Bowdenisms: One Room Challenge: (Shower) Stalling

Round 6 of The One Room Challenge!
(Need to catch up? Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5)

Remember when I said I'd probably have to stall this week? Well...could I try to work a "shower stall" pun in here to distract from the lack of progress? Surrrrrrrre.

We're still painting the vanity (the "royal" we, aka Dustin), and for no other reason than blind optimism, I fully believe it will be finished next week. Yes. I'm just going to manifest that. (It's easier, if less reliable, than you know...actually helping paint).

So in the meantime: let's talk showers.

Oooooh. Ahhhh.

Is it pretty? No. Is it functional? EXTREMELY.

It's a super standard set up, and while I don't love the look of the textured plexiglass doors, and all that chrome, I DO love the solid, grout-free surface inside. It's so low-maintenance; I never worry about the kids messing it up, or needing to clean it obsessively. It's just works. It's a shower only- no tub- which works great for the big girls, who at (alllllmost) 8 and 9 are just now starting to become independent enough to shower on their own (though they all still love sibling party bath in our giant corner Jacuzzi).

So when we started to plan this bathroom, I knew we wouldn't be touching this shower. It doesn't seem smart to rip out something so functional just to replace it with things that require more care and upkeep. Plus, any fancy-shmancy tile and glass enclosure we'd want to do would be more expensive than a kids' bathroom really deserves. I was totally prepared to just live with the look of it, until I saw a bathroom reno by @thosebyrnesgirls. She updated her bathroom on a similar budget (meaning as close to $0 as possible) and just put a shower curtain in front of the doors to cover them up.

Um, what? Why did I never think about that?

For some reason I had it in my head that if you had doors you had doors. It didn't occur to me that I could just put a curtain in FRONT of them. Keep the functionality, but add an aesthetic layer!

I had also been thinking about doing wallpaper in this space. I thought it would bring in some color and pattern, and give the room personality. But, it was going to be pretty time intensive and expensive. The curtain brings in all the brightness and the fun, for a fraction of the price, plus it's temporary, so if we want to swap it, we can easily change the look without having to embark on another project.

We just popped up a tension rod (bonus- we already owned it but didn't have a need for it in this house) and we were good to go. (you can actually see it in the "before" pics because I was experimenting to make sure it was going to work). I had an old white shower curtain that I layered behind the peaches to give it a bit more fullness and make it more opaque. When it's closed you'd never know what's behind it, and it easily scoots out of the way for access to the shower. (In case you didn't know how shower curtains work. Why do I feel the need to explain in such excruciating detail? Do I get paid by the word? Do I get paid at all?!)

So there you have it. An epic-ly drawn out story about a $30 bathroom upgrade. Now let's just give you the 87 pictures you likely scrolled directly down to anyway.....

And now- for a little vignette that I swear not to belabor with my long-winded yammering:

This wall was blank, and we desperately needed someplace to hang towels. I feel passionate about hooks vs. a towel bar (especially in kids' rooms...they cannot seem to hang things up no matter what, but the hooks at least make it semi-possible for them to clean up after themselves, if still very unlikely). These little wood + white hooks were the perfect natural accent, and provide more than enough spots for me to hang the multitude of towels it apparently requires to dry tiny, lazy bodies.