Have you ever walked into your house and thought “man, there’s so much to do”…so much you want to fix or redecorate? Whether those rooms are desperate for a little TLC or just that they don’t represent you/your style? Yea, that’s pretty much how I felt about our guest bathroom. It was ok…in good shape, but just not our style. We just really wanted an updated bathroom!
Fun fact: we never did any updates to either of the guest bathrooms in our last two houses! Our first house needed a lot of work, in general. But, we spent most of our time and money on updating the floors, master bathroom/en suite, and the kitchen. By the time we decided to get around to having an updated bathroom for our guests…it was time to sell!
Our second house had an updated guest bathroom. BUT, it had some very bold red tile backsplash that I really REALLY wanted to take down. However, life had other plans for us. With getting married right after we moved in, and then having two babies while living in that house, we just never got around to it. So, with this new house, and with quarantine, we had nothing but time to update it. Whooh hooh!
The Before Of Our Updated Bathroom
As you can see from the before photos, the colors and overall style of the bathroom were more traditional. A lot of tans and browns being used. The wall color was darker than I prefer and the lighting was very dim. And, I loved the storage. But, the darker stain on the cabinets on top of everything else being dark was a little too much dark for me (you could turn that into a drinking game…drink for every time I say dark in this post lol).
The best thing about it all was that we didn’t have to do too much to have an updated bathroom. There was no moving of walls, installing cabinets, or moving plumbing. Everything was really just swapping out things that were outdated for more modern pieces.
The After Of Our Updated Bathroom… ta daaaaa!!!!
First, I decided to whiten the walls and add extra lighting that would brighten the room (i.e. glass vanity light and a new more modern exhaust fan with light). We also put our lighting on a dimmer so we could control the brightness.
As for the vanity, after much debate, I decided to keep the existing one. I really wanted a floating one like we had in our second home. But, the existing one was in good condition, and it just didn’t make sense to spend money to replace something that would still look good and function well in this bathroom. So, the vanity stayed, but I did update the faucet so ha! Take that, bathroom! lol
The previous owners took their vanity mirror with them (not the one pictured) which was totally fine by me…it too was not our style. So, I found this very cool and modern gold hexagon mirror and hung that bad boy up! It came in both black and gold. But, I went with the gold because I knew I wanted to add a fun black design to that wall. I also wanted to add some wood accents to warm up the space and compliment the cabinets. So, I felt the gold really complimented that.
Last update was switching out the ornate brown knobs on our cabinets to modern black ones. And, did a fun design on the wall. I really wanted to add wall paper but, I just didn’t have faith in myself to pull that off well. (Seriously, lol) So, instead, I found these awesome and easy to apply Dalmatian print vinyl decals on Etsy. It took 3 orders of these and a whole evening to get them just right, but it was worth it! They gave the bathroom the fun look that I was really aiming for. And, I get lots of compliments for them!
After that, it was on to decorating. I love adding greenery to spaces! But, sadly I have a brown thumb. I picked up a few faux plants from Home Goods. And, I found the cutest floating geometric wall vases that I also added some more greenery to.
Quick tip: The holders for the wall vases were very brassy. So, I hit them with a quick coat of a deeper gold to match the mirror. Also, the greenery in them is from Amazon. They’re held in place with foam that I taped to the bottom of them.
I put up some wall art that had the greenery theme and found a great faux marble tray that I could use for things like tissue and a good candle to light for when we have company. My favorite candles for the bathroom are Peace + Tranquility from Chesapeake Bay. I get a two pack of them from Amazon.
And, just incase you’re wondering, the cabinets store our bulk toilet paper, tissue paper, and paper towels. I keep extra candles, febreeze, and cleaning supplies in there, as well. And, the kids have a dedicated drawer for their toothbrushes, hair brushes, hair ties, etc. The other drawer I use for extra guest towels, wet wipes, and a light for our candles. I highly recommend adding a good amount of storage in any bathroom if it doesn’t already exist!
Overall, this project wasn’t too elaborate, but the end results, IMO, are like night and day. Let me know what you think! What is your favorite part of our updated bathroom?
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