Hot Seat; Fun With Paint

In The Hot Seat

I forgot to mention this amusing story yesterday.

So there's a bathroom in the Imaginarium, which of course doesn't get used much. A week or two ago I was up there for awhile, so I'd gone to the bathroom, fine; then a little while later I went again, and noticed the seat was all wet. I mean really wet. This was odd, and I couldn't figure any reason for it. I have the habit of always closing the toilet lid, because I started doing it when Tyler was a growing puppy, to keep him from drinking out of the toilet, and I've just always done it. So the only thing I could think might be causing it was somehow the water was splashing up while it was swirling around ... although that didn't seem likely.

I forgot about it, but was up here again yesterday for a rather extended amount of time, and noticed the same thing again - not the first time I was in there, but later when I went back - the seat was wet, and not only wet, but really warm. Like a heated toilet seat.

While that could be pleasant in the wintertime, I kept thinking, "This just ain't right." So I happened to be looking right at the bowl when I flushed it, and noticed ... steam coming out of it. I touched the tank. Hot!

Yep - whoever hooked up the water supply line to this particular toilet hooked it up to a hot water line, and my upstairs toilet is flushed with really hot water. So when I would flush the toilet, then close the lid, the very hot water in the bowl was steaming and condensing on the lid, making the seat wet - and also keeping it very warm.

Well, who knew.

Fun With Paint


I picked up a bunch of paint swatches today at Home Depot. I'm all excited about finally getting to some projects in the Imaginarium. I want to paint the kitchen cabinets - inside for sure, outsides at least part of them.

Here's a picture of a section of the outside of the cabinets.



It's not that bad really, but I'm not keen on all the dark wood. I'd like to lighten up the ambience somewhat. So I'm thinking about leaving the trim dark wood, but painting the doors. And changing the hardware. It might even be cool (but a lot of work) to actually make cutouts on some of the upper doors, and install glass panels. But since they weren't built for that (they appear to just be plywood), it would be tricky - I'd have to add some type of framing to house the glass, I guess, unless I just decoratively bolt it right to the door, like the way they sometimes mount mirrors (another trick we're going to use on a project soon - I'll post about that when we do it).

Or ... I could add moldings, or stenciling, maybe just painting part of the cabinet doors, and leaving some of the dark wood showing. Hmm.

I also want to paint the insides, because they're dull and drab, and in places have blocks of the dark finished wood (like on the far lower right of the inside of this cabinet). I'm not sure why those are there.


In fact, these aren't really 'cabinets' - they're just frames and shelves mounted to the walls, with doors. I mean, there aren't any backs to them.



Anyway, yeah, it's white inside - but it's a dull, flat, drab white. So that's what I'm going to do first - lighten and brighten up the insides with some new paint. I haven't picked a color yet, but as I look over the swatches I'm leaning towards a pale green. Or maybe a peach kinda color. Oooh, decisions, decisions!

The other fun painting project in the works up here is the countertops. They are that standard old laminate countertop, white with gold flecks in it. In places the edging is coming loose. Really kinda crappy.

I had a hunch you might be able to paint countertops (at least, especially, in an area that's only going to be a craft room, not a working food-preparation kitchen). I did a little research online tonight, and apparently I was right (and even in real working kitchens). On only one site (and I'm sure there are others), I got tons of info about painting old laminate countertops, and some before and after pictures that were truly astounding. I'm telling you what, some of these people painted their kitchen or bathroom countertops to look granite or marble, and it truly looked like thousands of dollars worth of new countertops, for $40 and some sweat equity! I was totally impressed.

So I'm really psyched about that, as well. And again - what to paint them? Solid color? Faux finish? Stone? Linen? Suede? Color? Choices, choices!

I don't have any particular decorating theme in the works for the Imaginarium, and I'm not sure if that's a cool thing, or a disaster in the making. My initial thought was to use several light, bright colors - blues, greens, yellows, mauves. A light, bright, airy scheme. Sort of like a Maypole all over the place - a kind of carnival of pastels. But I'm not sure if using too many colors will detract from the mood I'm trying to create, rather than emphasize it. I think it might work better if I do have one main color that kind of ties it all together. If so, it's going to be green - because I like green a lot, and because the carpet's green. I still like this carpet, despite that I suspect it's very old, and it's kind of a funky shade of green.

The other thing I'm debating on doing, to keep the place from looking too sugary, is leaving the walls white. But that's still up for debate ... it's the same white that's inside the cabinets, kind of dull, flat, and just 'blah.'

Well, that's the joy of having an entire space of your own to decorate any way you want, without even having to concern yourself with convention or what anyone else will think. The sky's the limit, and the choices are mindboggling. It's been so long since I had so much freedom to exercise creative license that I think I've kind of lost the touch, but it's coming back ... .