Fixer Upper - Part 1a

Well, I lied.  I did 1 more super quick project before moving onto something big.  I took advantage of 40 degree February weather in Minneapolis (serious thanks, El Nino) and painted a small project out in my garage.  Ah, fresh air for oil-based paint!  And I figured my quart of Polar Bear paint was still freshly shaken, so why not?

Remember all those hooks I laughed about in the house?  I took most down, yes, but wouldn't get rid of them by any means.  I repurposed them.

I had 3 sets of these in the garage just waiting for a place to be needed.

Two of our bathrooms had towel bars.  Most stupid invention ever.  I mean, towels, then they are wet right after a shower, are heavy.  Bars always fall off walls, especially when you find that the racks weren't even drilled into a stud.  No.  They weren't even anchored into drywall.  They were loosely glued to the drywall.  Dumb!  No wonder they were falling off.

So, I removed the ugly brass hooks.

Sanded down the honey oak boards.

Primed, sanded, wiped, primed again, sanded again, wiped again.

Painted the same Polar Bear white as our fireplace.  Two coats with 24 hours drying time in between, per paint instructions.  Be sure to see my little note under the boys' bathroom picture.

I replaced the brass hooks with something new and nickel finish from Menard's.  I had hoped to spray the brass hooks with silver spray paint, but they didn't take the paint well.  New hooks look better and were actually on clearance for $2.00 each.

I rehung all hooks on bathroom walls.  Oh, I did the hooks in the girl's dress up area too.

Quiet Tiger's dress-up area.
Before I hung up all her dress up stuff.
Seeing how fresh this looks makes me so
antsy to paint those honey oak baseboards and door trim!

Both bathroom walls need paint obviously.  I'm taking color suggestions, so local friends, come on over and see what I'm working with here.  I'm in no rush to get this done by any means.  Until then, we'll live with the spackled holes from the useless towel bars.

Boys' bathroom.
Need to sand that spackle when it dries and pick a fun wall color.
Here is that caveat that I wanted to mention.
Despite the paint can saying we had enough heat in the garage for this paint to cure,
I found out this wasn't true.  There are some scratches and smudges on this set of hooks that happened just as I was bringing them in to be hung on the walls.  Bummer.
To make it look perfect, I'll have to sand and refinish this one.
But you'd have a hard time finding the flaw as it is right now, so I'm living with it.

Here's the master bathroom hooks.  I really loved that I could repurpose those ugly old hooks!

Master bathroom.
I hung the hooks a bit higher than the previous towel bar.
Like the boys' bathroom, I'll have to sand and paint the walls and then choose a fun towel color.
I have no idea what color to paint this bathroom, so it will likely not happen for a while.  Boring beige isn't terrible.

And now we'll see what we tackle next.  Kitchen island?  Baseboards and door trim?  I'm going to take some time off and just enjoy what I have done, but there will be another project sooner than later, especially if it's going to stay warm and I can open up windows.  Stay tuned.