A Ruffle Shower Curtain & Its Awesomeness

We've got a sick 6-year-old with stomach flu around here (poor little lamb)...which can only mean one thing: everyone washes his/her hands a zillion times a day. Mandatory. Because no one wants baby Violet catching a bug. Baldy or not, she's the household sweetheart, and for good reason. Those cheeks!

 

 

Let me show you what's been inspiring me lately. After I tell you. That's right, show-and-tell. I just love when academia meets real life. (Because kindergarten activities are considered "academic"...?)

 

Ready? Go. 

 

Ruffle waterfall curtains. Aren't they so pretty? All those tiers? These tie-dyed ruffled curtains from Anthro are amazing.

Anthropologie
 

But I'm specifically on the hunt for ruffle shower curtains. I like this white one okay, although it seems slightly stiff. If that's possible with ruffles.

Pottery Barn

The mismatched vibe of this one below is fun, although it's not quite to my taste. A little too peppy for me. Because I'm not a morning person all the time. (Translation: I was a morning person on one day in my life, and that was my wedding day. The 14 million other mornings I've lived? Nurp.)

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This is a pretty grey, as far as curtains go. It almost looks ombre, but I can't tell if that's just the lighting.

Urban Outfitters

 

And I esPESHially love this one. Eclectic vintage, with soft yellows and whites. Annnnd...you guys spy the pom trims, too, right? K. Just checking.

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I'm starting a makeover process of our main bathroom. Nothing crazy (maybe), but just a little pick-me-up. Here's the final ruffled shower curtain:

 

 

This isn't a full-on ruffle curtain tutorial, but I'll show you in a nutshell what I did. Because apparently I am a glutton for self-punishment and because I love ruffles lately, I went through my fabric scraps and pulled out everything white. Ish.

 

I cut out a ton of strips, then laid them out on top of fabric that was cut to be the same size as the actual finished shower curtain. (Will you be shocked that I recycled the window curtains from here? No? Good.) Each strip was about 1.5-2x the actual width of the curtain itself (to allow room for gathering).

I then sewed the pieces together into strips, hemmed the sides & bottom of each strip, baste-/ruffle-stitched the top of each strip, and sewed them onto the large fabric piece. Then I cut off the reinforced top from my old shower curtain, covered it in white fabric, and sewed it to the top of the now-ruffled curtain. Button holes finished it up. I reattached the ivory liner behind this curtain.

 



I didn't want the curtain to feel super country; I wanted it to be eclectic-chic. (Heh. I totally just made that up. But do you know what I mean?) I love the various textures and subtle pattern of the white strips.

  



Violet had to hustle right in and check it out after I hung it up. Baby-approved. Yesssss.

 I have some ideas brewing for the whole space, but I like the start this curtain gives.



 

What about you guys? Are you a fan of ruffle waterfall curtains like this or not so much? What's your very favorite way to show personality in a shower curtain?

 

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How to Combat the "Gimmes"

On occasion (okay, fine, FREQUENTLY) I get a huge case of the "gimmes" in which I want stuff that's newer, better, brighter, more different than what I've got already.

 

(Frankly, this can be a very expensive medical condition. Especially when I've got a healthy "gimme" list going on for nearly every room in my house...) 

 

What I'm about to reveal to you is an embarrassingly honest display of what I do to combat this malady. It's a pretty fail-proof prescription, really. And it brings me satisfaction and contentment.

 

Ready? Here goes:

 

I clean.

 

For many of you, this is a no-brainer. Of course cleaning is good! you're thinking to your scrubbed little selves. Not for me, though. I'd rather be knee-deep in a paint project than anywhere near a squeegee (sp?) or vacuum.

Many of you probably enjoy cleaning and find it therapeutic. I can understand this odd sense of attack-scrub mode about 4% of the time, although 90% of my time is spent trying to avoid the activity. (And the other 6% just wants to eat cookies in peace.)

