Psycho Bathroom Redux: A Grim Failure . . .

Some time ago, I took it upon myself to redecorate the bathroom of our Toronto apartment with a Psycho-inspired bloody bath mat and shower curtain combo that actually ended up looking pretty good.

But when Niki and I moved from Toronto to St. Catharines only six months later, we discovered that what had looked creepy in a fun and kooky way in the modern, finished bathroom of a downtown condo didn't work as well in the partially unfinished bathroom of the 30+ year old rear extension of an 80+ year old house. It was still creepy, but in more of a "I-don't-want-to-go-back-in-there-ever-again!" kind of way. In fact, a few house-guests have simply refused to use that bathroom at all.

The actual shower curtain and bath mat are still perfectly fine. I think in the right space they could still work.

It's the color of both the walls and floor of the room that really made the space so cold and uninviting.

I suppose the severed head of KISS' Gene Simmons is what certain house-guests found most objectionable, but the rubber ducks had taken up residence in the upstairs bathroom and I needed something to distract from both the unfinished state of the vanity . . .

. . . and the column of exposed brick left over from the old chimney. This is what I hated most about this room, exposed brick is nice, but . . . in a bathroom?! To build over it would have been costly and annoying, so I just sealed up the gaps with some drywall putty and left it as it stood.

It was pretty much the same thing with the vanity. There was a fairly large gap between it and the wall, but to tear it out and start over would have been more hassle than it was worth, so again, I simply filled in the gap with some putty and smoothed the whole thing down.

The fixtures in the room were fine (for the most part). A nice chrome towel bar and a matching toilet-roll hook, but the air vent register was pretty rusty and where I had Gene hanging from was a robe hook where a hand-towel ring should be.

I was content to leave all these things as they were while Niki and I got settled into the house and comfortable with our new surroundings, but once that was taken care of I knew I would have to make some changes to this room. Changes which have now, nearly two years later, finally been finished!

More to come!

-DE