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The LL Journal

Oh, to be finished with this project feel so good! If you saw our plans we shared last week, you may notice we had to pivot and make a couple of changes (which usually always happen). One change was the mirror- after getting everything 90% complete, I felt we needed a modern mirror instead of vintage to balance out the vintage elements in this space. We landed on this mirror, which we love! We also decided on a vintage rug instead of a jute rug, thinking about this one, oh! and we changed the paint color… more on that below!

Get the Look

The Challenges

Ok, before we get into sharing our tips to help you refresh your guest bathroom, let’s talk about the challenges we faced first and how we thought (like we always do) that this would be a really easy update…

First, we stripped down and sanded our bathroom vanity. We shared this before but this use to be a furniture piece and we converted it into a vanity when we renovated/built our home. You can see here, it was refinished in a light grey with black wax finish- really pretty, but I wanted to add depth and warmth to the bathroom so I wanted to strip it down to look like a vintage pine dresser. Let’s just say, I don’t want to strip anything ever again… we used citristrip, and then oven cleaner (which did nothing), so we did multiple layers of citristrip and let it sit overnight… then we scraped, and scraped some more… then sanded, then I applied the same technique we did on our dining table and I finished it with white wax. Whew… it was a beast of a project to tackle, but worth it!

Next, we chose two paint colors, SW Mountain Road, and SW Skyline Steel. We LOVED both colors, and painted the walls in Mountain Road which is a pretty muted green… BUT in typical Laine and Layne fashion, we painted and then painted again… the green just wouldn’t work with our grey countertop, especially now that the vanity was stripped to it’s natural color. We decided to just paint the walls in Skyline Steel and I love how the countertops just blend in with the design now. We gave all of the trim and beadboard a fresh coat of our white trim paint, Valspar High Hide White, to make everything look fresh.

We also installed a new faucet… well, halfway installed it… we still need to go buy longer hot and cold plumbing tubes since the ones we have are too short.

We had anticipated on hanging this brass wall shelf above the vanity to the left where we could put hand soap and a candle to clear up counter space, but after getting everything hung, the shelf was just too much, so we nixed it.

Sharing all of this to say, even projects that are suppose to be simple refreshes still bring about challenges… DIY is no joke, and usually takes more time than you anticipate or plan for, but the end results are always rewarding and satisfying to know YOU accomplished them!

Now, let’s get to the tips and the rest of the reveal…

Simple Tips To Help Refresh Your Guest Bathroom

Tip 01 : Don’t be afraid to switch the paint color. If your bathroom is lacking depth, adding a neutral or muted color or millwork can really transform the space!

Tip 02 : Replace your window treatment with something unexpected like a patterned shade or cafe curtain.

Tip 03 : Ditch the shower curtain and use floor to ceiling curtains. We spray painted our shower curtain rod brass and hung oatmeal linen curtains to elevate the space.

Tip 04 : Incorporate a vintage element to add warmth and character. Our vanity was refinished to represent a vintage piece of furniture and we added vintage artwork in vintage frames for color and contrast.

Tip 05 : Update your toilet seat with the TOTO Washlet C5. The Washlet can be installed on your existing toilet and has so many amazing features like a pre-mist bowl cleaning feature, heated seat, deodorizing filter to help eliminate odors, a warm air-dryer, and more!