Spiffing Things Up A Bit

With the new year typically comes new motivation for me to get moving on home projects. Our house is 26 years old and we've now been here almost 6 years. We waver back and forth between moving in a year or two, or sticking around and adding all the bells and whistles we want.

Since we only have one child, we don't need  a huge house, but the one thing I'd love to have is a screened-in porch - so I wouldn't be eaten alive every time I walk outside between the months of April and October...

But in the meantime, I continue to make tweaks and changes around here. Mostly because it's fun for me, mostly because I'm OCD and when I get an idea in my head I must follow through with it...

So, thanks to some moola from my dad and the hubby for Christmas, I accomplished a couple of projects over the holidays. Two major rooms I'm focusing on this year are the master bedroom and the downstairs bath.

First up, downstairs bath:

When we moved in, the downstairs bath had awful blue and green wallpaper, green fake marble sink top and ugly floors. I immediately bought a new, white sink top, put down peel and stick tile for the floors and laboriously scrapped wallpaper off the walls.I ripped that huge glass square mirror down and hung a cute round one, and added a couple of pics of Walkie to cheer it up a bit.

So here's where we stand now.

I know, pretty boring. And I could have at least closed the toilet lid for the pic...oh well...

So since that was basically just lipstick for the pig, I'm doing it up a little nicer this time around. New wallpaper (because the walls are in horrible shape). New tiles for the floor and some fun accents via accessories and a fun shower curtain. As you can see, it's not a big space - basically the guest bathroom/powder room for downstairs, but it has a shower, so considered a full bath. Pretty much all I've nailed down for now is the wallpaper..but that was long process in itself...

I looked and looked and looked for wallpaper that wasn't going to kill my budget. The first wallpaper I picked was about $450.00 for two rolls, so I had to come back down to earth and choose something else. This pretty silver-backed grasscloth gives a little bling and some texture at the same time, so I'm excited to see it go up - and two rolls run you about $70.00. That, I can handle.

It's ordered, so now I've just got to find someone to get it up on the walls - I do not do wallpaper and don't think I will ever attempt it myself. Can't wait to show you the after pics once it's up!

Until then I'm still on the search for ways to spruce up the rest of the room. I'm definitely putting down white or off-white ceramic tile, but haven't pulled that trigger yet. I find bathrooms so hard to pull together, so I'm eager for any fun shower curtains or bathroom decor ideas you've seen. Anyone else bathroom-challenged like me?