Finished downstairs bathroom

Admittedly, I'm biased, but the bathroom came out great. Great! We can now forget all the effort that went into applying and cleaning up 136 square feet of charcoal grout and just appreciate the results.

An unbelievable mess

Once the tile was done, I realized that painting the walls above the tile would be potentially messy as all get out. So I taped up a bunch of plastic (this is where Chris vacated the room - he has no patience for this stuff) and started painting. I used some leftover white paint and added a bit of the charcoal that went on the main walls to get a soft grey. 

Too soft. Darkened it up and applied another coat. Nope, still too light. Gave another go and now have a nice grey (although slightly on the blue end of the color spectrum) above the tile.

Third times the charm

It was also finally warm enough to spray paint the assembled sink base. Here it is in all its skeletal beauty.

Sink base looking weird

Finished tile

We added some nice towel hooks that I got from Lowe's. The shower is long enough that the towels can hang inside without getting wet. Which means you can dry off without opening the curtain and therefor get to keep all that wonderful heat inside with you.

More finished tile

Then we needed to hang the shampoo/soap bar. Picked up a set from IKEA and we used the infamous blue tape method to get a level mark.

Blue tape is level, just pick your spot to drill.

Drilling through tile sucks. Nerve-wracking because you don't want to crack the tile and hard because, hey, it's tile. After this Chris swore he was going to buy some good tile bits. I held him to it and went directly to Home Depot. When we get to the upstairs bathroom, we'll be ready!

Drilling...

But the finished bar looks nice. 

Just add soap

We hung an antique mirror opposite the shower (those are the two shower windows you see reflected).

Bad reflections

 And went with a framed chalkboard for over the sink. Kitchy? Yup. So worth it. The sink base isn't quite done. The two shelves left & right will be finished and raised up nearly level with the sink. But we're waiting on a couple of nicer slabs from some of the trees on the property (they have to dry before we use them). For now a couple of cutoffs from the scrap pile are working fine.

Partially completed sink

We also don't have a door. Or trim. But those are coming soon. We do have pretty hooks and I found a neat place to put some of the art we've collected over the years.

Hmmm, need that door...