corners of my home: prime real estate

I used to love the Flickr group corners of my home, then not so much, but lately I'm coming back around. Here are a couple corners of my home I'm posting today.

Both used to be part of a hideous full bathroom the previous owner of our house installed off of the former butler's pantry behind the kitchen (now tragically stripped of all its built-ins, but a bright and happy room; we call it the sunroom or, when we're feeling extra-fancy, the breakfast room). I don't have pictures of the old bathroom because it was so dark and cramped, it was impossible to photograph. Every inch of it, except for the insides of the tub and sink and toilet, was covered in disgusting plastic tile. It was so awful, we didn't even use it. We preferred to make the trip upstairs.

Then last year we (meaning J) made one of our home renovation dreams come true by ripping out that awful bathroom and enclosing the back half of it as a powder room.


Now that's better! We have a blond bamboo counter and stained bamboo floor and chair rail (in this context, would it be called a throne rail?), and a bowl sink made by our potter friend Gary Pletsch, who has really got to get a website so I can link to him. If you're local, visit him at Penn Avenue Pottery in the Strip! We used an old piece of driftwood as a towel rod and even framed one of the ghastly old tiles in remembrance of what the room used to be. That's what that square on the back wall is. The medicine cabinet is a relic from our basement which we painted red. The inside of the door is red, too.

This left an alcove in the sunroom where the front half of the bathroom used to be. This summer, when we busted through the back kitchen wall, the alcove became a little hallway.

Now that I'm going to be working more from home, I'm setting up a little workspace in this unfinished hall between our kitchen and bathroom – so glamorous! – downstairs.


I have an office/studio upstairs, or I will again soon – J and I are in the messy midst of switching rooms – don't ask why, long story. But I like to work amid the hubbub of my family. Even as a kid, I shunned the perfectly good worktable in my bedroom for homework purposes, preferring to spread out on the kitchen table or in a family room chair, books and papers all around me, using my lap for a desk.

In back of my computer table you can still see the grid of scored mastic where the old bathroom tile was adhered to the wall. Ultimately, we want to remove this and expose the brick underneath. But until then, I'd like to do something to make it more attactive. Yesterday I was all gung ho to hang a piece of fabric there, then realized there's no way to hang it short of drilling into the masonry. Maybe I could put up a big piece of homasote?