the blind monkey union

1. Our travel plans for yesterday fell through because of a miscommunication, so we stayed in and had a very quiet night, knitting and so forth. Today has been pretty quiet, too, but at least I did something other than knit and work my way through more of Enterprise's third season - I got groceries, made soup, helped Sean clean the living room, and scrubbed out the bathroom.
It's easily the least loved room of our house, probably because it's kind of depressing. Apartments almost always have floors that were chosen less for their aesthetic appeal and more for the ability to hide scuffs and stains, and were laid by blind monkeys in the '60s; the walls are, almost without exception, painted white with a sprayer, also generally by blind monkeys (rental apartment renovation is their sole evolutionary niche). Our linoleum is cream with grey and pink designs and pretty stained, and the white paint is slopped all over our sink and mirror. To round out the gross effect, the water stains anything it touches bright orange, which is mostly what I scrubbed out today - drips on walls, stains on grout, etcetera. Unfortunately all the elbow grease in the world isn't going to make it nice without a coat of paint - there's a lovely paint silhouette of our old toilet tank, for example - so I'm thinking of painting above the wainscoting, as well as a good coat of white below, to make it a little nicer than stained white with stained cream. For some reason I would really like to go nuts with the masking tape and do Debbie Travis pinstripes - maybe a soft grey to match the grey in the lino? - but I really wish we could have a non-neutral colour in there. I'd put up pictures but even with an hour of scrubbing, it's pretty unpleasant.
Thoughts? Should I ignore the floor and go bold, or would grey pinstripes be fun?

2. I'm working my way through depressing amounts of homework, but what I'd really like to be doing is organizing my wardrobe wishlist - I keep wanting to make new clothes, but not knowing what exactly to get for fabric and giving up in dismay, or not knowing what style of shirt I would like to attempt, and so forth. Today I downloaded a screencap tool that makes it easy to select just a piece of the screen, which makes it far easier to build a portfolio of anthropologie clothing I'd like to rip off - er, emulate. I'm going to scout a little more for things I would like, and then start making a plan for exactly what I'm going to make and what I need for them.
I would also rather be making upcycled jewelry from burnt out Christmas lights, but life just isn't fair sometimes.