When you buy a house, it comes equipped with certain essential items. These include the things you'd expect, along with things you'd never think about such as garbage disposals, air filters, and mirrors in the bathrooms. Our half bath came equipped with a workable but un-beautiful beveled glass mirror (sans frame) that I wanted to replace with a framed mirror. We purchased the new framed mirror below this weekend with the intention of removing the old mirror and replacing it with the newer, frame-y-er model.
This all sounds reasonable, until we realized that the mirror in the half bath was not affixed to the wall in any traditional way. Mounting brackets? No. Clips? No. Screws and D-rings? Absolutely not. No, no, no. The mirror in our half bath was affixed to the wall with nothing less than industrial grade adhesive. I'm not sure what it's typically used for, but I am quite certain that anything stuck with it is never meant to be un-stuck. Until we entered the picture, of course.
E decided the best way to remove the old mirror would be to tape it up (in case of breakage) and pry it away from the wall. Attempts at prying included the use of a spackle tool, the claw end of a claw-footed hammer, and even so far as to attempt sawing the mirror off the wall using twine. When none of these tactics proved to be working and a good amount of time had passed, E resorted to hitting the mirror with the hammer. Breaking a mirror on purpose isn't bad luck, right? Well, it doesn't really matter, because this mirror is apparently laced with diamonds and titanium, because it is unbreakable. No amount of smacking with hammers and other heavy things would lead to breakage.
Eventually E resorted to prying again, and managed to pull the mirror off the wall without breaking it. See below.
Unfortunately for us, prying the mirror off the wall may not have broken it, but it did in fact break our wall. Below you'll see the three spots where the industrial adhesive had been used to affix the mirror to the wall. It's black. Who's ever seen black adhesive? What is this? Tar? Anyway, the brown you're seeing is where the paper peeled off the sheetrock in the process of mirror removal.
Below you see portions of our wall affixed to the back of the mirror. No wonder I couldn't stand this thing! At least it's off the wall now. I guess.
Now, we had always intended on painting this bathroom something funky and fun and just doing it up interesting. Nothing like a little bit of holes in the wall to prompt us into action. We headed off to Lowes and purchased mud to fill in the holes with and some sample paints. We decided that if there was one room we could do something a little wild in, why not the half bath. Right now we're debating between roasted squash and toasted coffee for the walls. We'll see. I almost think toasted coffee belongs in the kitchen. Regardless, after the mud dries tonight we'll be back to Lowes to make a full paint purchase and spend some time this week fixing up the bathroom. Photos to come...
His diaper cake definitely matches his room...
These are the lovely hostessess. Check out that cake. It totally matches baby N's room!
It's incredible - you can actually SEE him move from the outside now. This isn't all feel and touch anymore. All you have to do is look to see him squirming around. Just ask E - in church this morning he was going to town. Maybe he likes hymns? Below I'm checking out his movements for myself.
After a few hours of "Do you like it?" and "Well, it's certainly bright and cheerful!", we decided that orange was not the right color for our little tiny half-bath. This was spurned on further by the fact that when the light was on in the bathroom, it shone a sun-like orange glow out into the adjoining rooms. Back to Lowes where we purchased a new, more subdued color for the bathroom. In addition to this, I decided that as long as we were repainting, we might as well replace the fixtures with ones I loved. Why stop at just paint?
This all sounds reasonable, until we realized that the mirror in the half bath was not affixed to the wall in any traditional way. Mounting brackets? No. Clips? No. Screws and D-rings? Absolutely not. No, no, no. The mirror in our half bath was affixed to the wall with nothing less than industrial grade adhesive. I'm not sure what it's typically used for, but I am quite certain that anything stuck with it is never meant to be un-stuck. Until we entered the picture, of course.
Unfortunately for us, prying the mirror off the wall may not have broken it, but it did in fact break our wall. Below you'll see the three spots where the industrial adhesive had been used to affix the mirror to the wall. It's black. Who's ever seen black adhesive? What is this? Tar? Anyway, the brown you're seeing is where the paper peeled off the sheetrock in the process of mirror removal.
Below you see portions of our wall affixed to the back of the mirror. No wonder I couldn't stand this thing! At least it's off the wall now. I guess.
Now, we had always intended on painting this bathroom something funky and fun and just doing it up interesting. Nothing like a little bit of holes in the wall to prompt us into action. We headed off to Lowes and purchased mud to fill in the holes with and some sample paints. We decided that if there was one room we could do something a little wild in, why not the half bath. Right now we're debating between roasted squash and toasted coffee for the walls. We'll see. I almost think toasted coffee belongs in the kitchen. Regardless, after the mud dries tonight we'll be back to Lowes to make a full paint purchase and spend some time this week fixing up the bathroom. Photos to come...
We've mentioned before how all the women in my family are very adept at skills such as growing things and making things. I've decided that I should join this group, and decided that this was the year I was going to grow my own tomatoes. What could be better than picking a fresh ripe tomato? No more produce bills for me!
