$9.00 granite countertop

This picture is equally as ugly as it is bad quality. This is a "before" shot of one of 2 motor home sized bathrooms in my house. Notice the toilet is missing (like the bathroom didn't have enough problems as it was-we had to throw tree roots into the equation). Actually, I just noticed that it's right there, in the bathtub, creating the need for about 5 gal. of bleach! Anyway, this is what our hideous bathrooms looked like when we bought the house, that's right, they were identical. Because in the 80's this looked so cool that you would've wanted two of them.

This is what it looks like now, only about part way through our lipstick on the pig job. I refinished the cabinet with the same "poor man's wood grain" as I did on my garage door. Painted the walls with some leftover paint my Dad's girlfriend had (except for that one patch behind the toilet where the drywall got jacked up). And after a toilet mishap- aka my boyfriend cracked our old one somewhere during the tree root in pipes saga-we bought a new Jacuzzi toilet with the gift card my friend got me for my birthday (thanks Josh G!). Probably the only Jacuzzi I will ever own! The old faucet was replaced with an oil rubbed bronze one I got for $15 - sink included!-on Craigslist. And topped off with a new Better Homes and Gardens mirror from Wal-Mart. BUT ON TO THE GRANITE-I found these 9 granite tiles at my local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store Luckily for me my boyfriend is pretty talented too, I knew he could slap these tiles on in an afternoon & change the whole look of our guest bathroom! He did the smallest grout joint he could then filled in the gaps with a black epoxy grout. Because he and his brother do the occasional tile side job, everything else he used was left over from other jobs. He sealed it with a spray & wipe stone sealer & used a clear caulking around the edge of the sink. It's not what I would've chose if we were paying full price (which by the way is $9.00/sq. ft. at Lowe's!) but it looks a heck of a lot better than that truck stop motel bathroom knockoff!!

Reunited at last

Do all my recent posts make it seem like I have an obsession with doors lately? Maybe just this one. I followed this thing around like I was stalking it. It was love at first sight when I first laid eyes on it at Re-Store, but I was too much of a cheapskate to pay up on the $65 price tag. After a few weeks it disappeared. That's when I started obsessing over it, I would never find another door like that. With all it's random sized squares & carved scroll detail in the center. I looked & looked but there was nothing even close I could find to replace it. Then, about a month later, I was walking through the landscape exhibits with my family at the fair and there it was.......it had been used as part of a backdrop for an outdoor display made from re-purposed materials. After several calls to the fairgrounds to try to get contact info. for the group who did the display I finally got a call saying that they had picked up the display that morning & donated the door back to Re-Store!! This time I had no problem spending $65 if it meant I finally got to take it home. It's been in my garage for a few weeks now & it's finally time to pull this sucker out & transform it. The only thing is, I'm not going to use it as a door........any guesses on what it's going to be?

This is a closer shot of the scroll detail that I love, on most doors this would be carved into the door. This is actually pops out kind of 3-D -ish I think it makes it look like higher quality.

This is the backside of the door, and the color it was when I first saw it (Olivia's off to the side checking it out). The group that used it for their display painted the aqua finish on the front only. Although I'm going to refinish the whole thing, the aqua will be making another appearance. Hint; it will only be used as an accent this time, have you figured it out yet? I'm hoping to get it built today & refinished within the next couple. Might be kind of ambitious but check back, I'll post as I go.