I never thought this day would come – our guest bathroom is finally done!
The day we moved in, the guest bath was just like all the other rooms in our house – dark, dated, and neutral to the extreme.
Some of the first changes we made were to paint the walls and vanity, replace the builder-grade mirror with a framed one, and hang some DIY art. Not huge changes, but at least we got some color on the wall!
Then came the real work. Scraping the popcorn ceiling led to a new wall color and new baseboards, which led to a vanity update and a conundrum: What would we do about the mess we made when we removed the old countertop backsplash?
Add paneling, of course! We originally thought we’d tile all the way up the wall, but we ran into issues with the thickness of the tile not hiding the gap between the countertop and the wall behind it. Then Stephen proposed white-washed horizontal paneling (thicker than tile and thick enough to solve our problem), and I was on board!
We glazed the paneling with a translucent white deck stain, perfect for areas with lots of moisture. Then it was time to install the new light fixture and tape off the rest of the vanity area in preparation for more wall paint.
Finally, here we are today: The Guest Bathroom Before and After!
We decided to break up all that horizontal paneling with a new round mirror instead of the old rectangular one. I love that lots of the paneling is still visible – it was hard work, why not show it off?
On the wall above the vanity, I hung two prints we found in Paris. It’s actually amazing these prints even made it home with us. Almost immediately after we bought them it started pouring outside, and they survived the sprint back to our hotel without getting completely wet and wrinkled. Needless to say, I have a certain attachment to them. 🙂
The new towels and shower curtain are Target finds. Originally we’d planned on keeping a white shower curtain in this room, but then we came across this damask one with the very color palette we’d been wanting in this room, plus gold, a perfect neutral color for towels. Sold!
On the opposite wall is a bike photograph I love (via The Hamster Factor). It works with the golds and grays in the room and is a nod to Stephen’s love of cycling. I found a nice frame and mat at Goodwill for $8 and just tossed the original artwork and popped the new photo in it.
You can just catch a glimpse of it here, but that toilet paper holder is actually somewhat DIY. I looked and looked for a brushed nickel holder I liked that wasn’t too expensive (why are those things so pricey?). After a fruitless search, I decided to take the two ends from the old hand towel bar and the springy middle part from our old toilet paper holder and make my own. And you know what? It’s exactly what I was looking for, and it was free!
I picked up an oil diffuser from Pier 1, but it seemed a little unstable on the toilet tank, so I found a glass and metal candleholder from Target to keep it in. Just three reeds in the diffuser keeps the oil scent from getting overpowering.
So that’s a quick look at our updated guest bathroom. I didn’t keep very specific records of the cost on this project, but I think it was in line with our master bathroom makeover, if not a little cheaper. Probably in the $400-500 range.
So what do you think of our new space? Did you expect paneling to be our backsplash of choice? No? Me neither! 🙂
