Low-budget compromises.

It's always a hard choice: Do something to make a room look better than it does now but not nearly what you really want because you don't have the money to do otherwise, or wait until you can do it "right." We're starting on the downstairs bathroom to do just "better than now" quick & dirty fixup. This is basically just bandaid #1 out of several, but I do already see how it's going to make the room look better. It just chaps my butt not to be able to do it "right."

What we're going to do is:

• Sand and refinish the stock oak base sink cabinet plus put on new knobs to better match the antique pine wall cabinet that we bought for that room. What we (ok, more me than Von but still...) really wanted was to put in the antique pedestal sink that someone gave us, but it's too damaged to put in without some serious restoration work. And a new pedestal sink, or a new sink of any kind, just isn't in the budget right now. Von already has them sanded and has on the first coat of stain, and it's going to look a lot better than it did.
  
• Paint, a nice blue that we both really liked. Yes, we're going to have to repaint after we get a new mirror/cabinet/lights, get a new cabinet for towels and TP, maybe get a new sink, and patch the drywall where the thermostat used to be (and a junction box cover sits now) but at least for now it will be painted.
  
• Put up the new antique wall cabinet. The problem is that we can't put it where it ultimately needs to go, because the ugly messed-up sawdust cabinet we're using now for towels and stuff is too tall to put it over. So we're putting it up over the toilet for now, and moving it later once we can buy what we really want for that space.
  
• Put up new bathroom hardware (towel bars/hooks, tp holder, etc.). We probably won't end up with the style and quality we'd really prefer, but we'll at least have something a few steps above the HellMart quality stuff that's in there now.
  

Way future plans would be to rip out and redo the shower, maybe even move the door to be off the hallway instead of off the mudroom, but that's all dreams for now.

Von's on vacation this week, so hopefully this week will end up being pretty productive. Von's going to do most of the work in the bathroom, plus paint the walls in the stairway to match the living room, and probably extend the color to the upstairs hallway.

I'm going to spend this week working on the dining room floors. And working on the dining room floors. And working on the dining room floors.

Just kill me now, k?