From Bars to Hooks

This is what happens when life happens.  Our hallway bath has seen better days. There used to be two pretty silver towel racks on this wall, but since the kids couldn't figure out how to hang the towel without pulling on it really hard one kept falling off the wall. We had screwed it on several times before we just had to give up on the idea that the kids could hang their towels gently. 

There was a bit of miscommuncation about the stenciled wall.   First I discussed painting the whole bathroom white for resale purposes. Then I talked about just leaving it because it took 4 hours to complete and I thought it still looked pretty.  I gave up on the idea of a white bathroom and also vowed I wasn't going to do anymore painting in this house.  So Joe happened to find the same purple-gray paint in the storage shed and went to work patching and painting the entire wall.  I think I said to just leave the stencil, but oh well!  It wasn't my best work anyhow.  So here's the wall after he painted over the acrylic stenciling.  It covered well and didn't have the edges I thought would for sure pop through.

Our plan was to give each of the kids a hook to hang their towels on.  And instead of directly mounting those hooks to the walls, which wouldn't give us the stability we were looking for since they would have to be mounted directly to a stud behind the wall we opted for a nice piece of wood that could be mounted into the studs and the hooks could then be evenly spaced.  We decided to stain this piece of wood "Weathered Gray" by Rust-oleum.

I first sanded the wood from Lowes with fine grit sand paper and then used a cloth and made sure to protect my hands with rubber gloves.  I used one coat, let it soak in for 10 minutes and then rubbed off the excess.  And nothing goes unsealed when I do it, so it got three coats of Polycrylic Water based protective top coat.   This would ensure good protection from mold since it was going in the bathroom.

I found three pretty silver coat hooks in the knob and hook aisle at Lowes. They came to about $5 a piece. The wood and stain came to around $5. 

To make it fun for the kids too they each got their own charcoal gray towel embroidered with their initial.  Scored these at JCPenny on clearance.

I have been tossing different ideas around for something to go above that wood.  I like the idea of a big piece of art or perhaps black and white photos of each of the kids.

And this guy approves of the new bathroom look.  I think he's ready for his bath and towel hook! Is there room for another!?

Have a great weekend everyone!

xo
Cathleen