own a scrapbook store so I probably have unusual amounts of supplies and tools. But anyone can use these organizational principals for their own space.

This photo shows an Ikea Expedit that so many of us have adopted for our rooms. They are an ideal solution due to the 12x12 capacity of the shelves making it perfect for our needs.

I struggled to figure out the type of bin I would use to replace file cabinet folders that were already done. I settled in the Lekman clear bins and I put a 12x12 piece of patterned paper that coordinates with the studio decor in front of each bin to disguise the contents and make it pleasing to the eye.
The magazine files above are all that is left of my giant magazine collection. Most of what is in these files house "how-to" books from punching to paper folding and journaling. The black boxes are photos by year which can be a space saving way to store photos if you don't have as many as I have. The markers are stored in the nifty containers made by EK Success. My husband installed a replacement light that is like daylight now. I can easily get what I am after now.

As you can see I had to alter the bins. Because of the lip that goes around the Lekman it prevents a hanging folder from being attached as I originally anticipated. I purchased the hanging folder racks from the office supply and the hanging folders were already in my old filing cabinet. In my case each bin holds a decade of photos. These folders can be ordered from  www.archival.com . I do not want my photos exposed to acidic elements. If you have boxes full of photos I can help. I have a form I used to help me sort my photos. Let me hear from you if you are interested in knowing more about this topic.

Scrapbook Room Decorative Touches

Deciding on a theme for my room was fun! I already had my desk my husband had altered to fit the wall in our new home. I had to work around the Murphy bed so when we had guests they would feel comfortable in my workspace.
My children had given me a cute little sign that said "One shoe can change your life" - Cinderella. This stems from one of my favorite movies and storybooks as a young child. I always believed my prince would come, and boy did he! So the pink, black and green struck a cord with me. I went to Hobby Lobby looking for fun additions to the decor, I liked the French theme and chose black and cream toile for fabric. These cute inexpensive home decor items add such fun to the room. The two diamond shaped plaques are tin. Notice the little block letters mounted on a dowel that spell magnifique! The letters were painted black spelling "create" and edged in pink. The two large photos were taken in my garden. I had the walls painted and shopped for bedding and draperies.

I made the clock from a Heidi Swapp kit.
Continuing across the top shelf of the desk unit.

Camera reel tins that gifts came in, old cameras, feathers cute framed saying my daughter gave me. Check out my glass slipper, good thing he didn't ask me to try that tiny thing on! :)

Note the dress form draped with the boa, I had to have this to go with my antique child Singer sewing machine I used to play with at my seamstress grandmothers home. Just fun stuff, surround yourself with things you love!

The Paris themed wall hangings came from Hobby Lobby. I picked the "memories" up on a trip.
Oh, and YES the French phone does work.

Desk level views

Before my carousel was painted, oh I like it so much better painted black! I love the Quickutz Magpie Black Nesting Storage System with the little pink tins!

So many cubbies to store things in this desk! I'm so glad my husband was able to alter it to fit!

Look right, check out the explanation of this checkered storage in my other post!

The magnetic strip on the back came from The Container Store, the tins with clear lids are available at Ikea, I think its the least expensive place to get them. I have since added a second row of the strip. The black and cream box houses ribbon stored on wooden palettes.  I have tried ribbon looped as a skirt on my dress form, purchased one of those ribbon see thru storage thingies, wrapped it on paddles, wrapped it on wooden clothes pins, wound it on spools. Nothing has struck me to leave it all in one place yet although I'd like to. Ideas? So I have it on my embellishment center on a rod, in this black box and stored in the shadow boxes and some in the jars you see here.

This is an old VCR cabinet. I hung on to it thinking it might come in handy because it matched the furniture in the room. Here is what I ended up doing with it. Can you say "Punch it UP"?

You may be asking why I have SO many punches? I owned a store and I let my customers use these during crops. Truthfully all of them do not even fit in this cabinet. I have some extra large ones stored in the closet, along with alphabet punches.