I guess I could have kept on with a bit of a nautical theme and called this room the head since toilet room is so ugly and throne room or potty room are too cutesy. But I’m practical and not afraid to call things for what they are. It’s a room with a toilet, so it’s a toilet room.

When I bought Miranda, this room had one use only and the decor was not very inspiring:

Talk about a blank slate! The only thing I really liked about this room was the shape of the curtain and the linoleum, which reminded me of my dad.

Not being meant for full-timing, Miranda lacks storage for certain things in the place where you’d expect storage to be. Take toilet paper, for example. I could stack some around the toilet, I supposed, but I had other plans for the floor space. So, I decided to think vertically and came up with this monstrosity:

This shelf is a prime example of how I see the world. Readers probably see an ugly piece of plywood jammed into an otherwise pretty room. I saw something that just needed trim and paint to blend into its surroundings. I was right!

(don’t mind the wavy tension bar; it was a casualty of the Ice Fields dash!)

You can also see the new curtain I made, which matches not only the toilet room paint, but also the dressing room.

The other bit of storage I added to this room was the pocket door organizer:

The organizer makes the door a bit heavy and prone to shut, but is otherwise not a nuisance and an excellent use of space. It’s also a good place to store a roll or two of extra toilet paper to have some on hand.

The rig has brass accents throughout, so I did an experiment in toilet room to see if I could paint some of them, in this case the trim around the light switch and the toilet paper roll holder. The experiment was a mitigated failure in that at first glance they look fine, but a closeup shows what a crummy job I did. It was probably a combination of the wrong kind of paint and my inexperience with spray paint. Even with the paint job being the way it is, I prefer the dark brown look to the brass and don’t regret the attempt at improvement:

Finally, this before and after post was delayed because of my difficulty in finding frames to put up some art on the bare walls. I finally got two pieces up today and decided that they would do for now. I’m not sure if I should be putting artwork on the other wall or not. If I do, I’ll post an update. Both pieces are cheap post cards with images that have personal significance.

The first is of the schooner Bluenose:

Those who thought “Oh, that’s the boat on the Canadian dime and it reminds her to make money!” are completely wrong! 😀 This image reminds me of a movie I adored in my childhood, known as Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveler in English. It’s the store of a boy who travels around the world on postage stamps, and the Bluenose stamp features prominently in the story. So, the Bluenose makes me think of travel and wild adventures.

The other post card is an imagined scene from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales:

Pilgrims on a journey. Relevant to my RVing life, no? 🙂 I love The Canterbury Tales and have read them a dozen times. I was fortunate enough to take a course on Chaucer in university in which the teacher insisted we read medieval English lit in the original Middle English, a very rewarding challenge. But I digress!

Here’s a final after shot:

Another DONE room!

Glendale Royal Classics are not well-known rigs. Had I not stumbled on Miranda’s for sale ad, I would have gladly bought a 28′ class C with a comparable layout and not known that I was missing out on something incredible: a dressing room.

Miranda’s dressing room is roughly amidships, between the study and the kitchen, and it leads to the toilet room:

the dressing room is highlighted in green and the cloth dresser is added in brown

When I purchased Miranda, the space had a lot of potential, but needed some tweaking to improve the incredible amount of storage it offers.

The room didn’t need much cosmetic work, just a bit of paint and some pictures, but adding a dresser, changing the wardrobe doors, and putting a pocket organizer on the toilet-side of the door made this space much more functional.

Some highlights of the dressing room are:

The shower and cloth dresser

shower, before, with space beside it

The shower is too large a space not to be a closet when I’m not in there. It now holds my Wonderwash, laundry basket, and laundry supplies:

taking these two things out every night is not onerous in the least

I still plan to change the showerhead one day.

notice the hooks over the door; I have a bunch of them for hanging wet things

The cloth dresser fits almost perfectly in the space next to the shower:

one of those ‘it’ll do for that space’ kind of projects

The vanity:

the very sterile vanity before (notice the super ugly towel holder)

vanity with a bit of colour injected into it

I’ve had this print I bought years ago on this wall since I bought Miranda. You would think I’d picked the wall colour to match it!

lots of space under the sink for cleaning products

The wardrobe:

old wardrobe doors

new wardrobe doors

new wardrobe doors and the picture of a raven I put up first thing after buying Miranda

The toilet room door:

I put two over-door hooks to hang my towel and bathmat

This room is now incredibly functional and is actually one of the largest bathrooms I’ve ever had! There is still some tweaking to be done as to clothes organization and the floor trim isn’t finished, but otherwise I consider this room to be done!

I put the first coat of paint on the dressing room this morning. The colour is beyond perfect; unbelievable for found oops paint! It’s more terra cotta than pink. I don’t really like pink all that much, so the orangey base to the shade turns it from meh to wow! The colour also exactly matches the print I have up on the wall by the vanity and the fabric of the toilet room and study curtains. The orange in it will also work for what I’m planning in the library. What a great find!

I definitely need to do a second coat, and at the rate the room’s drying I’ll probably be able to do that tonight. Then this room will be ready for a before and after post, trim and dithering on painting the oak cabinetry and solid doors notwithstanding.

I’m always slow to start on projects because they tend to be so overwhelming. Such was the case with the dressing room; there were just so many small, nitpicky details to deal with. But once they were done and the room was ready for priming, why wait?! The climate here is so dry that the primer will be ready for a coat of paint in the morning and then I should have the dressing room back online Monday. I really didn’t want such a crucial room unavailable for any great length of time.

Before I started on the priming, I decided I might as well get the kitchen lintel defabricated, too, and polish up the side of the overfridge cabinet that’s visible from the dressing room. I wouldn’t be painting it since it’s part of the oak cabinetry, but why not just get it done?

before

Since I stupidly built the cabinet around the lintel, I didn’t think I’d be able to get it out, but, fortunately, the screws were all located at the edge of the cabinet, so I was able to get it out with a minimum of fuss. I then used two pieces of the trim I found to finish the cabinet side since two pieces width-wise fit the space exactly, they were of the perfect thickness, and I had one piece that fit vertically. So, it was just a matter of making one cut. It was one of those jobs that turned out to be super easy once I got to work on it.

from the front

from the side

The paint job in the toilet room wasn’t great because I’d never used Kilz primer before. It’s tricky stuff since it goes on thick but then sort of separates and drips. I wound up with waves of primer in the toilet room. The job there is fine for what the room is, but since the dressing room is so visible I wanted a smoother job. So, I spent a couple of hours tonight laying on primer with a brush, rolling it out, then brushing it again. It’s so hot and dry that the primer almost dried as I put it on, making it even fussier to work with. Again, I’m not thrilled with the result, but it’s better than the job I did in the toilet room.

It wasn’t until after I started priming that I realised I should have double-checked the colour first. But then I remembered that a little can of paint like that costs ten bucks so, worse case scenario, I’ll go pick up something I like better.

So, not a bad evening’s work… and I even made that chocolate cake! 😀