A Spring Makeover

Wasn't it Tennyson who said "In Spring a midwestern woman's stir craziness lightly turns to thoughts of deep cleaning"? Or something like that. Sorry, Sir Alfred. Anyway, that is certainly true for me. Something about all the crusty, dark snow that's been lying around like heaps of dirty laundry, finally getting washed away; the sun coming out for whole days, rather than just minutes; and of course, the return of our dear robins, just makes me want to get out the scrub brushes and cleaning compounds and get started.

One room in my house that has really needed a little freshening up for spring is the powder room. When we first moved here five years ago and I saw the neutral brown gingham wallpaper and cute distressed mirror in the powder room, I didn't do much with it because really, I had all the rest of the house to consider. So, I tossed in some pink towels and a couple of pink-themed pictures I had lying around. Later I found my prized birdbath soapdish and the pink eggs to put in it. But really, and it pains me to say this because you know from this blog's tagline that you never have to pray about pink, it was just sort of blah to me.

I finally decided the powder room needed a makeover, and "makeover" to me in this case didn't mean stripping it down and started from scratch. I decided to a) go to TJ Maxx and b) shop within my own home to see what I could find to fix this little (extremely little) place up.

Here it is at the beginning...


A close-up...


And here is the after picture--for some reason, the blue of the towels is appearing almost white here. They're much more of a robin egg shade. And note the cute pot pourri-filled birdcage I found at TJ's. Perfect!


I took out the seashells that had been littering the little alcove and instead put in a blue vase I found in one of my cabinets (filling it with essential oil--clean cotton-scented and sticks that I already had).

A couple years ago, my friend Toby gave me some notecards with Jane Austen sketchings and quotes. I liked them so much I decided to frame them. They've been sitting up in a drawer, waiting for a home, so they joined the blue vase.

I bought the blue frame at TJ's and put in a black-and-white photo that Darren took in Oxford ten years ago. The little china plate with the girl reading a book was something I already had.


The quotes in the pictures are: "Nobody minds having what is too good for them" from Emma, and "Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then" from Pride and Prejudice.


On Saturday, Julie and I went to Geneva, and I had to stop in the shop that sells the egg-shaped soap. Unfortunately, the company that makes the soap went out of business, and it wasn't for sale anymore. However, the girl working in the shop said, "I think we might have just one packet of blue eggs left." How perfect is that?


I went over again with a certain little person who shall remain nameless but whom Darren and I have most recently nicknamed "Dobby" (as in Harry Potter's Dobby the House Elf, who's always trying to be helpful yet causing constantly chaos in his wake) that these soap eggs are for eyes only. They don't need to be washed, the birdbath doesn't need water, and they wouldn't be better situated in the Strawberry Shortcake house either. Hands off. They've lasted an entire day so far, so we'll see.

That's my powder room makeover! I keep stopping by it every so often, just to enjoy. I'm not sure exactly what my next makeover project will be, but I'm eyeing my closet. I'll keep you posted.