Category Archives: House / Bathroom

Bathroom Decor and Organization Update & Wall-Mounted Vase Review

It’s time for a much overdue bathroom decor update.  Come on in, there’s plenty of room . . .

I haven’t shared a lot about decor or organization for our main bathroom.  There’s not a lot to decorate in this space.  Many of my old apartment bathrooms were cold, ugly, awkward . . . giving me more of a decorating and storage challenge.  Unlike those apartment bathrooms, this one was renovated completely prior to our move-in, so I haven’t had to try hard to make it look nice.

When you last saw the forgotten bathroom,  I had just hung clear teardrop vases from CB2 on the one blank wall large enough to decorate:

Bathroom Glass Hanging Vases | TheBorrowedAbode.com

I loved the look of the wall-mounted vases, but they didn’t work out for me in the long run.

First, they were quick to display dust, a problem that was solved by running them through the dishwasher occasionally.

Second, when I hung fresh flowers in them the flowers would leave marks against the walls as they wilted and got older, and one time a sad flower blossom stuck to the wall and left a big smear in its wake. Granted, if I were Martha Stewart and changed out my fresh flowers every three days, wilted flowers leaving marks on walls wouldn’t have been an issue.

Giving up on the fresh florals, I tried using some fake flower stems in the vases for a lower-maintenance look.  This didn’t work out well at all – I couldn’t add water to the vases with fake flower stems in them, and so there was no counter-balance weight to hold them in place.  If I didn’t place the floral stems just right, the vases would tilt and spin on their wall hooks.  I was worried they could fall off the wall, so down they came.

I didn’t give a hoot that the vases didn’t work out, because Ryan and I found the perfect replacement!

Hoot Owl Giclee Print Funnelcloud on Etsy

Credit: Funnelcloud on Etsy

This awesome Hoot Owl Giclee Print is from my friend Rachel’s shop, Funnelcloud Studio.   It was the perfect piece of art to add some much-needed color to that wall.  I love the blues and greens as a starting point to add more color to the bathroom with new towels and a rug, for example.

Bathroom Owl Art Nov 2012 | TheBorrowedAbode.com

I framed the print in a super cheap frame and photo mat from Michael’s – I was glad I could find a frame that matched the mirror and cabinetry so closely in color and style.

I also added some smaller organization and decor touches that I’ll share too, since we’re already talking bathrooms.

We have to keep our soap and lotion on top of a tray so they don’t scar the marble counter more, so we included the glass tray and the small glass canisters from Crate & Barrel in our wedding registry. We also store our electric toothbrush and toothpaste on the tray . . . not sure where it got off to in this photo.

 Bathroom Counter Organization | TheBorrowedAbode.com

Do you see the little electric toothbrush heads stuck to the wall next to our “Blue Canary In The Outlet By The Light Switch“?  We couldn’t find a good way to store them, so I was excited to find this stick-on toothbrush holderon Amazon. If we had a cabinet above the sink, we’d have installed it inside the cabinet door. But since we don’t, we just used the back corner of the wall.  They’re out of the way but easy to grab.  

On the other side of the bathroom I’ve added a few things.  My painting from Italy needs a custom frame and I need to just get that done . . . I just forget.  But once I get it framed I think it will be too large for that wall, so I need to find another space in the house.

Bathroom Nov 2012 | TheBorrowedAbode.com

We’ve got a ton of orchid plants leftover from our wedding, and I’ve jokingly referred to the bathroom as the “Orchid Hospital.”  Orchids that were close to death have come gloriously back to life in the bathroom, probably because it gets so humid from the shower.  So now I’m rotating a few of our dozen orchids through the bathroom each month.

Second, the monogrammed cross stitch hand towels were a sweet wedding gift from a college friend.  They come out when company is visiting . . . or apparently when I’m taking photos for the blog. :)Bathroom Nov 2012 Naked Man | TheBorrowedAbode.com

Oh wait. . . you want to know about the naked man? 

Are you telling me you don’t have a naked man swinging from a pole in your bathroom?  The Naked Man was found on the floor of my friend’s mom’s car as I rode to the wedding ceremony.  I stuck him inside my purse and he came along for the ride.  He’s hung out in different scenarios at the Borrowed Abode ever since . . . and this last stop in the bathroom was Ryan’s doing. I’ll have to share The Full Adventures of the Naked Man at another time.

Disclaimer: I have not been compensated in any way for the product commentary included here. I purchased both the art and the vases – and all opinions are my own.  This post does contain Amazon affiliate links.

The Accidental Before & After: Bathroom Disaster Edition

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a problem here at the borrowed abode.

Without our permission, a Before & After has taken place, and not for the better.

Remember our bathroom?

It’s pretty nice, right?   I’m starting to feel that maybe it’s a little too nice for a rental home.

The lovely counter you see before you is most likely marble.  It’s gorgeous, but it’s a pain in the a** to take care of and protect.

