Lovin' the shiny and the retro
When I was doing the kitchen remodel, I wrote a few posts about how I selected the countertop material: Silestone in the texture of Stellar Night. I still love my countertop with a passion; the silver sparklies in the black are just beautiful to behold. Here’s a pic of the countertops just after they were installed (and before I had the ugly tile ripped off the walls):
Yep — chalkware fish are still on my mind. Kind of makes you wish you had my life, eh? Nuttin’ but chalkware fish using up my brain cells.
These fish are more special to me than the ones I posted about previously. These have been in storage since the late ’90s. They’ve been through four moves with me since that time, including the past ten years in my current house. I never wanted to hang them up, though, because they never seemed to fit — either in theme or in color. I was never in the apartments of my youth long enough to even think about unpacking these delightful fish, and it only took me, uh, ten years to strip off the ugly basket-n-bunnies wallpaper in our bathroom, where these fish now live. Now that the walls are a nice, calm, “bathroom blue,” the fish can now come out and play. They were an afterthought, however, because I originally hung up the blue fish that I talked about in my previous post. Once those were up, I felt inclined to hang up these fish as well, even though they don’t really fit in with the other colors of the bathroom.
These two fish were given to me by my grandmother, who had them hanging in the bathroom of her lake cabin. When I was a little girl, I used to love the fish. They had become indelible part of the lake cabin — always there, always in the same spot. The last time I visited the cabin in 1997, I felt sorely disappointed when I went into the bathroom and realized that the fish were gone. My grandparents were in the process of selling their cabin that year and were slowly taking down decorations here and there for storage. Several months later, my grandmother surprised me by presenting me with the fish during a visit, remembering how shocked I was that they weren’t on the wall during my last visit up there.
And so the fish have traveled many roads with me — literally and figuratively. I had never really looked closely at the fish before, since my penchant for retro didn’t truly start emerging until a few years ago. While hanging the fish up the other week, I noticed that they’re actually signed and dated: 1954, Miller Studios.
Given the fact that my little ranch house was built in 1953, I’m thinking the husband and wife truly feel at home. 🙂
I expected something different. After prying up the existing vinyl flooring, I have discovered that my horribly decorated bathroom has burgundy tile, black trim, and, underneath the current floor, this: Continue reading “A completely schizophrenic bathroom”
Although the majority of our renovations center around the kitchen/dining room area, we also plan on doing something (we don’t know what) to the bathroom. I’ve always hated this wallpaper — too cutesy country, with a bunny ‘n’ basket border.
A couple weeks ago my 4-year old found a small little loose bubble along the seam. Doing what most 4-year olds would tend to do, he pulled until he had loosened a great big flap of wallpaper. His brother, of course, noticed in good time and wasted no time hopping in the Tattlemobile. I thought about giving my youngest son permission to keep going until all the ugly stuff was stripped off. That wouldn’t be child labor, would it? I mean, he’s my own son, and he loves me, and I’d be giving him permission to do something that he thought was naughty.
Then I remembered that once the old stuff was off, I had to figure out what to replace it with (and scrape off the scrappies, etc.), so I told my son he did a very bad thing, and sent him off to play.
Underneath the wallpaper exists pink paint. When I saw that, my mind started thinking “Cool retro pink bathroom!” And that would be entirely possible, but the plastic tile isn’t pink. It’s burgundy with a black border. Although I’m aware that a 50s bathroom may very well mix burgundy, pink, and black, it doesn’t seem to fit here. Now the question remains: what’s underneath this floor?
White tile? Pink tile? No tile at all?
Later, because my husband expects me to be neurotic about what’s original in this house, I am going to find out. I’ve got a crowbar, and I know how to use it.
And if it turns out to be old tile with possible asbestos, then expect me to do exactly what a did about 7 years ago to an entryway: rip said tile out without a care. This is what you get from a new homeowner so focused on a task that the possibility of asbestos did not exist.
To this day, I’m not sure if that tile DID have asbestos in it. Let’s just say that if it was there, then this blog may run for a shorter time than originally planned.
