Last week I posted about how I had finally had enough of the “decor” in our bathroom. In case you missed it – and so you can really get a feel for the drastic improvement – here’s the before:
Stenciled. Moose.
I looked at that for eight years!
In any case, last week when the boys were out of town, Kate and I were on a mission! I took the afternoon off from work, picked her up and went shopping. We started out at Sherwin Williams, and even though I had been researching Pinterest and Houzz and the rest of the interwebs for days, I still agonized over what color to pick once we were actually there. Eventually, though, we landed on Silvermist.
Then we hit HomeGoods, which, like its sister TJ Maxx, is my happy place, and got a little out of control! We bought towel bars, a shower curtain, a bath mat, towels and accessories. It was so fun! And affordable. I spent about $150 and got a ton of stuff.
Our last stop (or so I thought) was Lowe’s, where we picked out a lovely light fixture to replace this atrocity.
But, when we got home, after I gleefully tore down the pinecone wallpaper border, I took off the old fixture (and I didn’t even electrocute myself!) and discovered this.
Random holes in the drywall! Awesome. The base of the new light fixture was a small circle, and after consulting the google I determined that patching the drywall was out of my wheelhouse. So, the only other thing to do was to pick a different light that would cover that shit up.
I am all about quality workmanship, as you can see.
So, we trucked back to Lowe’s and picked up a new light with a much larger base. And also a pizza. We were back on track. Yay!
But wait, not so fast.
The first step in the installation instructions was to attach the fixture to the junction box, a metal thing that’s supposed to be attached to the studs in the wall. Except there wasn’t one in my wall – as you can see from the picture above, the wires were just sticking out of a hole. So there was nothing to attach the new fixture to. I turned to the google once again and determined I needed to install a junction box, but by this time it was after 8pm and our hardware store was closed. We decided it was time to start painting and deal with the light in the morning. Except that meant we were painting in the dark. Minor problem.
This is turning into a really long story.
Anyway, we rigged up some lights and extension cords and got to painting! By about 11:30, we were done… with the paint. Everything else was still a disaster, but we needed to call it a night. We headed to the hardware store the next morning, bought a junction box (from a man who was just slightly condescending, not that I’m bitter)… but the hole in the drywall wasn’t big enough for it. So I got out the hammer and made it bigger. Except I ran into two studs on either side before the hole got big enough.
At that point I started googling “hanging light fixture without junction box” and despite the fact that most of what I read indicated that said box was in fact necessary, I decided to try it anyway and hope for the best.
And it looks really good!
I just hope it doesn’t fall out of the wall and/or burn down the house.
Things went quickly from there, and pretty soon we had an entirely different bathroom.
Finally – here are the after pictures!
Wait… just one more “before” because if any of you made it this far you’ve probably forgotten what it looked like by now:
And now…
Honestly the pictures don’t do justice to how much better it looks. I mean, there was nowhere to go but up, but we just love it. Andy couldn’t believe it when he got home and said he would never doubt me again in the realm of home decor (although he also said he thought it “looked nice” before, so I’m not sure how much stock we can put into his opinion). Kate spent a few days just hanging out in the bathroom.
It was well worth the 18 hours and $300 it took to complete this project. I just wish we hadn’t waited eight years to do it!
Now I just want to refinish the cabinets and countertop and replace the sink and faucet. I’m sure there’s a YouTube video for that…
That looks great! Fantastic job. 🙂
It has been my experience that changing a light is never as easy as they say it should be. The first time we tried to change a light, we ended up having to email pictures to my father-in-law and a friend who worked at Home Depot because the light had three different switches and none of the wires lined up right. It was a disaster!
I am BEYOND impressed! It looks amazing! And I am dying laughing at the light fixture saga! Will you PLEASE come over and do something with my upstairs hallway? THANKS!
Looks beautiful !!
It looks great! And makes me want to paint & redecorate something!
this looks absolutely amazing! but i have to say tom will freak the funk out if he catches wind of this junction box saga. senor safety would have none of this!