small house, HALF-way there

with what? bathrooms.  And actually, half-way there may be generous... 

The condo we rented prior to buying our small house had a gorgeous master bath.  Granite, double sinks, a tiled shower, bathtub, basically the works.  It was relaxing, warm, and I LOVED it:

Then came the small house.  Here's a glimpse at where we started the day we moved in, Bathroom One on the main floor:

Bathroom Two upstairs (Master bath):

I would like to say I had a love hate relationship with our new bathrooms, but there was no love.  They were just, ugly.

We haven't done much to Bathroom One.  We painted (Benjamin Moore, Elmira white), took down all the shelving, hung a new shower curtain, bought a new bath mat, towels, washcloths, and called it a day:

But, Bathroom Two is a slightly different story.  The first time I attempted to hang up towels in the upstairs bath, the hardware fell OFF the wall.  Small house: 1, Sarah: 0.  

So the first step jumped from painting to buying new hardware, trip 143 to Lowe's.  We replaced the awkward "pearl" hardware in the upstairs bath with simple, strong nickel pieces:

And then we painted.  We weren't planning on painting the upstairs bathroom Benjamin Moore's Wheatfield yellow until Wheatfield let us down in the kitchen and we had an extra gallon of paint left over.  So we ended up with this upstairs:

I didn't mind the Wheatfield, but Matt was NOT a fan--notice the new hardware and light fixture (Allen & Roth from Lowe's).  Yellow was too much for him at 4:30 a.m. on a daily basis (yup, that was his schedule in July of 2012).

But at least our hardware was now affixed to the wall, progress.

So then came paint job numero dos for the upstairs bath, Peanut shell plus a new mirror:

So it's better, but not great:

The future: we are currently in the "dreaming stage" for totally redoing the bathrooms.

Our ideas for the upstairs bathroom involve: tile--that looks like hardwood backing the shower, tiled floor, ripping out the tub, and two sinks...

For the main floor bathroom we are thinking tile, ceramic tub, new vanity... EEK, big project.

One step at a time.

But I couldn't post this without sharing a Stella pic--loving on the new rug: