Sometimes I get impulsive and start demo work without thinking much about the follow-up. For some reason, after staring at the towel racks in our hallway bathroom for the hundredth time, I finally decided it was time to act. Who really needs all those towel bars? And who thought it was a good idea to put one off-center under the window so it stuck out into the shower curtain? Especially when there was room for a small hand towel ring on the untiled wall by the sink and door.

That wonky half-under-the-window towel bar really bothered me. So I inspected the towel holders and realized the ones in the shower were fine since they’d be hidden behind a curtain most of the time. I also hoped the pieces were surface-mounted on the tile so I could carefully remove them and keep the tile intact. I decided the off-center bar beneath the window had to go first. It was my least favorite towel bar in the history of towel bars.

I carefully chiseled at the holder with a flathead screwdriver and a hammer—tap, tap—and at first it seemed to come off easily. But my hope that the hardware was surface-mounted was wrong: the holders were inset into the tile. So instead of a clean removal, I ended up with two visible gouges in the tile that looked terrible.

My stomach dropped. John had no idea what I was doing; I was planning a triumphant “look what I fixed” surprise rather than an “oops, I damaged the original 60s tile” confession. I tried to calm myself by imagining baked potatoes—an odd trick I learned during months of pregnancy nausea—but I also started thinking through repairs. At first I assumed we’d Dremel out the damaged tiles and replace them, but then I noticed a simpler option that would solve at least one of the holes immediately.

Look at the window and you’ll see what I noticed: there was trim on the sides and top, but not along the bottom. Adding a small piece of white trim under the sill would balance the look and hide one of the tile blemishes. We’d also planned to hang a long shower curtain up near the ceiling. That curtain, when pushed toward the window, would cover the other damaged spot whether it was open or closed. It wasn’t a permanent fix for the second hole, but it was a perfectly acceptable temporary solution until we could find a matching tile.

So I shuffled down the hall, doing my best sheepish “I went a little crazy” routine, and asked John to help add a little trim and rehang the shower rod higher so we could use our long curtain. He didn’t react dramatically—no yelling, no eye-rolling—just got to work fixing my mess while I held the baby and offered compliments to smooth things over. I flattered him with lines like “you look great in that hat” and “nobody hangs trim like you,” and managed to get a small smile out of him.

John pried out an old strip of trim beneath the windowsill with a flathead screwdriver, then cut a replacement from our scrap pile. He matched the style to the other windows—straight cuts down each side with a small 45-degree diagonal at the bottom corners, made with a miter box. He attached the new piece with finish nails, angling them toward the sill and using a nail punch to set them without denting the trim. I painted the new trim with leftover trim paint we had in the basement, and the result was seamless.

About twenty minutes and zero dollars later, the damage was virtually invisible. The new bottom trim made the window look more balanced, and the shower curtain now hides the remaining damaged tile until we can replace it for good. John even took a well-balanced photo afterward; he remembered to white balance the camera, which I sometimes forget in the middle of demo mania.

It may sound like a stretch to call my little tile incident a positive, and I won’t deny that it was a bit of a disaster at first. But the added trim genuinely improves the window’s appearance, so that change is staying. The curtain solution for the second hole is temporary but practical until we find a matching tile. Most importantly, the bathroom no longer has that annoyingly off-center towel bar that used to catch my eye every time I walked by. Who would want a hand towel grazing the toilet paper dispenser anyway?

I’ll accept the verdict: sometimes a little craziness leads to a better result. Hooray for spur-of-the-moment fixes.

Psst—Curious about the silver nozzle next to the toilet tank? It’s part of a recent small upgrade we made to the toilet hardware.

Psssst—Clara’s first birthday is less than two months away, which has us thinking about a simple DIY party. We’ve been jotting down ideas and looking for tips as we plan something cute and low-key.