Bathroom Shelf, New Corbels and Decor!

The bathroom shelf above our tub was one of those projects that I just immediately loved and wondered why the heck I hadn’t put a shelf there sooner. However, something has ALWAYS bugged me about it. So, when I planned to tackle this space and the adjoining closet I knew it would be the right opportunity to fix it. I took the shelf down first to repaint the rooms and then got to work.

At the time I put the shelf up the position of where I put it on the wall made a lot of sense. It was perfect for accommodating the canvas prints I made just for this space.

See?

With the prints it looks OK to me and makes sense but I’m over those prints and they’ll either be going somewhere else in the house or away entirely.

You can see my double stack of books accommodating what bothers me about where I put this bathroom shelf.

There is this bizarre amount of either too much or too little space both above and beneath it depending on what I want to put on it. It ends up feeling like wasted space or, at least, space that’s not being utilized properly.

So either I needed to add another shelf above the current shelf or, what I ended up doing, simply raising the bathroom shelf up several inches.

I can always add another shelf below it later but I got excited for the opportunity instead to add some wall art!

Another thing that’s been bugging me was the galvanized pipe hardware I was using here.

(That hardware will be utilized in the future in our basement.)

I replaced it with the lovely corbels I’ve been using throughout the first and second floors. I used them above our kitchen sink, in the living room and in our bedroom above our headboard as well.

The shelf itself came out of the barn (a lovely leftover from my Grandparents’ the wood workers) which I stained in dark walnut stain (by Minwax) to match the floors. You can see it had a bit of a sag in it that I’ll also be taking care of right now.

I put in three corbels for the bathroom shelf instead of the two that had been here and I flipped the board over to force the bend out of it.

So much better!

I cant’ wait to decorate it!

I’ve had these mirrors stashed for months now waiting for just this moment.

I LOVE THEM

They can be put up about a thousand different ways. (Check them out here on Amazon to see what a bunch of other folks have done with them.)

I was so totally on the fence about how I wanted to put these up lol. One thing I need for me though is symmetry and balance so that put the full mirror in the center.

The lines in the beadboard meant I didn’t have to add a level line to get everything lined up so it was just a case of figuring out how I wanted them displayed.

I used blue painter’s tape to move them around and experiment.

I ended up with the smaller of the partial mirrors facing the full mirror on either side and then the bigger of the partials facing out. I think it feels more like tribal art and not so much of the obvious phases of the moon and I like that!

I attached them with liquid nails which, of course, you would not want to use if you were sticking these to sheet rock. Double sided tape MEANT to be removed from sheet rock would be a better way to go.

NOTE: The negative reviews about these mirrors are that they’re not real “mirrors” and they don’t really reflect very well. Seriously, I don’t know where these people are shopping but there is NO WAY real mirrors would cost only $20! Maybe they’ve never shopped for real mirrors before!?

I also have the suspicion that maybe they didn’t realize there was a film on them that had to be removed…

I still want to buy a plant or two for in here… Some Ivy trailing down in front of those mirrors would be a nice touch and I just really like having plants in every room of the house.

One thing that’s taken a bit of getting used to is the reflection of those new mirrors above the tub making us think we’re seeing things lol!

Some more personal touches brought it all together.

We love how it all turned out!