In our old house, built in the 1980's, I couldn't wait to spray paint all the brass hardware a nice Oil Rubbed Bronze. It was the outdated kind of shiny brass that was so popular back then. It's made a huge comeback, but you can tell it looks different now. There is a richness to it and modern lines. Our guest bathroom down stairs keeps evolving. I thought I was finished with it, until it got a new door. An old door to be exact. I found a nice solid wood door at the Restore in Durham with a pretty crystal doorknob. I spent a week sanding it, removing old paint with Paint Stripper, and finally adding a shiny gray paint to it. That's what kick started me to add other hints of pretty brass to the room
The Process of buying an old door and putting it in was a bit more daunting than I expected. First it was slightly too tall. I could not find an exact match, so it needed to be sawed to the correct height. Then I had to purchase Citristrip, Mineral Spirits, several type of scrapers, sand paper, rubber gloves, plastic sheeting, a big bag of rags, and destroyed a pair of Converse shoes in the process. This paint stripping process took several tries. The door had about 5 coats of old paint that was tedious to remove.
You basically paint this Citristrip on and let it sit and do the work. It definitely helps to have the project over plastic because when you scrape the stuff off you need to have clean up be easy.
Once I got most of the paint off with the scrapers, I cleaned it with mineral spirits and began using sand paper to remove what paint remained. Even still you can see by the following photo that it's not completely smooth, but we tried. Maybe it just gives it character? We cleaned the brass handle with Brasso to shine it back up.
You won't believe that I actually spray painted every single bit of Chrome in this bathroom gold and ended up then buying more paint stripper and removing some of it later because too much brass was not a good thing either. For example I painted the edges of the shower gold and it ended up looking like an out dated shower! This is the inside, where I left it, but removed the outside gold.
Back to Chrome on the outside.
The Shower head, controls and outside handle got several coats of paint, plus a primer and a sealer.
BEFORE
AFTER
PROCESS
PAINTS
My favorite part is the new brass faucet.
I found the vintage inspired rug from Cost Plus World Markets. I never go in that store but decided to see if they had a rug that could tie in the wall color and brass hardware.
If you don't already know, hardware can serve more than one purpose of functionality. It can also be beautiful and decorative. This towel holder from Anthropologist fills that ticket. Taking down the old towel rod proved to be quite difficult though. I had to cut a piece of wood and paint it the color of the walls to make the new one work as well.
BEFORE
AFTER
I forgot to mention that the new door also has the same color as the walls and now trim too. We added a gold deadbolt too since the keyhole lock on the outside doesn't work with the old frame.
This little bamboo stool is a nice touch for guests who would like a seat in the shower.
I'm happy the bathroom is finally finished because using spray paint is highly not recommended (always wear a respirator mask and open the window and run a fan in the window if you can.)
It's almost Halloween time too -this bathroom is going to look quite spooky at night. I need to get out the red lipstick to write something on that mirror.
xo
Cathleen
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