Time For A Bathroom Update!

Disclaimer:  I haven't been paid to promote any products, I just wanted to share our mini makeover and hopefully some smiles :)

Hi Honeys
Apologies! This post should have been published on Sunday but I wasn't feeling at all well and long story short yesterday morning started with the worst asthma attack I've had in a long time.  That in turn left me pretty much flattened yesterday.  It was a pretty icky end (to say the least! Scared Hubby silly, I'm sorry sweetheart x) to what had otherwise been a fabulous week.

Last week had been a busy one, Hubby and I were both on hols from work to spend some time decluttering and organizing our home.  It was lovely getting to spend some time with my other half and it felt as if we spent the whole week laughing.  Who knew organizing could be such fun :)

Jade loved her Daddy being with us all week too, bless her :) Extra walkies!  On Saturday we went to Ikea for a few things for our home (I'll share those in another post, promise) and had such fun, even though it was really busy and oh my! The noise! Note to self: in future when we have the whole week off work go on a weekday! :)

Before we set off to Ikea I hopped online to try to find something nice for our home in Argos, since I still had a gift voucher from my lovely sister-in-law (thank you angel x) left over from Christmas.
Here's what I did with it honeys...

Every makeover show I've ever watched, every book I've ever read on the subject, always suggests to "shop your home" or use what you already have before buying new things unless that is you're tearing everything out and starting over.

Now, if money weren't an obstacle that's precisely what we'd do honeys.  In a heartbeat.  The "shell" bathroom suite I used to adore is just irritating to me now and with my arthritic hands it's also painful to clean too (thank heavens for my steam cleaner!) Unfortunately though we simply can't afford a complete re-model of our tiny bathroom so a mini makeover is the best we can do for now.

So, keeping the idea of "shop your home" in mind I went through what we had for our bathroom. Most of which (towels, rugs etc) are in shades of white and pastel or baby blue in order to match the wall tiles in our bathroom.  Most that is but not all...

We have this one bathroom accessory set which I'd bought quite some time ago for our previous home.  I adored this set so much I'd kept it through many a down sizing & de-cluttering attempt.  Just couldn't bring myself to part with the adorable little ducks who make me smile so much :)    

First in this much loved set is a shower curtain in a very heavy poly/cotton mix.  It's so bright and cheerful, well how could anyone, faced with these adorable wee ducks,  not start their day with a huge smile :)

The duck shower curtain has a matching rug, every bit as adorable...

Finishing the set off is a huge bail of soft fluffy towels, all with their own little rubber ducks applique sewn on.  There are two each of the huge bath sheets, hand towels and face cloths or flannels...

This might be a chance I thought to incorporate these smile inducing little ducks into our present bathroom, now what could I find that could act as a sort of bridge between the pastels of our present colour scheme and the vibrant, primary colours of the duck set?  

Since the wall tiles in our bathroom are a combination of white and pastel (baby) blue it seemed natural to use the rich, deep blue shade found in the ducks set to contrast against the background pastels.  Off I went to the Argos website and this is what I found...

Everything I choose matches because they're part of Argos's Colour Match range so I could just pick what we needed without worrying about shades being slightly different or any other minor annoyances  :)  In the photo above we have (left to right) A new white polyester shower curtain which I planned to use as a liner to the main shower curtain - I always have liners.

An inexpensive shower curtain used as a liner will protect and greatly extend the lifespan of your favourite shower curtains honeys.  Next is the vivid blue shower curtain I'd chosen from the colour Match range to match the duck accessories.  Followed by a pack of two hand towels.

The hand towels were added to my basket essentially because I was trying to use up my gift card but they are lovely so I don't mind at all :)  In addition to the pack of two hand towels and the two shower curtains I also added a new MDF toilet seat in the same vivid blue shade...  

Having used Argos's reserve & collect service, Hubby collected the items later that day after our trip to Ikea and all that was left was the fun part of adding them to our bathroom...

I'm loving the new accessories!  They've added such a pop of vibrant colour to our teeny tiny bathroom. The shower curtain is almost an electric blue when the light hits it and I genuinely had forgotten just how adorable that little bath mat was :)

I went ahead and added the new blue hand towels...

It's been quite a while now since we added them but we're still loving the extra storage from those little picture shelves Hubby added.  As you can see honeys they hold quite a lot and make a perfect home for things used every day...

If you missed that post, you can see it here.

Last little area in our little bathroom update is one of the areas which just seems to attract clutter. Every bathroom has a window (hopefully! The very idea of a windowless room actually disturbs me...)

Well, where there are windows there are window ledges and window ledges always seem destined to attract bathroom clutter such as make up, hair brushes & combs, toiletries etc etc. Since our bathroom is so teeny tiny we've had to find ways to try to avoid clutter hotspots.  The picture rails above really helped with this as did adding the little wooden storage units.

Back then to our window ledge...

We did try keeping the window ledge completely clear some time ago but it just looked odd to me :) so it currently has just a few items...

Again from left to right:

• A small basket which has my exfoliating gloves, a couple of exfoliating sponges, two cotton hairbands (to keep hair out of the way for morning skin care)
• An Ikea Bygel tub in a lovely shade of dark blue (which used to live upstairs in my wee craft corner) which is currently holding face flannels.
• A glass, chrome lidded jar which is home to cotton buds.
• A jar of Dove moisturiser.
• A ceramic "lamp" which is actually a tea light holder :) The little "shade" part of the lamp lifts off to reveal a tea light holder. I actually found this ages ago in a pound store. 
• A pump bottle of Soap & Glory "Smoothie Star" body milk.  There are no words for how fab this is honeys.  I adore the Soap & Glory range of products. It's my wee treat every year at Christmas when they release their huge bag of goodies :) 
• Lastly is a glass cookie jar holding cotton wool balls.

I'm loving this mini makeover honeys.  Such a daft thing to be so happy about but it's making me smile :) In the scheme of things it didn't cost all that much either.

Duck shower curtain - past range from Argos (their latest version)
Duck bath mat - past range from Argos           (their latest version)
Duck towels - past range from Rosebys (I adored that shop! I so miss it.)
White shower curtain -              £2.50
Colour Match shower curtain - £6.99
Colour Match hand towels -     £4.99
Colour match toilet seat -         £9.99 
Total:                                       £24.47

So, thanks to a £20 gift card from my dear Sister-in-law (thank you again angel x) our mini makeover cost a grand total of less than £5.  Best thing is that I can (now that we've found a way to incorporate primary colours into our pastel bathroom) swap over the shower curtain for the happy duck one :)

Have you been working on any mini makeovers honeys? If so, do share? I hope you're having a great week so far. We actually have sunshine today! Yaaay! Till next time dear ones, smile lots and hug even more :) hugs always xx