Summer Projects: The Small Bathroom

It's almost a crime to call our master bathroom a bathroom at all. It's honestly the tiniest imaginable room that could possibly manage to contain the necessary toilet and sink, and that's it. It's not even a glorified closet. It's just a regular ol' closet with a crapper in it.

Nevertheless, this itty-bitty-teeny-tiny space makes up the only remaining areas of wall and ceiling on the entire main floor of our house not been freshly painted since we moved in and began renovations. That is, until last week.

MJ, Ari, and I packed up both kids and ran to the local hardware store to pick up the necessary items to paint the space. You'll note that I'm continually doing this without permission from the hubby. He's getting used to it these days as in the 4 years we've lived in this house, he's come home to find the kitchen cabinets, countertops, front door, and bathroom floor changed to one degree or another without his input. He's such a great sport.

So, without further ado, here are the pictures of what this terrible little room looked like before. It's really sort of upsetting to realize that we put up with this grossness for more than 4 years since we moved in.

Did you think I was exaggerating the stupidness of the (lack of) size of this room? Believe it, friend. It exists.

The tiny cupboard and mirror frame were painted in the Great Black Cabinet Painting Extravaganza of 2008 when I impulsively painted all the kitchen cabinets black. They turned out so great, I just sort of kept going. I got tired, though, and did sort of a crappy job on the bathroom cabinet and then immediately regretted touching it at all. It has stayed like that ever since.

Also, carpet in the bathroom? I'm dry heaving a little.

 What is cuter- the reflection of me in the mirror, or the tube of chapstick I didn't bother to remove from the countertop?

Can you even imagine framing a room/closet this size and thinking, "Oh yeah. We'll put a toilet in there and it'll be totally fine."

Given the size of the room, I kept bouncing between two schools of thought when picking the paint color. On one hand, I thought, "This room is tiny! I should paint it a light color to make it seem bigger!" On the other hand, though, I'd think, "This room is tiny! I can paint it some sort of wacky color I'd never use on a bigger room."

Ultimately, I went with the second concept, and picked a dark, stormy gray. I'm not going to lie, it's dark enough that I thought about a million times while I was working on it that I was turning this awful little space into a cave.

We somehow managed to squish both MJ and me in the room at the same time (imagine MJ perched on the countertop and me flat on my belly under the toilet, because that's basically what it looked like) and whipped out the first coat during the kids' nap time. I finished the second coat and cabinet that night while Schmoops worked late. Mister Baggins rested, and I only had to ask Bug to PLEASE NOT TOUCH THAT! about 60 million times, but we got through with only a little paint in her hair. And mine, but who's counting?

So anyway, the finished product. I still have some touch up to do on the trim and ceiling and hang something on the wall, but it turned out so pretty I couldn't wait to share. We painted the cabinet white to contrast with the wall color, and I'm in love with the result. And that part about not painting a bigger room like this? I've changed my mind! I want EVERYTHING to look like this!

Paddy loves it. He'd be crazy not to! I'm going to start calling this teensy little area our 'master suite'.

Final comparison, the view from our bedroom:

Before

After

What do you think?