We’ve been in Raleigh for a little more than one month now, so I figured it was probably a good time to add our guest bathroom makeover from our old house to the blog. Now or never, right?
I love how this space turned out, mostly because of how much work Justin and I put into it.
It was the last room makeover we did on our home before we sold it in May, and now that we’re in a temporary rental, I desperately miss home improvement projects.
To give you some background on this project, I started it last year (in May 2019) by attempting to stencil paint the tile floors. The original floors in this bathroom were just that … Original to the house, outdated, and dirty.
If we were going to makeover this bathroom, we needed to start from the bottom up and redo the floors first so all other renovations could follow.
The idea to paint the floors as a temporary solution was born out of my desire to stick to a tight budget. After all, I had seen countless DIY-ers accomplish this exact feat. How hard could it actually be?
Stenciling our floors was a huge mistake. 0-out-of-10, I do not recommend. It was time consuming; I spent hours in here, on my hands and knees, painting for over one month only to be greatly underwhelmed by the finished product.
I found out I was pregnant with Jack shortly after I finished painting the floors, so trying to find a suitable fix to cover over my stencil hack job fell to the back burner.
We lived with these awful floors for one year before I picked up the project again when Jack was about 4 weeks old.
Again, I thought I could paint them. And, again, I was wrong.
This time I tried a black and white checkered pattern, which would have looked great if the edges from the paint I stenciled previously didn’t raise up through the layers of black and white paint I slathered over the tiles.
At this point in the project, we were aware that we would be listing our house, and I refused to put it on the market with the bathroom floors looking this way.
That’s when I turned my attention to sheet vinyl — an inexpensive and attractive solution that we should have gone with from the start.
I found this beautiful option that didn’t look like vinyl flooring at all.
It looked like tile, and I loved it.
Plus, it fit beautifully with the aesthetic I was going for in this space.
Justin and I were able to install it directly over my painted floors in one day.
The floors were the final piece of the project since I had already moved forward with installing this beadboard-style wallpaper to the lower half of the wall and this rabbit wallpaper to the upper half.
If you’re looking for a very inexpensive alternative to real beadboard, I cannot recommend this wallpaper enough.
It’s pre-pasted, which makes installing it a breeze, and it removes easily from the wall (meaning, it won’t damage your walls if in a few years you decide to take it down).
Also, it is paintable. I gave ours two coats of Sherwin-Williams Snowbound.
I dreamed of using the rabbit wallpaper for months. I even included it in my nursery inspiration when I was planning our nursery before we knew if Jack was a boy or a girl.
{Need help hanging wallpaper? Check out my how-to post here.}
We also used this time to remove the old pedestal sink and replace it with a more modern and useful vanity sink. This bathroom had a linen closet for storage, but the vanity added some additional storage space that was much needed.
Final touches included a peg rail, a trendy market basket, and a farmhouse-style wreath that looked beautiful against the rabbit wallpaper.
I miss this home and the spaces we made our own, but I am excited for what is to come for our family here in Raleigh. More than anything, I am thankful for what this house — our first as husband and wife — taught me. From this home I learned that my passion truly lies in home improvement and interior design, and that these are two things I feel most confident with and am good at.
I look forward to using these passions again as Justin and I plan our next home. Stay tuned for updates on that next adventure!
Shop our bathroom makeover:
