To da loos: So you're renting and you have the world's ugliest washroom, your vanity is so ugly you want to cry, but you can't change it. What do you do? Go out and buy yourself a skirt.

I wish I had taken a picture of the washroom in our first apartment.

It was so old and ugly, no amount of scrubbing could get those tiles to

sparkle and the vanity was your typical white melamine with wood trim at

the top. We were always buying colourful towels and shower curtains to dress up

our bathroom, but that vanity always stood out like a sour thumb. It's too

bad I never thought about covering up the vanity with a skirt.

Bellow is a variety of vanity skirt styles; from pleated to panels to fancy trim,

and ranging in style from elegant to country. I think the skirts really set

the tone and steal the show in these washrooms.

However, the skirt doesn't need to be complicated to look good. If I

were to make a vanity skirt today, I would buy some velcro at the

dollar store, the type with the adhesive back (at the fabric store they sell the

velcro you have to sew on, but at the dollar store they sell packs of velcro

that has a gluey tape on the back - I bought this to velcro on some liners in our

kitchen closets and it worked amazing). Next, I'd go to decor stores and
look for pretty tea or dish towels, table runners, table clothes, material place mats, pillowcases, anything that is longer then the length of the vanity

and has a presewn edge. I'd even be tempted to look at actual skirts and see

if I could cut them open to use as a vanity skirt. Then all that's left to do is to cut the top edge, apply the velcro and attach it underneath the counter top. Et voila you have a custom, unique vanity skirt.

Of course you could also just pick up some beautiful fabric or lace and have
a tailor sew all the edges. This wouldn't be that expensive either.

Also, if you decide to cover your vanity with a skirt, remove the doors of your vanity and store

them in your apartment locker. It will be easier to access your stuff that way.

This silvery grey skirt is so pretty I'd love to wear it! Looking at this skirt

just gave me the idea that it could be cute to make a shorter vanity skirt and

add a colourful or white crinoline peaking out from underneath. What a cute girly touch that could be. So many possibilities, now I am actually missing that little bathroom we had!

To copy the above design you could cheat by buying some ribbon and borrowing

your crafty neighbour's glue gun. You could also glue ribbon on to cover up unfinished

edges or to create your own monogram. Watch out Martha Stewart!

If your vanity is wearing a skirt, please send me photos!

Email them to me at mikky@todaloos.com

ps. depending on how many doors your vanity has, you might want to add slits to the skirt or create separate panels so it's easier to access your stuff. If you do this, overlay the fabric a little and add some velcro to close the slits. You might also want to add some weights to the bottom of the fabric so that it hangs nicely (you can use fishing weights that they sell at Walmart). Just a few more ideas that I thought might be helpful.