Weekend Bathroom Makeover + DIY Wallpaper Hack

The mental engagement of the past couple of weeks has been intense and heavy–as it should be. I find that in order to maintain stamina, I need to carve out space and time to process information and thoughts… to get out of my own head. For me, getting out of my own head often requires getting my hands to work. Creativity always feeds my soul. This past weekend I finally tackled a bathroom makeover for my oldest daughter’s bathroom beyond the vanity, tile, mirror and light fixtures we chose when we first moved in, and I absolutely love how it turned out. And even better, so did my daughter! This was all a surprise for her. She knew I was redoing her bathroom, but she wasn’t allowed in it for the weekend and had no idea or input when it came to color, the print, any of it. But I’m so happy to say she LOVES it. Like, genuinely loves it. We don’t really have that “smile and pretend you like it” gene in our family, so I know when she’s being sincere.

Before we get started, just a quick word about home design. We’ve lived here for 1.5 years and while most of the big spaces are done, and there are no more major renovations left, there are still rooms–like the bathroom you’re about to see–that I’m still getting around to “finishing.” (Which is one of the reasons I still haven’t done a full home tour yet.) And even in the main spaces, I have photos and art to hang. Even if it seems super fast that I did this whole makeover in a weekend, keep in mind that I spent months thinking about it. Weeks shopping for all the supplies and accessories so that when I finally started it could come together quickly. I like the saying and idea coined by Erin Conway of Kismet House, home takes time. 

I’m going to walk you through my decisions and the process. It feels like I did a lot, but the biggest impact statement piece was for sure the DIY wallpaper hack. Yes, that’s right. This is not wallpaper! I’ll show you how I did it all below.

(Also, please forgive me, but the photographs aren’t the best. Again, there is no natural light in this bathroom, and because it’s small I couldn’t use my  regular 50MM lens. So these are all iphone pics, that have been edited to try and get the best lighting/color possible.) 

But first, here are the sad little before pictures:  

And here is the after: Such an impact! 
For a design novice like myself, having a plan ahead of time was key (which is probably what professional designers do all the time. Go figure.)  And while I’ve often had a plan when it comes to a space, I usually only have a plan for one thing at a time. This time, I decided to plan everything out beforehand–paint, faux wall paper, shelves, towel ladder, hooks, pictures–so that I really could execute it all in one weekend.

The two big hurdles for the space are 1) There are no windows in this bathroom (in any of our bathrooms actually. But the ones on the upper floor have skylights. I’ve never had windowless bathrooms before.) And 2) We have to have a large vent cover over a large hole in the wall to properly vent the crawl space, and so finding a way to creatively and attractively cover the vent, while still allowing air-flow was a top priority.

First, the faux wall paper which is a combination of paint (green background) and cream vinyl cutouts that I created using my Silhouette Cutting machine. Of course this DIY would be pretty impossible without one of these machines and I honestly couldn’t recommend them more. This post is completely not sponsored–I’ve never been sponsored by them–but I have often featured DIY’s using my Silhouette and I highly recommend them. From birthday parties to t-shirts I use this machine all the time.

I started by painting the walls Dard Hunter Green by Sherwin Williams. I actually skipped the whole “go get a few paint samples to paint swatches” step because COVID wasn’t allowing me in the paint store. I could tell them what I wanted from the door though and they’d mix it up–so I sat in my car looking at online samples and I’m not sure if I got super lucky, or if I’m just that good (wink), but I absolutely love the color.

In between waiting for coats to dry I worked on the shapes. I wanted the look to be Matisse-esque, while also incorporating other shapes. At first I was simply drawing shapes onto paper, but I quickly realized that if I wanted that cut-out look, I actually had to cut the paper out. Some of them I did trace on paper first, but most of them I just free-style cut the shapes. I didn’t worry about size while I was cutting or drawing shapes, because I knew I could make them as big or small as I like in the Silhouette program.

Once I got all my shapes narrowed down, I scanned them into my scanner, then traced them in my Silhouette program and started cutting. The first ones I simply cut out on cardstock so I could have some test shapes to tape to the wall and help me figure out scale. This was such an important step because I realized how similar in size so many of my shapes were, and I definitely needed to make some adjustments before using a the vinyl. Then there was a lot of cutting sheets of vinyl, placing them on my cutting mat, cutting the shapes doing it again. It really isn’t bad, it’s a fairly mindless process, so you just wait (read, listen to a podcast, watch a show) while the machine does it’s thing. I ended up using 5 or 6 rolls of this cream colored vinyl.

Not knowing exactly how many pieces of each sticker I was going to need I would do them in batches. I only started with 2 rolls (ha! hahahaha) and thankfully a trip to the craft store got me enough to finish.

There wasn’t a lot of rhyme or reason to placing the stickers. I wasn’t going to try and follow any sort of pattern like real wallpaper, but I wanted it to look cohesive nonetheless. I decided that the largest shapes–the botanical inspired ones–would be the my base so-to-speak. At first I just started placing stickers randomly, eventually making sure the bigger botanicals felt prominent and evenly spaced and then I kept layering in and layering in the smaller pieces all around. The main goal was not to have any similar pieces next to each other, while again also making it appear thrown together in a perfectly imperfect sort of way while not “overthinking it.” Basically, I was trying to make it the wall equivalent to every J.Crew catalog styling from the past 10 years.

I think this step took more time than painting, but also a lot less messy. And since I’d run out of one kind of shape or another, I was having to stop more in the middle of the process to cut more shapes, stick on the wall, re-evaulate and then move forward. But it was a great time to listen to books and podcasts, so I didn’t mind at all. And eventually I just stopped when it felt right.(Sidenote: I tried to do Jenny Komenda’s paint a room in one-hour, with one-coat trick and I didn’t get the right coverage of paint. NEXT TIME. I did forgo wall tape and a drop cloth though and I’m never looking back!)

After that, it was about putting everything together. As I said, having everything purchased beforehand made this so easy and satisfying to do it all at once. I had previously purchased the shelf brackets from Rejuvenation (on sale… always wait for a sale) and asked my husband if he could prepare two boards for shelving. (He’s a woodworker and we have a lot of spare wood around the house! (That’s what she said.)Honestly, we weren’t sure how good it was going to look to have the shelves in front of the vent, but it looks so good! Yes, you can still see the vent a little bit, but it is a night and day improvement. Then I had my husband hang the hooks–we used these ones from Amazon and I have them in other rooms around the house as well. Love them–and the pictures above the hooks. I bought these desert art print photos to put in the frames. My daughter loves cacti, and I wanted to include them in the decor.

Because I know you’re going to ask here is where I purchased all the accessories:
Frames on wall / Vanity Mirror on Shelf / laundry hamper / TP basket similar / Towel Ladder/ Floor tile

The only thing I don’t love is that the towel hooks and photos are hung a little too high. I wanted to make sure the towels wouldn’t hit the ground, but clearly, they could be moved down a little. One of my pet peeves is art that is hung too high, and these are definitely hung too high. But I’ll fix it another day when I have the patience to move them, putty and paint the holes.

I think that’s it! Let me know if you have any questions and I’d be happy to answer them in the comments.

XO,
Miggy