Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The Old Lady Was a Bathroom Hipster

I bought my house about 4 years ago. It's an older home, born the same year I was and I'm not gonna tell you how long ago that was. Suffice it to say that the old girl has a lot of class and character, just like I do!

This old girl (the house...not me) has some cool little details and some not so cool ones as well. It has a cute corner sink that I fell in love with the first time I saw the house. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that because the sink is in the corner, only one person can stand at the sink at the time thereby giving others an "out" when it comes time to help with the dishwashing!

On the plus side, there is a nice little ledge above the sink that I didn't get a picture of where I can display things. They change from time to time but right now there's a wine bottle, a fancy bottle for olive oil that is beautiful but I never use it and a candle. Because it's so handy my mom often likes to put random things up there that don't really go with my vignette, like for example my travel coffee mug or some tupperware items she needs to remember to return!

In the bathroom there is a very unique soap - toothbrush - cupholder which you can see pictured here. I know this looks like it has some pretty butterflies and flowers on it, but it's actually all silver, with a mirror surface, the butterflies are a reflection of the shower curtain across from it.

When you push on the right side of that silver square, it swings open to reveal this....

Please ignore how cruddy it looks because we never, ever use it, but it's just so cool and a neat little trick that we can show people when they come to visit. Hey! Shafter is a small town and there's not a whole lot to do with company when they do visit!

It is a cool way to hide things right?  But with the size of toothbrushes now a days, it's not very practical...but a neat little detail don't you think?







Another neato thing is this Thermador bathroom heater. Now don't worry about that pretty little plant getting scorched or over heated as this bathroom heater has never worked.

I know many people have fancy-schmancy bathrooms with heated towel holders and heated floors, but I'm just as impressed with this broken bathroom heater that I have never, ever used. I bet it was pretty cool to have back in the day when it worked!

I imagine this house was state of the art when it was first built. With all it's fancy swinging toothbrush holders and a bathroom Thermador heater and all!









So that brings me to the point of my title of this post, "The Old Lady Was a Bathroom Hipster".  In the bathroom is where one of my favorite little handy-dandy objects resides. It's this little wall-mounted Dixie Cup Dispenser.
Do you know that you cannot find that dispenser anywhere on the worldwideweb? At least I couldn't and I'm pretty good at googling and amazoning and whatever. So I was telling my son that I need him to figure out if that little dispenser can be taken off the wall so we can take it with us if and when we ever leave because I love it and now they only make these ugly plastic ones that sit on the counter and you pull the cup out from the top and I don't like a bunch of crap on my counters.

My son said, "Just find another one online." So I said, "I can't find one online, this is a vintage item!" He replied with, "The old lady was a bathroom hipster." I don't know exactly what that means, but I'm just hoping the old lady he was talking about wasn't me!


Actually, the old lady that owned this house before I did was pretty cool and very cautious and prone to pre-planning in the event of a natural disaster. For instance...the inside of this kitchen cabinet had this Earthquake preparedness plan taped to it. I don't know how old this is or how relevant to today's information, but I didn't have the heart to take it down because I'm sentimental like that. The old lady was not only a bathroom hipster, she was also one darned prepared old lady!




8 comments:

  1. There was a built in heater in the bathroom of the house that we bought in 1976. I wish I could remember how old it was. We liked it so much that we had them installed in the house we built in 1981. I hate getting cold when I get out of the shower! Since we've moved, I really miss those heaters. (I'm sorry you never got to enjoy a heated bathroom - hehehe.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well Grammy...it never really gets that cold here in Sunny Southern California so I don't think we need a heater, but I know my mom would have loved if the one we have worked. I sure do love older homes though, don't you?

      Delete
  2. You have some lovely ceramic work in you home. I love the green border tiles on the sink and edge of the counter.

    I think we should make place your bathroom on National Register of Historic Places for the cool cup / toothbrush contraption and the Dixie cup dispenser from antiquity. We put Shafter on the map.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Sextant! I think the ceramic work is nice too. First thing I fell in love with besides the little corner sink was the green tile. Green being my fav color it felt like this was meant to be.

      Hahaha on making my bathroom a Historic Place, but it's not THAT old...I did mention it was born the same year I was didn't I? But that contraption and the cup dispenser are pretty cool.

      Delete
  3. Green is my favorite color too. Those bathroom heaters are wonderful. My grandparents had one of those in their house when I was a kid. That toothbrush holder is a pretty cool contraption. Now that, is something I have never seen before. Yes, your house has character, just like you. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. You had me laughing with this one! I loved the secret compartment and the dixie cup holder....but especially loved the heater that doesn't work. We have one too - not the same one, but a broken heater, nonetheless. We work around, take it into account when decorating but why oh why do we keep a broken bathroom heater?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love all of the vintage touches in your bathroom. I'm pretty sure that my grandparents had a "secret compartment" in their bathroom and also a heater very similar to yours.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I really loved the brief walk through your lovely old home. Your house has history as well as character. I hope you have a great evening. Blessings...Mary

    ReplyDelete

Please leave a comment.I would love to know your thoughts!