The Guest Bathroom is Done(ish)!
/Well it’s happened! I finally finished the guest bathroom. Ish. Woo hoo!
I started this one a few months ago. The bulk of the work was done fairly quickly - it was the finishing touches that took so long.
Because I haven’t blogged in forever, I forgot to take a before pic of the bathroom. Luckily there was one in the listing.
I wasn’t 100% sure what I wanted to do other than I knew it wanted to be fun. I decided the biggest choice was flooring. After what felt like FOREVER, I finally narrowed down three options from Floor and Decor Outlets.
It took a bit of time, but I finally settled on my choice. The next decision? What tile would I use on the shower itself. That one was easier to decide. I knew what I wanted instantly. What, you may be asking, did I choose for the floor and wall? Well I’m glad you asked…
While the pic above looks like I have black grout lines between the wall tile, that is just mortar. I ultimately went with white grout on the walls and black grout on the floors.
Image courtesy of Home Depot.
Once the floors and tile were in, it was time to select a vanity. I scoured the internet to find something that would work as the distance between the back wall and door was tiny (like less than 20” deep tiny). I almost gave up and went with the original pedestal stink the builder had been installed but ugh… I just hate pedestal sinks in full-size bathrooms. Determined to find something, and after weeks of searching, would you believe I found the perfect vanity at Home Depot? And not only was it at Home Depot but it was IN STOCK locally. Woo hoo! I called my baby brother, who picked it up, and the hubs installed it the next day.
Image courtesy of Amazon.
And that’s where things sat for about a month. Just like the vanity, I had an incredibly hard time finding the perfect light and mirror for the bathroom. One of the biggest lessons I learned with the last house was that it’s better to wait and get what I want, then to rush and buy something I would replace later. So I waited. And waited. And waited until I FINALLY found the mirror I wanted. This time Amazon had the prize I was looking for. I loved the mirror because it had shape and curves but wasn’t over the top. I originally planned to hang a round mirror but thought this one fit the space better. And the light? I found it at a local lighting store and snatched it up immediately.
And that, my friends is where things sat over the summer. I knew something was wrong with the space but wasn’t sure what the problem was. I kept going back to the paint color. It was just so bleh. The problem was, I couldn’t find a color I liked. I mean, color is my thing and I didn’t like any color I tried.
At my wits end, I text a girlfriend of mine (shoutout to Meg) and she said “you should do grasscloth wallpaper". I was intrigued but still wasn’t 100% on board. So the bathroom just sat there - partially undone and boring as hell. Fast forward another long month and I’m at a conference in LA. I walked into the bathroom in my hotel room and what did I see? Grasscloth wallpaper! I knew at that moment grasscloth was the way to go.
I spent the next week researching wallpapers. I finally decided on one and slapped it up on the wall. It’s hard to see in this pic, but if you look super close you will see the knockdown texture through the wallpaper. Note: I spent a ton of time googling “can you wallpaper over knockdown” and pretty much every blogger I found said it was doable. It was not. I know that in this pic it’s hard to see, but on the opposite wall it was so bad that my 10 year old niece asked what happened to the wall. Ugh…
So after all of that time, I ended up pulling the wallpaper down. Yay for easy to remove wallpaper but grrrrrr.
Still determined to use grasscloth, I just decided to skim coat the wall in order to flatten out the texture. I have to admit, it was strangely relaxing skim coating. The only issues I had were 1. Getting it “perfect” 2. Waiting for it to dry. Holy guacamole it took over 24 hours to dry!!!!! Now I should add here that I wasn’t sure if I was going to put the same wallpaper up (I had 2 rolls left). To be honest, I didn’t love the wallpaper. It said it was textured and felt like real grasscloth - it didn’t. It hard very little texture which is probably why you could see the knockdown through it so easily.
I ran up to Lowe’s and I remembered seeing wallpaper there once. It was the Scott Living (Property Brothers) brand so I thought I would check it out. I was excited to see that not only did they have grasscloth, it was the right color AND actually had texture. Even better, it was peel and stick (although I wasn’t sure how I felt about that). I decided to give it a try. If I didn’t like it, I could always take it down. I mean surely Jonathan and Drew wouldn’t let me down, right?
So after a day of waiting for the skim coat to dry (ugh) I finally got to work. Guys, the Scott Living Grasscloth wallpaper was AMAZING!!! For one, I loved the texture. Second, it was so crazy easy to put up. Since it’s peel and stick, you don’t have to worry about it ripping or not being able to rearrange it. I can attest that it can be peeled off and moved several times while keeping its adhesiveness. With regular wallpaper, it’s easy to tear when you trim the pieces - not the case with the Scott Living Grasscloth wallpaper. It’s basically a roll of contact paper for the wall so super easy to cut.
One hurdle I had to overcome was making sure the seams lined up. Because it is a stiff material, I couldn’t slide the seams together like I can with traditional wallpaper. I figured out a way around it - trusty ol’ painter’s tape. I taped the seams together before pulling the backing off. It worked like a charm. Oh! And see all those creases? Yeah, they come right out.
Wallpapering the entire bathroom took less than an hour because the paper was seriously that good. If you can’t tell Scott Living grasscloth wallpaper is my absolute favorite wallpaper ever. I could write that a million more times. And since I didn’t get paid a dime to give Scott Living a shout out, you know it’s legit. But I digress.
After getting the wallpaper up, I was finally able to finish up the bathroom. I’d like to add some pics to the big wall by the door, but I haven’t had a chance to get them printed and framed yet. And with that, here it is in all it’s glory…
So there you have it! Have I mentioned that I LOVE THE SCOTT LIVING GRASSCLOTH WALLPAPER? I did? OK enough then.
I’m really happy to have this mostly done. My husband laughed and said it’s the nicest bathroom in the house - nicer than our master! It’s all good though because it is one of the first things I see when I get home and one of the last things I see when I leave - and that makes me happy!
