the goose loves the half bath curtain

Welcome, Friends. We're still in catch-up mode over here, but not for long. My goal is to be caught up by the end of October, which gives me 5 short days. Wow!

So let's get moving. This house project is a mix of old + recent. I started months ago (in September, so one month I guess) and just finished about a week ago!

Meet my half bath window:

Our place has two and a half gorgeous bathrooms - a master bath and a guest bath upstairs, and a half bath downstairs. The half bath is pretty basic, but not too shabby. Except that it came with this awful paper shade to keep peepers from peeping at you while you're peeing. (Say that 10 times fast?) The window isn't really that low, but I get that it's good to have some covering. If our neighbors were on the porch and craned their necks into our window, they might catch a glance at something. But the paper shade had to go.

It was just taped to the window, and then folded up at the bottom; the folds were kept together with this nice binder clip. Classy, eh?

So I pulled out the ol' miscellaneous tool & equipment bag and pulled out a curtain rod that used to hang in my college house from junior and senior year. I lived in the "attic" upstairs room of that house, with a door at the bottom of the stairs. I got sick of the door in the hallway and replaced it with a basic curtain, using this little "rod" thing to hold it up. It's just a wire set-up from Ikea, still purchase-able for abuot $5.

The ends screw into the wall, and the wire is just pulled tight inbetween. It also comes with some little hanging clips for your curtain of choice.

Of course, my curtain of choice was a handmade polka-dot number with blues and greens. I bought a yard, and cut off about 6" from the bottom to fit the window. I first used some basic hem tape to hem the sides.

Then I zig-zag stictched the sides to secure the hemtaped-hem. You never know how rough people will be with your half bath curtain, right?

I sewed around all four sides, backstitching at the start and end for security, and then ironed it out.

After spending a few minutes clipping it up evenly, here's the result!

Yeah not really a huge deal. Would have been more breathtaking if I could paint or something, but this is good enough for now.

My favorite part is how well the curtain complements the art I got from Angela Vandenbogaard, who has one of my favorite Etsy shops, called Jelly Beans. I got three prints from her - Celebration, Standing Tall, and Fireflies. I put them in colorful frames, and I love the result.

It literally took me about 6 weeks to decide which prints to order - I loved them all so much. She's got a new one called Hedgehogs - original art with a pink tree and two cute little hedgehogs - I would totally buy it if I had money to spend on hedgehog art.

It looks crooked, but I promise it isn't!

To go with the dots, I found a toilet paper holder with circles. Check out that fancy Costco toilet paper! There's no cupboard in the bathroom, but I wanted to make sure guests wouldn't run out of TP mid-trip, so this works well.

And the curtain, a little further away.

And even further - the angle is pretty awkward, with the door opening out into the hallway.

And my other piece of Etsy art - its called Wee Wee Dance and Jo, the artist, worked with me to customize the colors. She did a fantastic job, I love it! It hangs on the outside of the door, so that guests can distinguish half bath from laundry room, which is on the other side of the hall. And that's an important distinguishment (is that a word?) that I'd like them to make.

I think my favorite look is with the curtain open, letting in what little light Portland has to offer this time of year! (You can see our nice neighbors' porch and the top of the car in the driveway, here).

Hooray for another house project checked off the list, and for replacing a dumb old paper shade with something much more colorful and cheerful. Who doesn't want to be cheered up when doing their business, anyway? :)