The Icing on the Cake

Let's just get this bathroom finished already!!!

It feels like this downstairs renovation has been dragging on forever (probably because it has), but we're tantalisingly close to the finish line!

After we showed off our carpenter-ing prowess making a bookshelf that IKEA would be proud of for the end of our downstairs bath tub (see here)...

We were keen to call this bathroom a done deal.

First things first, finishing up our vanity cabinet. Our beautiful, spray-painted glossy black vanity cabinet.

With a drawer missing and no drawer handles.

The drawer was missing because the S-trap plumbing for the bowl sink was taking up its space, so it could only close about half way. My original plan had been to simply cut off the drawer and just glue its front to the cabinet, so it wouldn't be open-able.

But we quickly realised that the plumbing only took up half of the available space, so we could shorten the drawer and at least then still have it useable.

So that the drawer was still nice and stable though, we didn't want to cut off its bottom (or all of its back), so we just cut a little piece of scrap plywood to size and screwed it into the drawer. Then we cut out a little chunk of the back board so it fit around the pipe, and we had a fully functioning (although shallow) drawer in no time.

Meanwhile, handle time!

We chose some really simple little chrome pull handles for each of the drawers. Tom and I actually nearly came to blows over them in the middle of Bunnings. He hated them, I thought they'd be perfect. I think they were only just over $1.00 each, and they're actually designed as cheap pulls for doors or cupboards, not for fancy pieces of furniture. They didn't even get their own little display like all of the other drawer handles and knobs. But I thought they'd work perfectly.

I'll let you decide who you want to side with.

No I won't. I'm not that big a person. Clearly I was right. Tom very grumpily allowed me to buy them (still convinced that they were awful), and fitted them to the drawers. And now he agrees that they're perfect. Aah it's lovely being right all the time!

So that's the vanity done. Now for the blank wall above it!

As you may recall, the vanity cabinet (that we then got spray-painted) was a dresser with a mirror in a former life.

The timber frame of the mirror was a bit cracked in places, so we glued it up with some super glue and then I went nuts with the wood putty to try and smooth over the cracks.

After letting it dry overnight, I sanded it back, and although it might not look it, the end result was nice and smooth as you ran your finger over it.

So can you guess what I was going to do next? Do you think it might involve black paint?

Yeah, you know me too well.

But first was the fun part. Taping up the mirror so it didn't get paint on it.

 

I think this was the moment when I stopped admiring the mirror's unique curves.

Just as an aside, I went to this effort to tape up the mirror rather than simply removing it from the frame because we weren't entirely sure that the frame was structurally sound enough to be deprived of the mirror. As a whole package, it was sturdy. Without? We didn't want to go down that road.

So, tape and newspaper it was. Then, I perched the mirror on top of a crate surrounded by drop sheets...

And sprayed to my heart's content. First undercoat...

And then a few very thin coats of glossy black spray paint later...

I loved it already. I let it sit undisturbed for a few days, and then carefully peeled the tape away to expose the mirror again. I used a little razor blade to tidy any small patches where paint had seeped around any edges, and you'd never know it wasn't black to begin with!

So then my wonderfully strong husband held it up for me in the bathroom while I ummed and aahed over how high above the taps it should be...

And then we had to decide how to fix it to the wall. Normally bathroom mirrors are just glued to the wall, but we didn't want to trust the old backing board of the mirror too much. We had visions of it one day separating from the frame and the glass crashing down over our beautiful vanity.

So, we came up with a genius idea. We drilled two holes roughly in line with where the bottom of the mirror would go, and put two little screws in them.

 

Then we drilled two little corresponding as-shallow-as-possible holes in the back of the bottom section of the mirror frame...

And then we very carefully lined up the little mirror holes over our screws in the wall, and it rested on them, meaning that the screws were only visible if you were crouching on the floor looking up.

Of course that only took care of the bottom of the mirror and gravity. We still needed to prevent the top of the mirror from sliding forward and bringing it all crashing to the ground.

We eventually decided that our best option would be to drill one hole directly through the centre of the top of the mirror's frame, so we could put one screw into the wall there to hold it tightly.

Never say I can't multi-task!

So then we were left with one gaping hole in the wall where the top of the mirror would go (it's the black dot just to the left of the light reflection on the wall in this photo), and the two little screws above the taps.

Since we had to drill through the tile and we wanted to make sure our top screw would really grip the wall and stop the mirror from falling forwards (and unfortunately there wasn't a conveniently located wall stud right where we needed it), we used one of these clippy screws (that's the official name, for sure). Its two little metal wings fold inwards as you push the screw through the hole, and then spring out on the other side, holding it snugly to the wall.

Like so!

That mirror isn't going anywhere!

Thankfully we checked the levels and it's straight. Just as well at this point! There's no going back!

So there you have it. I think we can finally call this bathroom finished! Hooray!

What do you think?

Eat Your Heart Out, Ikea!

A while ago now, I talked about my thwarted bookcase plans for the corner of the downstairs bathroom at the end of the bath (see here).

As a refresher, I had hoped to accomplish something like this.

