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We’ve lived in our current home about 2 1/2 years.  In that time, I’ve done much painting to the place.  We’ve methodically and sporadically done minor repairs and updates.  Some repairs were to fix the home and others were to make the house more “us”.  Through all of that, one room has haunted me the entire time.

That’s not true. Two rooms haunt me, but the empty, dark, wood-paneled guest room is just gonna have to wait.  The room I’m talking about is the world’s smallest bathroom.

Now, when we moved into the place, the entire building was painted an ugly yellowish cream color, top to bottom.   Allegedly, it was part of some cost savings plan. And, it looked like the house had been that yellowed color for a really long time.  So not only was it the yellowish cream, it was a dirty yellowish cream. Thankfully the previous owners weren’t smokers – but sometimes I wonder.  The nice thing about that situation is that you can paint over it. Maybe you need to put up primer, but that’s just an extra step. I am slowly but surely eradicating that color from all the rooms.  In fact, I just about have.  All that’s left are the hallways and the family room. But for some bizarre reason, this super tiny bathroom was wallpapered.

The world’s smallest bathroom is on our first floor, so it is the one that all guests use; one word: embarrassing. When I say world’s smallest and super tiny, I mean it.  There’s only room for a toilet and a small sink opposite each other. There isn’t even a cabinet! Ok, smallness is confounding, but what’s the rule walls in small rooms? Oh yeah… don’t do dark colors.

   

 

Why would you do this!  This is awful!  Like being in a rust prison.  I cringe whenever I visit.  If you can believe it, it was actually worse before.  It had a super old towel rod placed right at elbow level.  Plus the toilet paper holder was behind you when sitting.  I like yoga and all, just not when I am taking care of business. I finally said that enough was enough and just started pulling it off with no real plan.  The wallpaper really doesn’t want to come off!  I used a hole puncher thingy and water mixed with downy to wet it down.  This rusty paper fought me every step of the way.  Its battle was fought with two layers: a top layer and the backing paper.  It has taken me a longer to get this paper off than I intended.  But, at least the room feels twice as big now!

Now we just have to purchase all our replacement finishings

• New sink with a cabinet (why would you not have a cabinet??)
• new medicine cabinet
• light
• new paint

We are still in the discussion stages about whether or not the floor needs to be replaced.  The toilet is a bit wobbly. Most likely it wobbles because of water damage. We will not know for certain until Jason takes it out.  There’s still wallpaper behind the toilet to get too!

I think we’ll keep the toilet; no low flow for this house!

  

Logan decided that he wanted to be a red shirt for Halloween this year.  Easy enough.  I’ve got this one! Years of Star Trek experience has led me to this point in my life!

First was finding the shirt, I chose this one on Amazon. Most of the reviews were right.  The shirt does run small around the torso and long in the arms.  However, the adult men’s small size worked for a very skinny 12-year-old. Shirt acquired, Logan thought it would be funny to add tribbles to the costume.   How awesome is that?

I wasn’t going to shell out $20+ each for a ton of tribbles.  So I found this easy pattern on Craftster.  I pretty much just scaled the pattern to about how big I thought most should be, and then cut the fabric either smaller or larger to give my tribbles some different sizes. Pattern in hand, it was time to find some fur.

Buying the fabric was fun.  Not.  Jo-Anne’s Fabric actually had several kinds to choose from.  So the costume wouldn’t be too crazy, I chose two different fabrics I thought looked good together.  I got 1/4 yard each.  It was folded over and is enough to make a ton of tribbles. While shopping, I also found some grey IKEA ornaments that looked amazingly like tribbles.  Not sure if they’ll make the final costume yet!

Since the pattern instructions are already handy, I won’t rehash that here.  But here some things to keep in mind to make it easier!

• When cutting the fabric, make sure it’s fur side down.  Make tiny snips with just the tips of the scissors.   This helps keep you from cutting off the fur.
• Pay attention to the “grain” of the fur.  If it is running lengthwise to the pattern, it will be much easier to sew on the machine.
• That being said, I made about half with the fur running across the pattern instead.  It gave the tribbles a little more variety.  This really only matters if you are making a lot!
• Loose fur gets everywhere!  Including inside your sewing machine.  You’ve been warned.

 

For the grand finale, I tried used clear thread and just basically looped a bit through the fabric of the red shirt and the tribble. Then tied a knot.  The clear thread is made of Nylon and doesn’t knot very well. So, I ended up switching out and using traditional brown thread instead.  That decision saved my sanity a bit as it is much easier to see!  I did two loops for each just so they wouldn’t be flopping around too much.  I tried to put them on so it looked like they were falling on him from above.  There is even a couple on his back and a few on his treat bag!  I ended up not using the grey IKEA ornaments.  They were just too much of a contrast to these, plus I only had four.  How sad for me, I just have to use them as Christmas decorations!