golden age

as promised, today i will reveal the bathroom with its completed DIY elements!
to refresh your memory, here it is before:

and after!
drumroll, please:

VOILA! 
now that i look at this picture, i think a little framed something over the toilet might look nice. thoughts?
obviously we still need a toilet paper holder. the previous one was a nondescript light oak color; i am thinking something along these lines:

now, details on the shelf project.
we started with this:

crate and barrel etagere
ours is actually an older version, scored for a mere $60 on craigslist!

per the recommendation from my inspiration via little green notebook, we hit the metal frame with rustoleum metallic spray paint in brass. 

observation: it is much easier to paint/DIY when you have a legitimate space like a driveway or garage. we painted on newspaper on the street outside our apartment, and had to stand guard during the drying process. with beverages, of course.

next, we needed some storage baskets to hide the dozens of toiletries/inevitable clutter.

i searched high and low, because i wanted something that wasn't see-through, and it was shockingly hard to find narrower dimensions to fit on the shelves. we found the perfect fit at target:

target small milk crate - $12

the last step was to bronze our stainless steel trash can:

the boyfriend joked that we should also paint the toilet, but i thought that might be a little much.
in the end, this is exactly what i was hoping for, but at a fraction of the price!

the other mini DIY was to paint the built-in medicine cabinet white instead of that nondescript oak:

as you can see, titus was a huge help.

the paint did not go on quite as smoothly and evenly as i had hoped, so to camouflage that fact we cut pieces of the map i received upon arrival in florence for my study abroad (yes, i still have it!) and pasted them into the back of the cabinet using wallpaper paste.

i love how it gives a little visual interest to a somewhat boring, utilitarian element of the bathroom.

here it is in use: