So hey! I never showed y'all how we did just a few things in our new house to transform our stark white (and generic AF) full bath into one that embraced the awesomeness of purple...without making me feel like I'd completely reverted to my 10 year old self...
Using Zero VOC paint, as always, for the win (just like in our half bath), this time I fell in love with Behr's "Plush Purple" that gave it a more luxe vibe (trust me on bringing every type of shade of purple paint swatch home with you - these will always amaze you on how wildly different they look when tape 'em on the wall at home!).
But that wasn't the only change we did. This bathroom, just like in our last house, had no medicine cabinet! WTF homeowners - how are you not having these? In our last house we discovered after pulling off the wall mirror that they prior owner (a landlord, sadly) had just covered up the old cut-outs in the wall where medicine cabinets had been, and while I was hoping for that here, when I popped this behemoth off the wall, there was no luck - it was just ugly drywall. Hmph! So, rather than cut a hole in the wall, we decided to add a mirrored wall-mount cabinet. The framed mirror was donated to Goodwill, so nothing went to the dumpster.
However, the prior lighting was frightful, so I donated it to the Habitat ReStore and upgraded to a far more energy efficient LED bubble-style light fixture that gave it a bit of a deco vibe which I absolutely love. PS - did you know that most light fixtures can be installed in two directions? This one was actually photographed with the lights facing down, but with this particular space, it both fit and looked way more appropriate flipped upside down.
The toilets in our homes have always been replaced immediately since most of the world still have not adopted dual flush, sadly (even in drought-stricken areas, folks seem to think it's appropriate to use obscene amounts of what is literally drinking water to flush toilets). This time I spent a wee bit more than the standard $95 big box version and got the more streamlined Glacier Bay's Beck dual flush toilet with an elongated base (no weird curves on the base that are a pain to keep clean), a higher seat (nice for us tall folks), and a quiet-close lid which I gotta say is pretty awesome.
PS - You can donate your old toilet! Give it a good clean and offer up for free on Craigslist.We donated both of ours in a flash - again, no landfill for any of this DIY reno!
The only bummer of this model is that, after much effort, my husband was unable to install the Boss Bidet attachment we were hoping to use to create an even more eco bathroom. I'm still looking for one that might work though, as the amount of TP we all use is really nuts (Scientific American states bidets would eliminate the need for over 36 BILLION rolls of TP annually in the US alone, and 2 rolls per week, per person...pretty amazing eh?!). I know, I know, there is the 'family cloth' option, but mentally I admit I've kept that in my head only for apocalyptic level backup purposes...plus I dig the cleanliness aspect of a bidet that would keep the wipe to a super minimum. So I'll let you know how that goes, but in the meantime we've got our 100% recycled chlorine free TP that'll do in the meantime (I also like the Caboo that comes in a paper bag but can't find it in our new town, which sucks).
Along with these big basics, we use our washable hemp shower curtain (psst - you don't actually need a plastic shower curtain liner, folks! just get a good hemp or organic cotton one and occasionally toss it in the wash!) brought over from our last house, and on the wall is a favorite framed black and white cityscape (I took it 30+ years ago back in my hometown) to give it a bit of a jazzy vibe, and... voila!
These goodies, matched with my four-ingredient hand soap I've been making for years, and some super soft organic cotton bath towels (not shown but simply stored below the sink and on the towel bar outside of the frame, we repurposed the old existing Ikea stainless shelves over to the garage, y'all)? Well, I think we've got ourselves a hella groovier water closet, don't you agree?
