What a difference a little bit of art can make. After lugging home the big frames last week, and flattening the stored-too-long-in-a-tube art prints, I finally got a print framed and up on the wall.
BEFORE:
NEW ART:
You may remember that I purchased two of the Ikea frames, but honestly I am liking the look of leaving the one long wall empty, and putting the focus of the room on the back wall. It takes your focus away from the toilet (I hate seeing a toilet when you enter a bathroom, but this tiny powder room’s layout wouldn’t allow anything else.) The art is definitely attention grabbing and pulls your eye up and away from the loo.
I have been contemplating installing a small marble shelf under the art. Simple brass brackets, white/grey carrara marble. What do you think? Would it make it too busy?
I also swapped out the chrome toilet brush for the matte black one, and it has me thinking black loo roll holder is also a must. The question now is, to DIY or buy? Anyone seen any great black tp holders around?
I have also decided the large towel bar needs to go (it never looks tidy, and the scale is wrong for the space.) I would also like to move the towel over to the left of the sink. It will stop the trek with wet hands across the room, and I also feel like a small towel bar on that big empty wall would look out of place.
I fell in love with this towel holder (Jackson towel ring from Crate & Barrel), but I don’t think it is going to work with my chair rail in the bathroom. I would have to somehow bump it out from the wall so it would clear the rail.
Isn’t it great? Wish I could have it, but I just don’t see how its going to work. Oh, as a post script. Why is it that companies don’t make TP holders to match their towel holders?! Crate & Barrel does a few great towel bars in the Jackson series, but NO TOILET ROLL HOLDER. Where do people put their toilet rolls?! Please companies, make some tp holders to match your towel holders! Its a bathroom, people need toilet paper.
This is another towel holder that I am considering. I saw these Muuto Dots coat hooks everywhere in Denmark, and think one or two would be great as towel hooks. I could sew simple ribbons onto the towels, and hang them from the hooks. I am now kicking myself for not buying any while in Copenhagen.
I am also contemplating moving the tp holder location to streamline the long wall, but the only other place it could go is on the back wall, and that might be a bit awkward from a usability standpoint. I also need to devise a way to store extra rolls of TP. As the room has no cabinets, there is not an easy place to stash. Perhaps a small basket placed somewhere?
As for the rest of the room, I’ve made little progress. I went to the garage with a fire under my butt wanting to make the frame for the mirror, only to discover I don’t have enough wood. I plan on using 1×2 pieces of maple to make a simple frame for the mirror, and when I thought I had a 8′ piece, it turns out I only have a 6′ piece. I have a piece of 4″ maple, but it needs to be ripped, and I wasn’t about to break out the table saw at 9pm last night.
I don’t know if you’ve moved any further along with the little loo room makeover but here a couple of ideas I had while checking out your very entertaining blog.
To hold extra TP, get a glass cylindrical vase that’s big enough to store the rolls on end. Keeps ’em clean and tidy until needed and you always know when you’re going to run out before you do. I got mine at HomeSense for less than $15. One improvement I’m planning to do is to build something to raise the rolls as the vase get emptied. Screw a dowel that’s a little taller than the vase into a piece of wood that’s a little smaller than the diameter of the vase. (Imagine a paper towel holder.) Slip this into the vase and “thread” the rolls onto the dowel. I plan to do this, just as soon as I find the *perfect* little knob to go on top of the dowel. (Honest, it really is somewhere on my to do list!) It would look pretty cool if you spray painted the outside of the vase a matte black.
As to what to use to hold the roll currently in use, I’d reach for the spray can of matte black paint once again and have at it with the one you have now. The only black one I’ve ever seen was a handmade beauty in a smithy’s shop.
I’d go for the cool towel ring! Just mount it up high enough the the towel just grazes the chair rail. Towel ring as art and people won’t have to bend over to dry their hands. Win win.
Cheers!