Hanging Around - Round 2

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! With how much I've been doing with him and the civil rights movement at school, I feel kind of guilty that I'm sitting finally writing a blog post while the baby naps rather than going out to honor his memory with some duty-filled action. Well, he's with me in thought, at least. Is anyone out there filling their karma bucket with all sorts of humanity-oriented activities today?

The last time we hung (hanged?) something on the bathroom walls, there was cursing. There was disappointment. There was anger. Knowing this, my hopes were low and my defenses were up when we finally got around to installing our floating wall shelves.

I was fearful, first, that the shelves would look disproportionate in our tiny potty room. Spoiler alert: They turned out to be the perfect size for our needs. Secondly, when it comes to an item that needs to be level, picture me sweating bullets -- especially in this notoriously uneven house. Again, things worked out for the best.

Miracle of miracles!

Here's how these things work --

1) Hold up the shelf to get an idea of where you'd like it to go. We lightly marked the wall (top and sides) with a pencil. (I erased these marks after we marked for the anchors.)

 

2) Mark and drill spots for the support and anchors to go. I love that anchors exist, but Dave HATES them -- and with good reason. The directions often say to use a particular size drill bit, but 9 times out of 10 when you start to hammer it in, the hole's too small. This time, we were missing the bit they suggested to use, so he used a smaller size and kind of hollowed out the hole to make it the right size. While I wouldn't advise this method, it worked fine.

3) Hammer anchors into wall. Hold up the support bracket and drill into anchors. There are actually more holes to use than screws, but as long as you don't put all the screws on one side (um, duh? I know you guys are smarter than that...right?), you're golden.

 

4) Slide the shelf onto the bracket and drill the the two screws in to attach it to the bracket. You can either have the screws facing upward (so nobody sees them) or downward, depending on your need. I did the bottom one downward since no one would really see it, and the top one facing the ceiling since it would've stuck out like a sore thumb.

And, by all means, if you can get a trained professional to oversee, please do.
Ours is named Winston.

Aaaaahhh!!! Beauteous!

5) Load stuff on and style it to your heart's content. I'm sure I'll adjust this a million more times, but for now it's so nice to have the additional storage back (we used to use a run-of-the-mill over-the-toilet storage unit, but I'd dreamed -- yes, literally dreamed -- of having something more modern and open like this forever) and fun accessories to play with.

Thar's Q-tips in them thar mercury glass.

Yep, the hubs really and truly uses an old-school double razor thingamabob.

With a boar's hair brush.

I love that guy!

I moved in one of my all-time favorite cheap-o DIY art pieces. Old game numbers (antique shop) + unused matted frame + glue (+ burlap, if needed) = vintage-y art.

More vintage with that turquoise blue side-bottle.

While we're at it, I thought I'd show the shower curtain that I finally put up. I kept my previous white one (it's not in the best of shape thanks to a cat claw or two, but it IS white) in case it's advised that we tone it down when we one day sell the house. But, for now, the punch of fun, bohemian color makes me happy. Plus, it makes the space go from boring tan-and-white to something more special and "us." Unfortunately, I also realized that the color in the painting that I made was a tad too pink to coordinate well, so after trying to glaze some deeper orange into it (it's better...but that's a hard frickin' orange to match!), I think I may go with something simpler.

I do love it, though!

So, all I really have left in this room is to figure out a window treatment, then attack the shower surround. For now, we'll just keep the shower curtain drawn and assume it's finished. *wink*

It's funny how it has taken so long to git 'er done, but once I finally picked up steam, it came quickly. That being said, I've got some more painting/fixing-up to start in a couple of other rooms soon, too. Is anyone else full-steam-ahead on any projects?