El Pinko Sinko

El Pinko is officially el stinko. The vintage sink tap I ordered from Ebay failed within a week so only the 'hot' side works (handy for kids brushing their teeth) and the toilet has been malfunctioning and spraying out the top. We both grimace every time we step into the bathroom. Plus, the current vanity, countertop and floor are so ugly that it's hard to find the inspiration to figure out what is going to work in this bathroom.

We're finally moving forward. Slowly. I keep telling hubby it's because we've adopted a Slow Home approach to our bathroom restoration, but really it's because we're disheartened by the high ugly:salvageable ratio.

Not so 'Pretty in Pink'

So while we're saving for the restoration, we've started to slowly update some of the smaller elements: new mirrors for the wall vanity, chroming the vent and colour matching the toilet seat.

We are focusing on the sink and counter as well. The steel enamel sink is not original to the bathroom so we're replacing with a ceramic period appropriate version. After MONTHS of searching (not nearly as intense as the downstairs bathroom sink search), I found a sink on Kijiji. The owners had reno'd their 1950s bathroom and were hoping to find a good home for their sink. The woman was from the UK, moved here 5 years ago. She had an interesting perspective on re-use and was shocked at how disposable our culture is. In the UK, she remarked, a retro sink, particularly a coloured sink, would be in high demand. Here, it's landfill fodder.

We purchased this little blue beauty for $40, ceramic countertop included. The only problem is that it has a little hole in the sink from an old and unfortunate aftershave accident (those are the worst).

Common type of sink in 1950s houses. Love the blue.

Little hole in the sink

So back to Grant at Granor Bath Renovations in Calgary. He restored our pink bathtub and painted the current enamel steel sink pink. He is fairly confident that he will be able to repair the hole and paint pink - may have to be a bit experimental with the repair.

All is hinging on this repair. If the sink works, then we can move forward with updating the counter by Crystal Crete and restoring the vanity (see Republic of Pink for full deets). I have contacted a few cabinet construction companies to see if they can restore our vanity.

FInger's crossed!

LP