My kingdom for a bronze toilet handle

I have a question for the folks on the show Trading Spaces. How, exactly, does one transform a room in 48 hours, AND expect paint to dry?

Last night I put the third coat of paint on our family room (now called "the reading room") walls. The first coat went up about 6 days ago. I would love to see one of those rooms redone by the folks on Trading Spaces and see just how bad the paint job is. The camera may add ten pounds to anyone on it, but it also hides a lot of paint on the ceiling, bubbles, drips and bumps.

I also installed three new kitchen cabinets and sealed the grout on the bathroom tile last night. So it was a slow evening. I keep having to remind myself that we have no hard deadline, and even though the sheer volume of items on the renovation to-do list seems to be enough to employ a team of 12 for 6 months, it can and will be done. Granted exercise, social engagements, and basic hygiene must be pushed aside for now, but it can be done.

I'd like to take a moment to submit some suggestions for those of you thinking of redesigning a bathroom. The one thing we learned through all this is that if you want your bathroom to have a specific design or look, you can't just "go with the flow" picking out the shower, faucet, etc whenever the builder calls for it. It is in your best interest to select everything at the same time, buy it, store it in the garage, and stop shopping. Like most products these days bath fixtures have begun following the same scheme of planned obsolescence that iPods do. A decade ago, brass was in. Last year, brushed nickel was all the rage. Now, it's oil rubbed bronze. But don't blink, because bronze is about to succomb to the power of copper. Now isn't that ironic. Copper. The same stuff that runs water through your walls and gets hidden because it's so ugly, is now used to make beautiful faucets. Pricey ones too. We're talking kids-are-going-to-community-college pricey.

When the build started, Fred the plumber told us we needed to pick a shower. So we got a shower, after mulling over design and color. Then he needed a shower faucet, so we went down the brushed nickel route (cuz it was the style at the time). Later on, we decided on a floor....and cabinets....and lighting. Suddenly the brushed nickel look wasn't the look we wanted, and we decided we needed to consider bronze. So now we have a bronze faucet and a brushed nickel shower head. DEAR GOD. Ty Pennington's gonna kick my ass. But wait, that brushed nickel trim on the shower door....does it balance things out, or make the situation worse? And what about our toilet handle...can you get a bronze toilet handle????

You know, the heck with it...I'm gonna get the fish tank toilet.