A girly girl bathroom makeover

The girls were only six months old when we moved into our current home.  As much as I enjoy decorating, it just wasn't high on the priority list with three infants to care for.  It actually wasn't on the priority list at all.  (Sleep was though.)  So the bathroom that would eventually become the girls' bathroom was just a bathroom.  We hung up a shower curtain Rich had, Grammy picked up some rugs at Target and we called it a day.

Doing something with that bathroom has been on my list for the past two years.  I wanted it to be bright, fun and girly.  A few months ago, I had to toss out one of the bath rugs because it was falling apart.  And then the other rug needed to be thrown away.  I decided at that point, that it was now or never.

Here's the mandatory before picture:



(And yes, that's a drawing of Elmo hanging under the window.)

I have a few quirks when it comes to home decor.  First of all, I cannot stand ornate (my nice way of saying gaudy) cabinet pulls and drawer handles.  (It's okay to roll your eyes.  Rich does whenever I bring up this topic.)  When this house was on the market and we looked at it, one of the items on my list of changes was switching out all the pulls and handles.  They had the same exact ones in the kitchen and all the bathrooms and they were not my style.  At all.  Of course, switching out pulls and handles fell by the wayside.  For obvious reasons.

I'm  also extremely picky when it comes to curtains, so much so that I prefer to sew my own.  It's easier that way because then I have complete control over the fabric.  For this bathroom, I had originally planned to purchase a shower curtain but sew a curtain for the window.  I had some of this fabric and eventually decided to use it for both a window curtain and a shower curtain.

After:







I'd never sewn a shower curtain before and it's actually not that difficult.  Although, I did mess up the measurements at first, but it all worked out in the end.  I think handling all of that fabric is time consuming, along with cutting the fabric.  I like to make sure all the lines are as straight as can be, which makes me a slow cutter.





Basic curtain panels are super easy to sew.  You really only need to know how to sew a straight line.  I left this panel unlined because light blockage is not a concern with the shade underneath it.  I decided to go with a single panel as I really just wanted to add some color/design to the room.



The girls had seen me sewing and had helped picked out the new rug so they knew what I was doing but yesterday afternoon, I snuck upstairs and fixed up the room.  I wanted to surprise them when they went to brush their teeth at bedtime.  After dinner, we were going outside for a walk/bike ride so Allie ran upstairs to grab a pair of socks.  She came down and said, "I saw the bathroom, Mommy.  And I love it."  Anna and Emily agree.  Mission accomplished.