you’ve got me pegged

(^^It’s very difficult to ignore the urge to use a peg pun. Apologies.)

I suppose it’s time for a State of the Bathroom Address. Here’s where I left off the story (almost a month ago), and I’m afraid to say that there’s very little visible progress yet on the room. But that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some work going on behind the scenes.

We are notoriously slow at getting projects done. I realize that “slow” implies laziness, lack of focus, procrastination – and whenever I even hint at using it around the house I get very dirty looks. Because we are decidedly not any of the above. (Well, I do procrastinate on some things – like ironing, and going to bed – but any delay on projects is due to circumstances outside our control, like life.)

And outside of living the active, busy lives of working professionals and kid-raisers and compulsive volunteers – outside of those time restraints completely, lies our true dark side. We’re perfectionists. When faced with the simplest of decisions to be made, we simply cannot walk into a store, make a selection from the one or two offerings, purchase said selection, return home, and then install our finds. That would be far too easy, and what’s a project anyway if you can’t become a slave to it?

Over the past year (or more) that I’ve thought about our bathroom updates, I’ve remained centered around the idea of completing the wainscoting that we never got around to fully finishing the first time, and installing a shaker style peg rail around the perimeter to store and use beautiful things in the room. I’ve refined some of my initial ideas, and after doing so, I assembled a second inspiration board for the space… in 2013. Seriously, I did a double take on the date when I searched for this image.

And while the finished project might not contain all of these items, the general mood of the room will be similar. I thought maybe I’d get lucky someday and score a vintage teak storage piece for the room; then I saw a new piece from West Elm and was perfectly happy to acknowledge that I’m never going to score the perfect thrifted find because I’ve gone to thrift stores about four times in my entire life. So far I really love the cabinet, although it’s so new and perfect that I’m constantly in fear of that first scratch. Actually, we got our first water ring on the top (and when I say “we”, I mean “not me”), but I used the mayonnaise trick which worked beautifully and all is well again. I’m pretty obsessive about having the fan on while the shower is on, and hopefully this piece will work out okay in a damp environment. Time will tell.

After the cabinet was assembled it sat empty for a few days because I couldn’t bring myself to put anything inside the drawers or on the shelves that might possibly leak. So I turned around and spent all the money that we saved from the sale price and the delivery fee at the Container Store. I bought a non-slip shelf liner that wasn’t too far off the wood color, and then I bought a series of these clear bins with handle cutouts in various sizes to fit into the drawers, plus a large, double bin for the cabinet to hold all of our tall items that could potentially leak, like lotions and extra shampoo bottles. The smaller bins are really handy because I can take them out – like the one with makeup – and sit it on the sink counter while I’m using it, and then do the same thing with all my contact lens stuff or hair drying tools.

I also took a photo of the inside of the gigantic lower drawer that holds all of our non-leaky extra supplies – contact supplies, toiletries, extra soaps and toothpastes, etc. But after I took the photo and looked at it – well, it seemed like maybe I was stepping a bit far into the personal realm, so I deleted that one! There is an impressive amount of storage in this cabinet – far more than we had in our previous one, and we’ve still got a few empty drawers to grow into if we need to.

So what’s next? The pegs, remember!

I love the concept of the Shaker peg, but… not so much the traditional peg itself.

It’s pretty easy to find these pegs – usually sold in two-packs at the big box stores for a couple of bucks. But they stick out about 3.5″ and we’re just really not that into the look of them. We could use (make) a really simple dowel that would be a much cleaner, more modern look, but I also want these things to be functional – I don’t want everything sliding off the ends of the pegs all the time. Finding a good option has proven tricky. But just before we were starting to throw in the towel on the search, we found (just maybe) the perfect peg. And how do I know that it’s perfect, you ask? Why, because it’s five times as expensive and manufactured in the UK, so it’s also a long lead time and requires exorbitant shipping fees. So, perfect, right?

Perfect.

These are made of sustainable beech, and could be left natural or with just an oiled finish. So stay with me here, everyone in the painted peg camp (as I was). Maybe a simple wooden peg (unpainted) is just the way to go here. The cheaper Shaker pegs are likely to check or split over time. And if we paint them, there’s always the chance that the paint will also flake or wear with use. So I’ve ordered a pair from Brook Farm General Store (the only company I’ve found in the US that carries these) so that we can see them in person and make a decision. If we like them, I’ve already contacted a dealer in the UK for a shipping quote for a box of them. They are a much better deal when sold closer to the source, but I’ll have to do a little math to see if it works out in my favor once the shipping is factored in. Because we need close to forty. Gulp.

They are really pretty though, right?