The Man is a reader.  In the bathroom.  On our last visit, I discovered that he was using the trash bins in the bathrooms as storage for his National Geographics and his reading glasses.  If they were in there, where was I supposed to throw my bathroom related trash?

Necessity being the mother of invention, I needed a solution to our bathroom-reading-trash-throwing problem.  I pinterested it (not a word? Is now.) and found great, expensive designs for bathroom magazine racks, or racks that were clearly designed for the 200 square foot bathroom. I needed something else.

Next step?  Visit TJMaxx.  They (and their sister store Marshalls) often have home goods that are great looking and deeply discounted.  I found these baskets, and hatched a plan:

While I love black, The Man is not such a big fan, and I didn’t want these baskets to stay black.  The Man  introduced me to a new-ish type of spraypaint employed by one of his clients on her cabinet knobs.  It has the look and feel of sand, which lends itself to the design themes of those who live near the beach (or want to):

The next step was to cover the label areas with blue painters tape, because I wasn’t sure what I wanted there, but I didn’t want it to be a blank, sandy chunk of metal in the middle of the basket.

Next step: painting.  I started with the baskets on the ground.  The Man asked how I was going to get the part on the ground painted.  I told him I’d wait until the front was dry and flip it over.  He grunted or harumphed or something and proceeded to tie my baskets to a tree.

Yes, that is my finger in the way.

I proceeded to spraypaint the baskets, remembering only as the can emptied quickly that I was using a lot of paint on nothingness, and would need more paint.  After several days of coordinating another trip to Lowe’s, and waiting for it to STOP RAINING, I was finally able to finish the painting.

You can kind of see that sandy texture in the second one there, can’t you!  Then I removed the tape, and went to Michael’s to employ my scrapbooking skills to the empty space left.

The 12×12 paper pictures is actually cork that has an adhesive back – perfect!  I worked on the labels, and added felted feet to prevent scratching anything upon which the basket might rest.  And I was finished.  The only thing I would recommend adding would be some clear contact paper over the label, as it will be in a bathroom, getting all moist.

The Man is now deciding whether he wants to hang them on the wall or leave them as is.

Doesn’t matter to me.  I have the trash bins back!