The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Howdy!

No spaghetti western with Clint Eastwood here. Instead, it's our first home improvement project together!

The Ugly: The mirror/medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom has been a pain in my head as long as I've been vacation dating the man. Actually, a pain in the back of  my head as I tend to smack the back of my head on it when I'm washing my face. What? Is this chick crazy? Sorta. Check out this picture.

That bottom shelf sticks out about 9" from the wall and in order to rinse my face off, I gotta duck down below it and remember it's there instead of standing straight up like I do at home. Only had to smack my head a few times before I remembered.

The other love/hate thing about this cabinet is the mirrors. The right and left panel mirrors are at an angle. Swell if you're checking your hair I guess, but a PITA if you're trying to do your make-up. Add bad lighting and you can see how this got the Ugly award.

So at three in the afternoon, the man suggests we take down my arch nemesis and install a recessed mount medicine cabinet. Really?! Oh you know I jumped on that opportunity! New ones are spendy so I hit Craigslist. Denver's CL is awesome, btw. Bingo! Found one for $25 and it's only 20 minutes away. Off we go. Oh, rush hour. An hour and a half later, we arrive. We did call the guy and tell him we'd forgotten about rush hour as we're on vacation and have no concept of time. He was cool with it. One fantastic recessed medicine cabinet into the truck, then off to Home Depot for stuff and birthday dinner at Red Lobster. Yum!

The next morning, the man dives into making a hole for the new cabinet. This is where we present The Bad:

A vent pipe? This high? Luckily the saw did no damage to the pipe but it is higher than we want the bottom of the cabinet to be. Grumble grumble arg. At this point, you would expect tense words to be exchanged or a fight or something. Nope. I made a quiet suggestion then left him alone to think about options. I know he was frustrated that things weren't going smoothly but he was calm and cool. Whew! That made it all the better!

Ok. Fine. No sunken medicine cabinet. No nifty storage. Fiddlesticks. Well, yes we could make it work with a bunch of money but we are looking to do updates without breaking the bank. I'm sure you understand. We opted to go with a flat wall mount mirror and a new light fixture and I'm absolutely lovin' it!

I proudly show off The Good:

Patching the hole the man had made the day before was a team project. He studied up on the Internet for the best ways to patch a big drywall hole. A trip to Home Depot and we got what we needed in scraps and smaller pieces to keep the budget in check. Nice! My job was to do the spackling paste and sanding after he got the replacement piece of sheetrock in place.

At the end of the day, a high five was exchanged for a job well done as a team. We got through our first home improvement project without a fight and lived to tell! I am thrilled! And the bathroom looks much better and bigger now. No more head smacks! Yes!

 We will be adding some spice shelves that we picked up at Ikea for storing various bottles and keeping the sink counter clearer. I'm sure I'll paint them some happy color but that will be a bit off. They'll probably go up and get used for a while before paint hits them. No problem.

Here's a sneak peak of a future project:

This wallpaper border is in the guest bedroom and was there when the man bought the house. I can see saving just a square of it and adding fangs to some of those precious bunnies. Evil laughter!