Fancy Art Bathroom

Adulting is weird.

I bought a celestial vessel sink for my bathroom vanity. I found it at an art show in Fort Collins when I drove the kids to summer camp. The artist used the crystalline glaze technique. I’d never seen it before and instantly wanted it for the bathroom.

Aside: I deeply believe that artists deserve to be paid for creating the art they’ve mastered.

There were maybe 10 different options available for sale, and they were marked 40% off plus 10% off. That still left me paying at least $225 for one of the sinks, which I could only barely justify to myself. But this is the kind of sink you build a room around. There were two options, one more subtle than the other, and I agonized over which one would be better. I finally decided on the one with deeper colors and contrast.

I carried it into the gallery and went straight to the sales counter. The woman began to ring it up and said, “You know the 40% off is the price that is on sink now. So it’s 10% off that price.”

Now, if this was Wal-Mart or Target, I might haggle. The woman acknowledged immediately that the sign was confusing; I think she might have let me argue her down a little. But the thing is, the artist deserves that much money for his work. And he has to split that with this tiny gallery, too. That also would be more money than I could budget for this bathroom. I sighed and said, “I’m so sorry, I can’t afford this then. It’s beautiful and worth every penny, but I can’t stretch my budget that far.” She nodded sympathetically, and I paid for the art that Cheetah picked out for her host family in Oaxaca.

Lima Bean stood with me throughout this, and as we made our way out to the car, he said, “There was another one out there marked in the two hundreds.” I stopped and looked at him. “I’m probably misremembering,” he said.

Cheetah had gone to the car during the purchase fiasco, probably to die of embarrassment and mortification. I opened the door and handed her the paintings (a set of 3). Lima Bean said, “Uh now I’m worried I’ve got your hopes up for nothing.”

I laughed and said, “I mean, the worst has already happened; I can’t be more disappointed, right? Let’s go check it out.” We went back to the table.

Lima Bean walked right up to the other sink I’d been admiring and leaned in. “Yeah! Look it’s marked $250.”

When I tell you I snatched up that sink so fast …

This meant I’d have to go with a different countertop on the vanity; the existing one had an undermount sink. I looked into one of the scrap sellers on Marketplace to see about having one cut. That man wanted $350. Apparently that is the limit of my willingness to appreciate the labor of a craftsman.

I decided to take up a new hobby. I’ve been watching these epoxy pours that float by on my little Magic Depression Box and thinking I want to try it, but I haven’t been willing to work in “new hobby” between everything else.

My plan is either going to be a disaster or brilliant. I poured my first epoxy project this afternoon; it’s basically a plate/bowl thing. And I built the mold concept I worked out in my head. I still need to seal it with silicon. I’ll let you know how it goes.