The Lion, the WItch and the Washroom: Part 3
We’re roaring into Week 3 of the One Room Challenge and I’d like to say Mike and I are ahead of schedule. I mean technically we are, because we’ll be done before the June 25th room reveal. But in truth our bathroom was supposed to be finished in mid-March.
I don’t know what happened.
Actually, I do.
Other than a pandemic and extended delivery times, we don’t have much of an excuse EXCEPT it's DIY and, as a couple, our design process is very relaxed and fluid. As you will soon see, neither Mike nor I like to stick to a plan when it comes to designing and building a room.
Plans are boring. We don’t like them, mostly because we rarely live up to our own schemes and thus have learned it’s better to have a general plan but no specific expectation at all except IT SHALL BE WONDERFUL.
Flying by the seat of your pants IS SO MUCH MORE FUN.
When we left off last week, the tub was on stilts. We had an actual subfloor where there used to be Swiss cheese. And we’d ordered a super cool Alphonso Mucha-reproduction tile mural to fill the visual space at the opening of the Narnia bath cabinet.
Of course, we weren’t planning on the tile mural when we designed the bath cabinet. So, before framing it out, Mike had to redraw the cabinet on AutoCAD with a less dramatic arch over the bath entry. Once that was done, he banged out the framing in a couple days and it looked like this.
Mike built scaffolding over the tub to avoid damaging it with the ladder whilst installing the GoBoard.
Next came the drywall. And then it looked like this from the door . . .
And like this looking towards the door. . .
In the meantime, if you remember my “mood board,” we were loving the concept of a gold toilet. We therefore ordered a high tank toilet in white and spray painted the bowl gold.
First Mike taped off the inside of the bowl as I didn’t want this part painted due to use of chemicals for cleaning. He then sanded the entire area that wasn’t taped off.
Next he primed it with an automotive spray primer as we believe this grips better than standard
primer
Ta dah! We used a gold spray paint called Ironlak. Mike then applied a number of topcoats to protect the paint.
We couldn’t have a toilet this fancy without a competing seat. Fortunately, my Instagram friend, the brilliant artist Diane Woodward, offered to paint a seat befitting our bathroom and me thinks she outdid herself.
On the top of the seat, we have dragon scales.
Open the lid and many surprises await, including hearts on the seat designed to look like rear ends and big bold stripes.
That’s not all folks. Flip the seat up and we have polka dots!
It goes without saying the toilet shall hold its own BUT that’s not the only whimsical artifact in this bathroom. Mike fell in love with a zebra print sink which we bought from Decorated Bathroom to go with a swan head faucet which was inspired by the lady’s restroom at Annabel’s.
Of course, the sinks at Annabel’s are swanky pink onyx but I assure you of two things. One – NOT IN OUR BUDGET. Two, way too copy-catty. Imho, sources of inspiration should not be sources for replication.
So ... ZEBRA it is.
That’s Mike modeling the sink. We got a screaming deal on the Rozin faucet which was $95 on Amazon. The price has gone up to $128 but I've seen this elsewhere on line for around $500.
As for the sconces which will flank the sink, I initially leaned towards swirly Murano in keeping with the Annabel’s vibe but then segued once I saw these on eBay. Maybe they’re a little matchy matchy with the faucet but I didn’t want our faucet swan to feel lonely.
The amazing sleeves are from ChandelierParts.com and come in numerous fun and beautiful patterns.
That’s all for this week. Next week we turn to the fabulous artisan tin ceiling from American Tin Ceilings and the walls which, as you will see, are a happy mistake.
