Steve Batie: Get a lot from just a little

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I remodeled my first-floor bath a couple of years ago, removing everything but the tub and basically starting from scratch.

But what made the biggest impact — and the one thing visitors always remark on — was the new beadboard ceiling.

This actually is my third wooden bathroom ceiling, and I put up each for a very practical reason: It never peels.

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Because I didn’t want to deal with flaking paint over the shower every year or so, I spent several days in my garage, cutting and staining strips of beadboard and covering them with three layers of spar varnish. It’s a lot easier to do this work over sawhorses than over your head.

Then I nailed the beadboard to 1-by-2 sleepers screwed to the ceiling joists, trimmed the room out with narrow crown molding and gave it all a fourth final coat of varnish.

(You may have to look hard for spar varnish in hardware stores if you live far from the open sea; it’s the water-proof stuff used to finish — wait for it — spars. As well as masts, cabins and hulls.)

I recommend this approach to absolutely everybody, but the reason I brought it up today is because it’s also a good example of something simple and inexpensive you can do to jazz up a bathroom.

Here are some other ideas:

Paint. Most folks suggesting quickie bathroom fixups would send you straight to the department store for new towels and washcloths in pretty colors. I’ll admit that’s definitely the route to instant decor, but it’s also a very expensive one. Have you checked the cost of terrycloth lately? For the price of one bathsheet you can paint the whole room.

Pick a theme. Not trite old duckies or angel fish or sea shells, of course. But let’s say your bliss is horror movies. A couple of inexpensive reproduction posters mated with black towels and washcloths would go a long way toward celebrating Lon Chaney. Or a music lover might set one of those Beethoven-ala-Schroeder busts on the vanity and hang a couple of battered pawn-shop trumpets on the wall.

Frame the ceiling. A renter might not want to go to the trouble or expense of sheathing an entire bathroom ceiling in wood, but one of those two-piece urethane ceiling medallions installs in less than 10 minutes around the light fixture. Paint to match or contrast and you have a fresh focal point in just an hour.

Faux finish. Like the linens you already have? Have a paint store color match them, then rag the walls for a mottled, coordinated treatment. I figure you already have some rags, so it will cost no more than a quart of paint and a Saturday afternoon.  Wear rubber gloves.

No fair peeking. Another thing I did during my bathroom remodeling to avert water damage was replace the original double-hung window over the tub-turned-shower with glass blocks. This used to be a complex job requiring masonry expertise, but now you can order a panel of glass or acrylic blocks (clear, milky, ribbed, etc.) already assembled into a water-proof vinyl frame. It required careful caulking and a bit of creative framing, but removing the old window actually took longer than installing the new one.

A place for everything. It won’t elicit oohs and aahs from guests, but this tiny bathroom improvement will make life a lot easier — especially if your bathroom is short on storage space (and whose isn’t?). With little more than a utility knife and some scraps of wood, you can open up the wall between studs to create a niche for bath soaps or a flower arrangement — or even Beethoven’s bust.

Send your home repair and remodeling questions to: HouseWorks, P.O. Box 81609, Lincoln, NE 68501, or e-mail: houseworks@journalstar.com.