The reason I put the bottles of soap and lotion on a little tray is because within a day of buying them and putting them on the counter, they had left marks where they sat.  Marks that were almost impossible to get rid of. It seems that if even the smallest drop of water dripped down the bottle to rest at it’s base on the counter, it “scarred” the surface.

After that, we put the bottles on a tray, were careful to quickly wipe up any substances that got on the counter, and we even bought special marble counter cleaner.

But then, one day last week, I left a bottle of eco-friendly shower cleaner on the counter and went to work.

After work, I walked into the bathroom and noticed liquid sitting all over the counter, around the bottle of cleaner.  Immediately I thought “uh-oh, this is bad.”  Sure enough, I removed the bottle and cleaned off the counter frantically, only to find that I was left with a horrible marred surface:

Marble etching - bathroom countertop damage

See all those white markings?  The rectangle is where the base of the bottle sat.  The big splotches are where the bulk of the liquid rested.  The marred areas appear to be raised above the polished surface of the rest of the counter.  But the damage is permanent – meaning no, we can’t just clean it off.

(I inspected the bottle of shower cleaner, and found a very tiny crack in the base of it.  I have no clue how that got there.  Gah.)

A bit of Googling revealed that it is most likely a marble countertop, because marble is very prone to “etching” from acidic liquids and such – unlike granite.   (Also, I noticed many photos showing cup rings etched into marble counters simply from water.)

Back to the problem.  We’re letting our landlord know – this is not something that we want to try and fix on the down low, because we’re out of our league with counter top repairs.   And our landlord or his contractor probably will know a good company to use to fix it.  Of course we’ll need to foot the bill for the repairs.  If it can’t be fixed, we’ll have to have it replaced upon move-out, and take that cost (ouch!) out of our security deposit.

But then, that’s what security deposits are for, right?

Either way, I’ll let you all know what we find out, in case you need to fix a rental property countertop without letting your landlord know!

Do you have any experience fixing marble counter damage like this?  If so I’d love to know!

Quick Bathroom Update

When I shared our Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt,  did you see the two empty glass vases on the bathroom wall?

Those vases have been hanging on that wall ever since the failed attempt to use them in the kitchen last September.  And can you believe it, they hung on this bathroom wall for the last 6 months with never a flower in them??Empty no more, and it’s about damn time.  I popped some colorful and generous stems of Alstromeria into them before Friday’s dinner party.

 

I love the simple teardrop shape of these CB2 Teardrop vases, and their small size makes it easy to add them to an otherwise useless wall.   And isn’t it great how a simple handful of stems adds so much color and life to a previously boring wall?  Even better, I get to change this “art” up every few weeks.  If I grab greenery from my yard, it doesn’t have to cost a thing!

And finally, it’s like a two-for-one deal . . . or should I say 4-for-2 . . . because the vases and their contents are reflected in the mirror above the sink.

Hooray for the finishing of long-overdue projects!

And in other news, can you believe it’s already March?  Geez, I don’t know where the time goes.

 

Easy Kitchen & Bathroom Upgrade

Impulse shopping? I thought I’d kicked the habit.   Then I went to Target for the first time in over a month.  When I rolled my cart past those glorious home decor and housewares aisles, I was strong. Until I saw the little chrome caddy that could.

I’d already upgraded my dish soap but putting it in a recycled glass bottle that sat in a little white dish, but I’d been wanting a chrome caddy that could make the space look a bit more coordinated.  I’d held off, though, as the nice ones at Williams-Sonoma were over $30.  Insane.

But this Caldrea caddy, filled with hand soap, dish soap, and counter cleaner, was $20.   I weighed my options:  I could stick strong to my guns about not purchasing it because it probably wasn’t manufactured in fair labor conditions (most Target items aren’t), or I could give in and get it.  I decided to get it because I knew it would provide me much happiness.  Organization solutions always do.

When I brought it home, Ryan then proceeded to mock me for a good 30 minutes when I shared my excitement. I informed him that I would be using it forever, because even if I find out Caldrea’s not so great for the planet, when the bottles run out I’ll just refill them with my brand of choice.

I wasn’t content to leave well-enough alone, though.  Why bother having hand soap AND dish soap?  We can just wash our hands with the dish soap, or walk the 20 steps to the bathroom if we really want hand soap, right?

So I removed the hand soap from the caddy, filling the spot with a glass full of flowers:

Then I trotted the hand soap and the lotion to the nearby bathroom, so that guests and us alike would be able to use lotion after washing hands.  As a guest at others’ homes I always appreciate when there is lotion handy at the bathroom sink.

Take a closer look and you’ll see that I set them on a little old tray I had in the basement.  Sure, the tray makes it look a bit fancier, but it also protects the counter top from the soap drips.  Our old hand soap bottle we’d been using had started to stain the counter top, or so it seemed.  Have any of you had that problem?  I’m not sure if it’s a marble or granite or faux stone surface, but it’s pretty sensitive to soap stains.

And that’s the end of the story of the little chrome caddy that could.  Am I the only one who finds great joy in having things such as dish soap neatly tucked away in caddies by the sink?