Bluebird Bathroom Remodel

This house is over a hundred years old, and when we bought it, we locked the door on the old smallest bathroom until we could get it redone. As it turned out, my eldest, Devin, took the bull by the horns and rebuilt it. What a wonderful thing a son is! :-)

Here's the finished product:

And here's the scary "before":

The old floor had rotted, except for that under the cast iron tub, so he took it down to earth and built a new subfloor for the main part of the room. While the floor was out, he also did some leveling and reinforcing.

Tearing into an old house is always an adventure. (Maybe I'll post pictures nexxt Halloween ;-) )The original wall is solid wood boards, and backs up on a bedroom. Not wanting to lose space in either room by messing with the wall, we made the choices to limit what we did there. Thus, the single high electrical outlet is still the only one; and the medicine cabinet hangs on the wall instead of being recessed.

The room is 3 feet wide by 8 feet long, not counting the tub enclosure/hot water heater closet. Replaced the toilet and added a small pedestal sink to free up as much space as possible, but removing half a ton of bathtub wasn't happening, so I refinished it (more on that later, in my next post).

The new window went into the same hole the old one came out of - again to avoid a cascade of consequences: the solid wood exterior wall, the exterior siding, and more important, the location of structural elements.

We did add a shower, which this bath had never had, and the window placement presented a clallenge there. The window extends into the shower enclosure past the edge of the tub, so there isn't a wall area to attach a curtain rod on that end.  We handled that by using a curved shower rod - worked like a charm!

Paul said "I can't believe you actually had a laundry bag with bluebirds on it!"  It has been in the laundry room for a while but it never really "fit" in there - this is a much nicer spot for it. It pays sometimes to be a packrat.

The pale baby blue and white are comforting in such a small room. The curtains are a pair of crisp cotton pillowcases with a rod pocket sewn into the top. The soft vintage embroidery at the wide hem is touched with blue.

These little sconce shelves are made of metal - iron, I think.




This little guy is from the 1960s heyday of ceramic and chalkware figural wall art. He's made of ceramic and I love his pretty googly eyes!

This glass Blue Bird of Happiness hides in the medicine cabinet, along with an antique Victorian Sunday School card and assorted pretty guest soaps,  ready to promote a smile from a visitor.

The bluebirds were a sort of accident - I didn't have to buy a single one. Who knew there were so many blue bird themed items lurking around my house?

The famed Bluebird of Happiness does live in one's own backyard... and kitchen cupboard... and desk drawer... and linen closet... and laundry room... Hee!

The entire project took Devin several days of hard work over the course of a couple of months  - rushing down here to work on his days off when he wasn't needed at home (he lives four hours away).  The demolition was the most difficult part. What an amazing rennovation once it was complete!

What an amazing son to do this for us. Thank you so much Honey!

How To Make a Padded Upholstered Cornice Board

This is an easy project that gives a lot of pop for the effort. Nick built the cornice board frame, and I finally got it covered and hung last week. It's one of the finishing touches in my bedroom re-do (which will be my next blog post so check back to see the result!).

Because our windows are a standard length, he was able to build it out of a single 1x12 board. This made construction much simpler. Ultimately, a cornice is a 3 sided box (no back on it, as the wall it hangs against becomes the back).


The height of the cornice board should be about 1/5 the length of the window. Just measure the window and divide the height by five. If you are using floor length or puddling drapes, you might want a taller cornice, but for most windows, the one-fifth ratio is ideal.

How far the finished cornice box extends from the wall depends on your other window treatments. If, like me, you are only using blinds or shades, it only needs to come out 4 or 5 inches from the wall. About.com and DIY Network both have good step-by-step instructions for how to measure and build one.



I sprayed the board with spray adhesive, and covered it with one layer of polyester batting. The batting should extend around over the front edges but should not cover the thin back edge that will be against the wall, nor is it needed on the top.


The fabric is upholstery-weight Waverly, a pattern named "Claremont". Having a pattern to match in the fabric meant a bit of creative cutting and very careful measuring to be sure the pattern matched along the full length of the board.

When measuring and cutting the fabric, allow a good 4 to 6 inches extra so that you will have plenty of selvege to staple into. Remember you are wrapping the edges too, all the way around to the back. Excess can be trimmed later, but there's no way to fix it if you cut too much off beforehand.




This fabric also required a seam in the length (it goes over a double window). The seam is located in the exact center, so as not to annoy us every time we look at it, and pattern matched exactly along the widest point in the pattern. That little trick also helps hide the seam from the eye.



I didn't iron the center seam until after the cornice was otherwise completed, then used an iron to set the crease in the seam - don't slide the iron as that might stretch the fabric.

I stapled the fabric to the back sides of the board, starting in the center of the top edge, alternating stapling one side of the top edge, then the other, and eyeing up the pattern with each staple, to be sure it matched its opposite. It will be done faster if you go slowly during this process.

The reason for starting with the top edge is that the top is the first thing you will see when it is hanging. A little error on the bottom edge might go unnoticed but the top needs to be perfect.

Do the same with the bottom edge, being careful (1) not to stretch the fabric (you don't want puckers), and (2) to use a straight edge to be sure the pattern runs straight from top to bottom as well as side to side.


Lastly, staple the sides, folding and tucking the corners. After trimming excess, I used white glue to smooth down the cut edges inside the board. If your board is going to be in a location where the inside will be visible, you could finish the inside fabric edge by gluing ribbon or seam binding over the cut edge.

Paul used L brackets to hang it for me, first attaching the brackets to the wall, using a level, then settling the cornice on them, marking the holes, and drilling small pilot holes in the board before setting it in place perfectly.

How many L brackets you use, and how carefully you hang depends a lot on whether you want to merchandise the top of it or not. If you plan to set things on it, be sure to hang it into studs or with anchors, like you would any shelf.



Isn't it great? We are very happy with the results. Next post: better photos of this bedroom, and how pretty it turned out!

Sept 2011 UPDATE: Per request, here is a close up of the middle seam, which is nearly invisible from an ordinary vantage point in the room. Details in the comments. Click to enlarge so you can see how the seam looks up close.