But the bookcase I bought for the purpose wasn't going to play my game, so we were left with two alternatives:
1) Forget the bookcase idea and just extend the cornice so it's seamless
2) Build our own bookcase from scratch

We decided to go with option 2. I was a bit terrified, since we've never attempted to build a piece of furniture from scratch ourselves. Then again, we've built other things, so the theory is the same!

We went and bought ourselves some pine boards, and I got the job of marking them...

And cutting them to size.

And then I got the painstaking job of painting the pieces. We decided to buy some enamel (oil-based as opposed to water-based) paint in the same colour that we had painted the bathroom ceiling, Taubmans' Grey Fog, colour matched to British Paints. Ordinarily, with water-based paint, you can knock off a painting job in a day and be done with it. Using oil-based paint though, it's six hours before a coat is touch-dry, and 16 hours before you're supposed to re-coat. And then you're supposed to leave the paint for a full week before it can be considered cured.

So the process of painting all the bits and pieces (considering that I could only paint one side of each board at a time), and then waiting for the paint to harden, took me about two weeks overall

Needless to say, it felt good finally getting to the actual book-case construction stage! So far so good...

We decided to go with just the two sides and the shelves between them, with no board on the back. Instead, the wall tiles would just be visible through the shelves.

You can't see it well in this shot, but we carefully measured the distance we would need between each shelf and then marked the lines where the shelves would go on each of the long side boards.

And then Tom drilled holes along each of those lines...

For the shelves to be screwed through.

And then we laid out all of the pieces, ready for assembling!

Clamps helped to keep each shelf in position while Tom drilled each screw in from the side.

It was a painstaking process. Five shelves with three screws each side ended up being 30 screws!

I also cut a timber offcut to size to install between the top shelf (i.e. the ceiling of the bookcase) and the very top of the sides, for our eventual cornice piece to attach to.

Voila! Constructed bookshelves! Ikea, eat your heart out!

And now for the exciting part! The installation!

Although that was a bit of an anti-climax. The room wasn't quite ready for installation yet.

First, there was the issue of the fact that the cornice on the right was impinging on our bookshelf's real estate.

So it needed to get cut down to size. Tom jumped at the opportunity to demonstrate his patented pencil-in-the-mouth-while-measuring manoeuvre.

We had to have quite a discussion about what tool would be best for the cutting process. Since we don't own one of those fancy vibrating blade tools, we were concerned about using a tool that would damage the cornice we wanted to leave in place. We eventually settled on a Stanley knife, and I'm relieved to report that Tom's expert knife-wielding skills came through.

 A bit of scraping and vacuuming, and the cornice was neatly shortened. Whew!

So then it was time for installation! Not as easy as it looks, but because I was needed for lifting help, I couldn't capture the fun of that process on film. You'll just have to imagine it. Remembering that this bathroom is quite small and the fact that there's a bathtub and towel rail to wrangle around will help with the image.

We managed to slot the bookcase in behind the cornice on the left wall...

But we couldn't then straighten it up enough to also get it in behind Tom's trimmed cornice on the right, because we hadn't left any wiggle room in the measurements. So, he had to get his knife out again and trim a bit extra off the right cornice so we had enough angle to shove the bookcase in completely. Never mind! Our timber trim piece will eventually cover that gap up!

Hooray! We have a bookcase!

Except then we had to drag it out again so that we could get access to the wall for some glue.

Then the left side of the bookcase got some glue of its own, and we squished it back in again, carefully, so that we didn't get glue on any exposed sections of wall.

Not bad, huh? We were pretty proud of ourselves.

Then it was trim time! I had a brainwave, and cut a piece of cardboard to size to match the angle of the cornice, so we could use it as a template for cutting the edges of the timber piece we wanted to use to cover the top of the bookcase.

It worked beautifully.

So then Tom painstakingly cut that pattern out of the ends of two pieces of trim (leftover from the kitchen) with the circular saw (a process that, despite my template, still involved a lot of trial and error)...

And suddenly the bookcase looked so much more finished! If you discount the contrasting colour and all the little splotches that were my attempt at puttying up all of the screw holes.

Thankfully the attempt worked, and once they were all sanded back and treated to an undercoat, it was looking a lot more professional.

The bookcase then got an extra coat of paint, just to be on the safe side (and to cover up all of the puttied screw holes on the side). Don't want any water getting through the paint job! 

And then came the worst part. Siliconing up all of the edges where the bookcase met the wall. Forgive this lovely shot focusing on Tom's shoulder that was supposed to show him with the caulk gun.

He was in charge of using the gun to run the bead of silicone, I was in charge of smoothing it all out once he'd done that. It's an art, let me tell you! One that I am far far far away from mastering. I tried all the tricks. Paddle pop sticks, dishwashing detergent, you name it. Eventually I gave up and just used my finger, dipped first in a cup of water. It was messy, and it was less than perfect, but it was the fastest and least frustrating method!

And thankfully the end result wasn't too bad.

So there you have it! Our handmade-from-scratch and hopefully watertight new bathroom bookcase! Who else is proud of us?