Bathroom Towel Holder and Shelf

Well, I finally finished the shelf with the faucet handles. I took those two pieces of wood that I found at the Goodwill for $6 and combined them with faucet handles that I bought from ebay for $5 (including shipping!)

Here's the raw wood again:

Here's the final shelf:

I had to fake the towels stacked on top because I can't hang it on the wall yet. I have to buy a hanger system that I think will hold the shelf up. I faked the hanging towel as well.

I did buy 1x2 to add some heft to the back. The white towel holder is actually a box. So there is a finishing molding around that as well. So if I total up the paint, wood, handles and polyurethane, it comes to $21. Worth that just for the fun of making it!

Since I seem to suck at cutting wood, this thing has a roughness to it that will make it look vintage!

The reason I wanted to make my own shelf is because I bought one of those stainless steel shelves that turned into a rusty mess in no time. I resolved never to put stainless steel in that bathroom again.

I'm a Painter

I am preparing for my bathroom remodel (which so far is only in the estimate stage because I can't believe how much people want to do a 5x8 bathroom). I have a long thin wall space that will be available for art. I thought I would try painting. I looked at gallery canvases but they were $30 a pop and I'd have to buy paint on top of that. I didn't want to spend all that on something I wasn't sure would even work. Well, my junk luck came through again. I was looking around Goodwill and I found an old canvas just the size I needed for $6. Deal!

Here is the canvas before (admire that painting surface, it's like christmas all the time!)

The canvas was in good shape and I thought for $6, I could fail and not lose much.

Here's the final painting. (I think it's final, I have an idea to turn it into mixed media, but I'm not sure about that yet.) It's based off a photograph I took in Key West in the early morning. It was a little darker that morning so the water was not it's usual teal color.

I'm pretty excited about it. I'm not much of a painter, but having the sample photo helped a lot. 

Next project includes these two pieces of wood for $6 from Goodwill and some vintage faucet handles I got off of ebay for $5. I'm excited about that piece as well. Now all I need is to find a reasonably priced contractor or I'll be hanging all this bathroom stuff in my dining room.

I met the cutest kid this weekend

He was about three years old. I was at the Long Bridge Park and this little guy goes running by me. He stops and points to the train track. "Train," he says. Makes sure I saw him and then takes off running again. A plane goes by overhead, he stops, points and says, "Plane." He waits for confirmation that I heard him and takes off running again. He repeated that about 10 times.

I just smiled and thought to myself, remember when life was that exciting? When you couldn't wait to get to the next exciting thing that you went off running to see it? And you were so excited you had to share it with any and everybody that was around?

Sometimes I wish life was like that again.