Its buggin' me.....

I have something bothering me. I have debated whether or not to tell all of you, my faithful readers, but I feel like its now the white elephant in the room. At least for me. My friends and family know about this issue. I talk about it, but I'm really kind of stuck. I will have to attack this issue in steps, but I am getting ahead of myself.

My issue is our master bathroom. It looks worse than it did when we moved in, because the walls have been scuffed from cars racing on them to our first hamper. I have several issues with our bathroom. All of which we did not notice while building our house, but now that we've lived here for 18 months....well, they're quite glaring and they're buggin' me.

I'm not ready to show you my bathroom because 1- its filthy, 2- our 2nd hamper imploded, and now some of my laundry is sitting on the floor waiting for its turn in the wash, and 3 - its filthy. I know I repeated myself, but Stephen and I really hate to clean bathrooms. I mean really hate. H.A.T.E. Its truly awful, and we should be better. The boys bathrooms stay clean because we manage to clean as we go and just clean in bursts. It seems to work, but for our bathroom. Not so much. It also doesn't help that our house has 5 bathrooms. Five bathrooms for a couple who hates to clean bathrooms. We used to have a cleaning service come in and clean our house every month, but we stopped that service because of its seemingly frivolous expense,  but I'd sell my kidneys to have them come back. Even once every 6 weeks.


So back to the plan I am having to adopt for this bathroom. Like I said we've been in our house for 18 months so in order to appease Stephen, because while he's usually very easy going with all of my decorating antics some of them he's not so open to, I have had to haggle with him about a 5-year plan for this bathroom.

So let me explain my plan. The first part of this plan is hopefully only 2 to 3 months out, because really....I'm gong kind of insane with this bathroom. I may even try to push it to 1 month, but we'll see. Remember I'm trying to pace myself with projects. I want to paint this bathroom. I want to have it painted like last month. I'd also like to add a medicine cabinet or just a cabinet of some sort to the bathroom, because I want very little on the counters. I'd also like to update the mirror and the light fixtures. I also need to update the rugs, because I spilled hair dye on one, and the other has a weird pepto pink stain from something or other.  I also need more towel storage. I don't think this is too tall of an order, and even if I can't get it all done in a weekend. I still think that given the 2 to 3 months I can do it. I'm also hoping to not spend more than $300 on it. The lights I think I've found will be about $140 and the mirror update about $60. So that leaves me about $100 for rugs and the towel storage. I might be cutting myself a bit short, but even if I go slightly over budget, I'm hoping that the updating will provide Stephen and I with the added energy to want to keep the bathroom in showroom order. It has helped with our bedroom, so I'm very hopeful.

The 5-year part of the plan involves the faucets (there are 4 total) and the vanity. I'm 6' 2" and Stephen is 5' 8" and our vanity is 36" tall. I would really like it to be 42" and Stephen has agreed. I do spend more time in there than he does. :) I would also like to add vessel sinks. So that would be a big change, and thus the 5-year time line.

What I'm hoping to evoke with this bathroom is a clean, romantic, functional feel. I don't want a whole lot of fuss, but enough touches to make it look elegant, and hotel-esque. Similar to our bedroom. Seeing a pattern? :)

So here are some inspiration images, and hopefully in the next few days I can show you guys what I'm working with and what I'm hoping it will be. Time to brush up on the Photoshop skills. :)

{source}

What I like about this bathroom is the furniture feel of the sink and the glitzy sconces. I love the crystals and the pink! What I don't like about this bathroom are all the colors. I feel like the floor is competing with the stripes and there is a lot going on on that back wall.

{source}

There are so many things I love about this bathroom. I love the rich, dark dramatic color of the walls especially paired with the crisp white trim. I am in love with chandy over the tub. I want to do this, and Stephen agrees with me......just need to find the right piece. I also love that the tub is in that nook which is further enhanced by the fabric curtains. I had this idea for my bathroom as well.....but I am not sure how to accomplish it because my tub butts right up against my shower. I am still loving this idea though. I also love the small pops of color in the room with the yellow, and how clean it all is.

{source}

I want my bathroom to be this impressive if you were just to poke your head in. I love the elegance this bathroom exudes at first glance. I really am loving the mirrors along with the simplicity of the art work. I do not care for the vanity. Its too much for my taste. I seem to prefer cleaner look, which I find odd because I do usually like fret work and filigree, but not here. The wall color is also not doing much for me. I like the warm browns and creams but the green is just a bit to wimpy.

{source}

Pink! Any of my boys will tell you I have a soft spot for pink, but I never rarely ever use it in my decorating. I love the small pops of color here tho! I also really, really, really like the damask shower curtain. Again....its uncluttered and clean. :)

I know this was a lot post for me, but I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday. I will be shopping with my Mom at Hancock, taking advantage of their MLK Sale. Maybe I'll even get lucky and find some fabric for our bathroom. Have a terrific day everyone!