Yesterday, the plumbers came to the house to look figure out what needs to be done in the studio bathroom in order to get that bathroom functional again. If you’ll remember, in that bathroom, we had to use an upflush system (ours is Saniflo) that pumps all of the water and waste up, over through the pipes in the attic, and down through the main sewer line on the other side of the house.
It’s a less than ideal setup, but the reason we had to do it that way is because the foundation in that bathroom, as well as the foundation in the neighboring room (i.e., the pantry and breakfast room) are both concrete foundations, while the rest of the house is a pier and beam foundation. So when I decided that I wanted a bathroom in my studio, it was both easier and a lot more cost effective to use this system rather than having to tunnel through concrete to run the sewer lines.
Anyway, with an upflush toilet, all of the waste water runs through this grinder pump that sits just behind the wall behind the toilet. And that one pump can handle the waste water from three different items — toilet, sink, and shower. So these are a great option for adding a bathroom to a basement or for a situation like mine where we didn’t want to go to the extra expense and hassle of breaking up concrete to run sewer lines.
Our grinder pump quite working well over a year ago (maybe two years now), and we never got it fixed because at that time, we weren’t planning on keeping that studio bathroom. That was back when I was still planning on turning that room into a walk-through pantry and relocating our kitchen to the pantry and breakfast room area. But now that plans have changed, the bathroom is staying and will actually become our main guest bathroom for an interim period of time.
All of that to say that when the plumbers came over yesterday and I opened up that bathroom door, I started getting really excited about working on that room. I still have a couple of projects left in the bedroom before that’s done, but as soon as I’m finished, I’ll be starting on this bathroom. I don’t expect it to be a big project. Other than fixing the upflush system, everything else is just cosmetic. I left this bathroom in complete disarray, closed the door, and pretty much forgot about it. So while it’s messy and obviously needs some work, all of the big stuff (drywall, crown molding, vanity, etc.) is done.
But when I opened the door, the first thing I saw was an unopened box sitting in the middle of the floor. So I opened it up, and it was several rolls of wallpaper. If you’ve been around for the last couple of years, you’ll recognize them. The first was the wallpaper that I originally designed and had printed for this bathroom.
I designed that wallpaper by taking colors directly from the floral wallpaper mural in the studio, so it coordinates perfectly.
When I was working on my closet, I tried to use some small pieces of that wallpaper on the sides of the drawers for my closet island (which didn’t work out), but I hadn’t really unrolled the wallpaper to get a good look at it. So it had been quite some time since I had seen the wallpaper completely unrolled. All I could envision of that wallpaper was the mockup I had done of it in the bathroom a while back, and the mockup looked kind of overwhelming to me.
So when we decided to use this bathroom as our main guest bathroom for the foreseeable future, I decided (based on that mockup) that I needed to come up with a different idea for the walls because that might be too overwhelming for guests.
But now, I’ve changed my mind…again. Now that I’ve seen the actual wallpaper and have unrolled a whole roll so that I can see the real thing it in my studio, next to my wallpaper mural, I think I just want to go for it. I love color, and I can’t seem to get enough of it, and I really want this tiny bathroom to show off all of those colors. I think my guests can handle it. 🙂 And I think the real thing will look a lot better, and possibly a little calmer, than the mockup. Plus, I don’t like the idea of wasting money. Wallpaper isn’t cheap. Even getting enough for a tiny bathroom can add up. So I want to use what I have.
All that to say that I’m back to my original plan for that bathroom. Rather than toning things down now that it will be our main guest bathroom for a while, instead, I’m going to embrace my love of color and pattern and fill that tiny bathroom to the brim with color. I no longer have plans to hold back.
In that same box, I also found this wallpaper that I had purchased a while back when I planned to do a makeover on the hallway bathroom.
I still love this wallpaper just as much as I did the day I bought it. And look how much orange is in it! I didn’t remember this wallpaper having that much orange in it, but it looks like it was made to go in our bedroom suite. So I want to find a way to use it in the storage closet. I don’t necessarily think that the walls in the storage closet need to be wallpapered. In fact, since I’ll be moving Matt’s equipment in and out of the room regularly, I think wallpapered walls might not be the best idea.
But what if I put it on the ceiling? I’ve never wallpapered a ceiling before, and it might be fun to have a colorful, floral ceiling. Right now, I have the dark stained plank ceiling in that room.
That will have to come down since it was installed around the built-in shelves and the bathtub area. Since both of those areas are coming out, the ceiling planks and crown molding in those areas will have to come down as well. So the new ceiling will be flat all through the room, with no obstructions on the ceiling, and I think it would be fun to put that wallpaper on the ceiling and then paint the rest of the room to coordinate with that wallpaper and the rest of our bedroom suite. And again, I like the idea of using what I already have. I hate the idea of having wasted money on wallpaper and never using it.
So that’s the direction I’m now heading with both of those areas. It’s funny because I’ve always assumed that the older I get, the more I’d be wanting to calm things down in our house until one day, I’d end up with a neutral palette in all of our rooms. But I find that the opposite is actually true. It seems like the older I get, the more I want to be surrounded with color and pattern. I can’t seem to get enough of it.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
Trending Products
