a tisket, a tasket..

A wrong color metal basket! 

I got these lovely baskets at HomeGoods. For all those Dothanites out there who haven't been to one (and possibly others, I just know we don't have one down in dtown), it's basically T.J. Maxx that only has home stuff. Aka my heaven. It's actually owned by the same people who own ol' TJ. 

I bought two of these babies to hold towels in my bathroom, but the finishes in there are chrome, and as you can see, these are ORB (oil rubbed bronzed). 

Now, half of this post is a project fail. I found a blog post from someone else a while ago that said you could use oven cleaner to remove metal finishes to reveal chrome. Perhaps I should've found that post and reread it.. 

This isn't the original tutorial I saw, but it's close. Tip Junkie posted this from the Canadian bloggie, Style North. Perhaps my mistake was that it only removes brass (I'm not sure if that's true or not).

Perhaps it was that fact that I used the wrong oven cleaner.. I used the el cheapo brand.

Maybe I didn't leave it on there long enough? 

I let it sit for probably 15 minutes until it dissolved. I scrubbed it a bit, and nothing happened. 

PROJECT FAIL.

Not to worry friends, I bought metallic silver spray paint to use for backup (I just had a feeling about that off brand oven cleaner). I had only sprayed one basket at a time, so while the other one was drying, I got to painting.

You know the drill: I just did a couple of light even coats. Then I flipped it over and did the underside. 

Here she is! 

Not too shabby, eh? I wish it was actual chrome, but I had been looking for towel baskets for months, and dang it I was tired of waiting!

Here they are in their new home. I only put towels on one side so far because quite honestly,  I need to do laundry. And half of my towels don't match. 

I'm thinking about investing in some navy towels. They'd look lovely, I do believe! Then perhaps I'll get a navy mat as well. Thoughts?

In other bathroom design news, you can see I still haven't purchased any pulls (still using the $1 knobs). I'm seriously considering puttying the holes and keeping these. My issue with the pulls is that the existing holes are 4 inches wide, and most pulls in stores are 3" or 3 and 5/8" (or something ridic like that). I don't want to have to drill new holes to center new pulls on the doors if I go with smaller ones. Does anyone have any input?! 

This was the only project I completed this weekend. WHY you ask? Because the weather LOVES to play this little trick on me, where it will be beautiful, sunny, and 75 degrees for four days while I'm stuck in a room with no windows at work, then on the weekends, drop down to overcast and 45 degrees with tornado warnings. There was a tiny window this Sunday where it was a little above 60 degrees (it's not recommended to spray paint when the temp is below 60), so I slapped on my paint clothes and took this project out to the ol' spray paint patch. I'm hoping this next weekend will be more project-friendly. You know what IS going to be friendly about this upcoming weekend? DAYLIGHT SAVINGS!!! 

HELLS YEAH!!!! MORE DAYLIGHT FOR PROJECTS AFTER WORK! 

I can't wait!!