We are bursting at the seams to share with you our bathroom makeover, which was featured as a Before and After on the esteemed Design*Sponge today! D*S is a daily read for us, and it is a true compliment to be included among their roster of talented, creative designers and DIY-ers. Check out the feature here. Thank you, Kate!
We thought we'd give you a little back-story, complete with a few more photos, to compliment the D*S piece. Oliver and I love our bathroom. Like, love it, love it. Technically, it's actually nothing special. It's small, it has cheap white tiles on the floor and walls and is outfitted entirely in Home Depot wares. However, in moving to our current apartment, with our happy little bathroom, we left behind our old bathroom, which was like a dark wet cave. There was no ventilation and the light over the medicine cabinet maxed out at 40 sad, sorry watts. We had to rig up a light that sat on the back of the toilet just so I could do my makeup and not look like I was heading to my job at the circus. To conceal the inevitable orange globs of mildewy nastiness we knew would accumulate on the ceiling, we painted that bathroom a deep, zexy shade of deep red....walls AND ceiling. I firmly believe that no amount of white or bland "greige" paint is going to make some small rooms feel big. Some rooms are just going to be small. Embrace it. Make it a jewel box. That we did. And we didn't even mind the darkness so much! Then we moved, and we felt like we hit the jackpot.
In our current bathroom, we have a full-size south-facing window. It lets in glorious amounts of light all day. The subway tiles on the walls are cheap (if our building's contractors get the same prices I do, I suspect the tiles cost something like $0.29 per tile), but they are the very essence of New York classic chic and can be dressed up any which way. A perfect blank canvas. Despite our excitement about it's inherent brightness, our bathroom was a bit cold and sterile with all that white. So, we got busy making it warm and welcoming, while retaining the clean sunny-ness.
Here's what the bathroom looked like when we moved in:
Don't you just love the blue cast from the gnarly plastic shower curtain-as-curtain? Thanks, previous tenant!
We decided the bathroom was the perfect room to test out painting stripes, which I'd wanted to try out for a while. Full disclosure: when I refer to "we," let me be clear that I art directed like a mo-fo, but Oliver and his extremely kind, talented, patient and handy brother, Josh, did all the actual measuring and taping, guzzling healthy doses of Guinness all the while. It's a small bathroom, remember? Three's a crowd in there, trust me. This left me free to take photos and fetch beers, so I contributed.
Another disclosure: I am bad at painting interiors. I can paint on canvas nicely. I paint walls like a two year old. I am impatient, what can I say? Oliver allowed me to help paint the second and third coats of stripes over the course of the next two days.
Once the paint dried and we peeled off the tape, we got to work on accessorizing. I searched high and low for the PERFECT shower curtain. It did not exist in our price range. That overpriced shell of a store, Gracious Home, does, in fact, carry my dream shower curtain for the bargain price of $199. Gee, I wonder why they had to file for bankruptcy? I suppose I could have made by own, but if I'd promised something like that we still would not have a shower curtain. So, I finally found one from Anthropologie that has just enough pattern but still lets in lots of light.
We solved the privacy issue with translucent window film from Home Depot and two luscious hanging plants that absolutely adore their home in the sun and humidity.
We did little things, like replace the gross faucet with an affordable, but nicer looking one with ceramic levers, replace the broken flusher, install a hand towel ring, replace the tp holder, all from Home Depot. We also relocated the towel bars, added a little tp storage above the door, and treated ourselves to a super cute toothbrush holder from Rejuvenation. Josh also helped us install a dimmer, which is a real luxury in the bathroom! The painting was a wonderful gift from dear friends who hauled it all the way from Rio for our wedding.
Of course, we styled it up a bit for our photoshoot:
I brought the WC tile home from a trip to Spain in 1996. I've hung it at the bathroom door of every apartment I've lived in since. This photo also gives you a little sneak peek of our hallway – another bold color/stripe experiment. We'll be sure to post it soon!