What a thorough cleaning and pick-up session does, though, is make me realize I don't have to buy "stuff" to make things presentable, even pretty, around here.

Sure, I'd love to paint walls and frame out the bathroom mirror and replace shower curtains and vanity hardware. And I'll get to those things eventually, but for today, I need to take care of what I've got in the first place!

Plus, to be honest, it takes so much time to do a house-wide cleaning job, that I have no minutes to spare at the end of the day for shopping. :) Win-win.

 

Do any of you like cleaning? What's your most rewarding household chore? (Me: Doing dishes.) What's your worst chore? (Me: Dusting. Ugh.)

 

Or do you have your own method to combat the gimmes? I'd love to hear it. Because, in case you couldn't tell, having to clean is really something I could live without...

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White Towels in the Bathroom

I've been noticing something about the bathroom towel situation around here. Namely: they're looking old & tired, my friends. And faded and dingy. And smeared with toothpaste. Which, sure, can be an argument that we're infusing color into the space (Crest Mint, anyone?), buuuuut....ew.

 

Which is partly why I'm leaning toward making the house-wide switch to all-white towels.

 

 

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I mean, when these babies get dirty, I'll just toss 'em into a bleached load of laundry (along with that white couch slipcover I'm going to finish one of these years...). And, since each bathroom will use the same color, they'll never have to wait towel-less until laundry day is over. Not to brag, but I'm seriously digging this idea, you guys.

(I'm also digging the idea of devouring a caramel-coated apple-on-a-stick every day in October, but I digress.)

Has anyone else made the switch to using white and only white towels in the bathroom? Yay or nay?

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Main Bathroom: House Tour

Here's the way our upstairs (main) bath looked when we moved in:

 

(Photo taken circa 2007.)

 It was pretty blugh, I'm not going to lie. Peeling and on-the-verge-of-molding wallpaper, a gross chipped countertop, and vanity drawers that didn't work.

 

A bit later, we painstakingly peeled off the wallpaper, did a subtle textured paint job, and replaced the mirror and sink/countertop and fixtures.

 

(Photos taken circa 2009.)

We've since replaced the old tile floors and the entire vanity (except we reused the countertop and undermount sink on the new vanity). I have lots of ideas for this space.

 

Updated photos forthcoming.

 

For a peek into other works-in-progress, check out my house tour.

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Master Bathroom: House Tour

Okay, I would pay lots and lots of money if somehow someone could conjure up a nonexistent photo of our master bathroom when we bought our house. It had hideous floral wallpaper (for the record, I have absolutely nothing against wallpaper as a rule. just the hideous stuff I have a problem with.) paired with a yellow stripe (remnant seen below).

 

(Photo taken circa 2006.)

It's a pretty teensy bathroom to begin with, but the large vanity meant there was zero walking space, the shower door (or our shins, which was always awesome) would bang into the drawers, and the linoleum was just plain gross.

 

Annnnnd as we were redoing the floor we discovered that about 1/3 of the floorboards were rotted. That's always encouraging.

So. We painted, put in a tile floor, added a storage mirror, installed a pedestal sink, put in towel hooks, and redid the shower from yucky old tile to cultured marble.

 

It's nothing fancy (there's no room to be fancy here!), but now the master bath looks something like this:

(Photos taken 2012.)

For more house tour fun, click here.

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Basement Bathroom: House Tour

When we moved in, our basement bathroom looked something like this:

 

(Photo circa 2009.)

After a major flood, where our basement was virtually destroyed, we updated the tiny bathroom. Although we didn't do anything fancy, we did tile the floor, change the old tub surround tile to cultured marble (for cleaning purposes), upgrade the miniscule vanity and sink/countertop, and update towel hardware. 

 

The basement bathroom currently looks like this (although I have plans for some improvements!):

 

(Photo circa 2012.)

If you're interested in touring other rooms in ye olde home, click here.



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