A few weeks ago I was getting my hair done and I was admiring my stylist’s new salon and all of the cute decor she had. I was in the middle of deciding what I should do to my half bathroom on my main floor and after seeing her salon I thought that’s it! I want to make my bathroom look just like that! 🙂
I also wanted to make my half bathroom flow with the rest of the house which has some modern farmhouse aspects to it. You may remember, I added some planks to my fireplace here and to my little homework nook here. I thought that by adding some planks to the wall in my bathroom it would tie it all together. I didn’t want to plank the whole wall because it’s a lot of work and part of me is worried I might be over the planked walls here in a few years.. I just love having the one wall planked I think it’s perfect for the space.
I started by enlisting the help of my husband to close up the lighting outlet above the mirror and running wires in the ceiling so that I can have a pendant light. Before, the only light was above the vanity and it was just too dark for me.
I was repainting the ceiling anyway so it was okay that I had to touch it up a little after he added the light. I also painted all the walls, baseboards and trim. You never want your trim to be darker white than your walls, that would just look weird so because I was using such a bright white, my trim didn’t look as white, so I just painted it all. I even painted behind the plank wall. Just one coat though.
Check out some of the befores and afters. When we moved in, the room was very dark. It’s so much lighter now and I love it. The bathroom seemed to take a while for me to finish-but mostly because I was busy with other things so I only had about an hour each day to work on it. But it’s done and phew I’m so happy!
Once the room was painted white, I added some trim to the windows. You can see how I have slowly been changing my window trim in this post.
Next, I worked on the plank wall. I used the same wood that I used for my board and batten trim I posted about here. The nice people at Home Depot cut the two 1/4 inch thick boards in to 2 1/2 inch thick planks. I wanted them to be the same width as the planks in the other parts of my house. I cut the boards to the right length at home using my chop saw. Then I sanded down the cut edges of the boards and painted the inside seams with a roller brush. This made the process a lot easier so that I didn’t have to worry about it looking uneven because I was leaving a gap between the boards. I wanted it to be white, even in the cracks. I used a finish nail gun to attach them to the wall, Putting a penny in between each plank before nailing so that I had just a tiny gap between each plank. I then added the crown molding in the room and two thin pieces of trim to go along the wall edge of the planks. This way, it was okay if my measurements we’re exact. I then painted everything. Make sure that you have a knife or something thin close by when painting so that you can get rid of any buildup in the cracks between the planks. If you miss a spot and paint dries in a crack you can scrape it with a knife.
After the painting was done and the plank wall was finished, I added the floating shelves. I found this shelf at Hobby Lobby in clearance and it was too deep of a shelf so I cut it in half with a table saw and then it actually worked out perfect because the inside was hollow. I screwed a piece of wood to the wall, set the shelf on it and then nailed the shelf to the piece of wood that was on the wall.
My husband helped install the new faucet and drain. I love the little faucet and it was a steal, but because it wasn’t totally standard, he had to work at it a little to make it fit okay with our current pipes. But it works just great and I love it.
Another little trick I did that i think makes a huge difference is that I spray painted the pipes under the sink. I just used oil rubbed bronze color and it was an easy thing but you can totally see all the pipes behind the sink and they look so much better now than before when they were silver.
The bathroom seemed to take a while for me to finish-but mostly because I was busy with other things so I only had about an hour each day to work on it. But it’s done and phew I’m so happy!
