Home Improvement

When we checked out our townhouse at the beginning of last summer, one of the things that almost kept us from renting was the state of the bathrooms. The wallpaper was old and peeling off in the corners and the hardware was cheap and starting to break. Being the crazy renters we are, we obtained "special permission" from the owner to redo the bathroom walls (on our own dime, of course) and that was the decision that sealed the deal for us: we'd rent the place and redo the bathrooms.

The catch was that we aren't home renovating type of people. Our talents lie elsewhere, somewhere far far away from home renovating. About one hour into the project, after it was irreversibly too late to glue the paper back up on the wall, I turned to Marcos and groaned, "Who do we know whom we can pay to finish this job?". Some of the wallpaper came off remarkably easy, but it was exposing all kinds of other problems we hadn't planned for. Suddenly we had to be plumbers, and painters, and craftsmen... and youtube videos just weren't cutting it anymore.


Then enter a few very, very good friends. After Marcos and I had fully lost confidence in our ability to finish the project, our friends Jen and Jordan said, "We've done this before. We'll come over and help you!" And when their long shift of confidence boosting and prep work were finished, Brandi showed up and worked with me until 2am finishing the painting. It was truly a miracle to see how quickly things went with so many hands on deck, and such a spirit of helpfulness. We are so grateful.


After a few coats of gorgeous blue paint I found by flipping through the Benjamin Moore sampler photos on the Pottery Barn website (thanks for the tip, Rebecca!), and some new brushed nickel hardware, here are the after photos. Our bathrooms are definitely still small (and if you come over don't look too closely because it's our beginners work), but these beachy bathrooms are so pleasant now.


And what's even better is that with a little help from our friends we now have some real skills for fixing up the space around us.