Decorating in Narrow Spaces

When we built our guest bath upstairs, we had minimal options as to where the toilet and other plumbed fixtures would be located. The rough in was done when we bought the house and could not be undone. Little did I know how close the toilet would sit next to the wall or how the shower door would swing out and make it nearly impossible to hang anything on the wall behind it. {In the photo below, it’s hard to distinguish, but the front glass panel is the door hinged on the wall.}

Thankfully I discovered the simplistic beauty of frameless photo frames, especially used in multiples. This was so much better {and way cheaper} than multi-opening frames I’d looked at especially in regards to how far they sat off the wall.

These are maps of London that I printed from Graphics Fairy. They don’t stick out much more than the light switch in these frames.

On the wall by the toilet, I chose 6 of my favorite “travel” photos {2 of Portugal, 1 of our village in Germany, and 3 of Paris}. Again, these thin frames do not feel overpowering as you head to/fro the toilet as some other frames I tried out. Getting photos to fit European frame size didn’t work 100% as you can see a little of the back sticking out, but cutting down the back of the frames was not as fun as getting them up on the wall right away!

Some perspective…  We have a tall bathroom shelf next to the sink. {That’s the church in Wiesbaden on the back wall—amazing I got that shot with my old camera and all the others!}

And our sink hangs on the wall—no legs—so that allows the feeling of more space too.

More travel art on the other wall, but this time in wooden frames I got from the dollar store that I stained to match the shelving unit. Don’t look too close or you can see which one I cheated and used a paper background instead of a matte!

So thankful this bathroom has come together. It needed some life! I hope you’re encouraged to consider some out of the box framing options…pun intended!

More UK Fun and Food

Although we didn’t have a chance to do all the touristy things on this last trip to the UK, we sure appreciated things that were really British, like taxis.

or stone fences that divide the green {and usually sheep!}

or amazing homes that look like castles spotted from the train.

How about fish and chips?

Or hot cross buns? Really, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about them outside of our elementary school class learning how to play that song on a recorder. But they’re awesome--the closest thing to yummy raisin bread from the States that I’ve had in a long time!

And then there were some surprises that made us smile: {a speed limit sign}

Or our children:  Have you had a chance to try the walk-on-water balls? Our girls are pretty good at it!

 

And lastly, some Americana:  So fun to see and be able to buy, yet the prices kept us from splurging on foods we don’t ever get but really can live without!

 

Royally Honored Everywhere

We just returned from a near 2 week stent in the United Kingdom. We helped put on a conference and had a meeting to attend with a little vacation in between. It was somewhat sad that we’d booked our return flight the day before the royal wedding before we knew it was happening. Getting to see all the pre-wedding excitement in country made it all the harder to leave!

Many stores had signs posted or displays that could have passed for the 4th of July.  Gobs of party supplies were out for all the purported wedding parties.

You could find all kinds of memorabilia and some of it wasn’t over-the-top cheesy. Yankee candle had a royal wedding version! The Hello magazine below reads “Kate’s Last Days as a Single Girl.” Butter cookies in an engagement photo tin anyone?

Then there were restaurants: free onion rings at Burger King, champagne flavored royal ice cream at Baskin Robbins, crown cookies at the cookie store…

and one of our favorite finds in England {something I haven’t had the opportunity to eat in nearly a year}. They actually had donuts with a golden tinted glaze!

I hope you enjoyed the festivities from wherever your venue was. We watched the wedding at a British neighbor’s house. She prepared a wonderfully British luncheon for us afterwards. It was fun to make memories this way!