Rustic-Chic Bathroom Remodel

After a few weeks of some heart heavy emotional blog posts, I wanted to lighten things up with a fun DIY post. Thanks to Joann and Chip Gains everyone loves farmhouse everything. From our large farmhouse sinks to shiplap walls and the cotton, we have in every room for decoration. I am no different, I love me some farmhouse decor as well, but instead of rusted metal canisters and wagon wheel chandeliers, I prefer modern with an old slightly used feel.

Something I have deemed Rustic-Chic.

When we first bought our house, I knew our main bath had to go. It was hideous. Dark navy walls, old dingy title, and green titled countertop. While I could learn to live with one, maybe two of those beauty blemishes. All three was just too much. Before we even moved in, I pictured a crisp white clean bathroom with a rustic twist, but what exactly that twist was still needed to be found. That decision took me much longer than I expected.

The main bath when we toured the home.

Flooring:

We (actually I) first started by painting all of the walls white. As you can see from the pictures above painting was going to be no easy task as the walls were a very dark blue. What felt like endless coats of paint, the walls were deemed acceptable. Next, we went to work on the floor. In our previous home, we laid tile in our entryway, kitchen and the half bathroom, which undoubtedly killed my chance of every having title again. Laying so many tiles was exhausting, physically painful and overall a significant pain in Shaine’s ass. Which meant anytime I pointed out a cool tile the idea would get shut down. However, the ugly cream linoleum had to go. Insert, Snapstone! Snapstone is a porcelain tile but includes a snap/locking feature similar to many interlocking hardwood floors, which takes the work out of it. Snapstone does not require the old floor to be pulled up; you simply place the Snapstone titles over it. No more struggling with mortar or tile spacers; just lay it down, click it into place and bam! When Shaine showed me this, I was instantly in love. I got the concrete tile look I wanted, and he avoided the back-breaking labor. I ended up choosing the “Caldwell” variation that came as a 12×24 title we purchased from our local Menards.

This picture is from when Shaine tore out our old vanity and started to lay our new Snapstone. 

In this photo, you can see how easy the process is. He started in the corner near the tub. Laid his first piece, followed by his second before having the cut around the wall. He just used a typical wet saw to cut right through as he would for any “regular” non-Snapstone tile. He made sure he would always start a new row with a different size tile than the previous row.

And the final picture with all the tiles set and secure. To do this bathroom probably took Shaine two hours or so from start to finish. If you look closely, you can see we have yet to grout it in this picture. We did go back through and grout it to help keep the lines clean. The grout is more of a cosmetic thing than functional since the titles are completely secure without it. We did end up grouting it with SnapStone Flexible grout in Raincloud grey.

Vanity/ Countertops:

Now that the flooring is in it was time to move to the vanity. We had a brand new clean white vanity we bought for our kitchen remodel that ended up not being exactly what we wanted so instead of taking it back I decided to paint a pretty blue and use it in the bathroom. The vanity had a glossy white finish over it, which I knew was going to make it hard to repaint. And I was not about to sand it, prime it and then paint it. In the spirit of working smarter not harder, I began to research. And lucky for me, I learned of this amazing paint called chalk paint. Chalk paint is a much thicker coating than regular paint and is known for repurposing furniture without the extra work. Back to Lowes, I went… I ended up purchasing Rust-Oleum chalk spray. And man oh man was that paint a game changer. After one coat, our beautiful glossy pure white cabinet transformed into a dark slate flat blue cabinet. It was the perfect addition to our plain Jane white bathroom. The vanity gave the room a dramatic element, which only helped me build from there.

Going back to my previous post about our master bath’s penny floor, you may remember me talking about our beautiful white and silver quartz countertops we bought from Ikea. We decided to do the same countertop in the main bath as we did in our master bath. If you are not familiar with our countertops, take a second and jump over my post about our master bathroom penny floor, to read more about the amazing experience we had when picking out our countertops.

The finished, grouted flooring with the new dramatic blue vanity.

The project with the finished and installed flooring, vanity, countertop, and fixtures.

Rustic wall:

At the beginning of this post, I said I wanted a clean crispy rustic chic bathroom, but the pictures above do not show much rustic-chic which meant it was time to add some. I knew I wanted to add a wood element into the bathroom, we have it in the living room, master bathroom, kitchen, why not add some to the bathroom? However, the obstacle was the fact it was a bathroom. Bathrooms and water go hand in hand, as wood and water are not necessarily the best combo I had my work cut out for me.

I started thinking about wallpaper, but after researching, I kept reading about how people were putting laminate in their bathrooms since it is rated very highly when it comes to water. My thought was if people put it on their floor, why can’t I out in on my wall? After months of thinking about it, I decided that I should just go for it. I went to Menards and found Shaw Vinyl Plank Flooring. Before starting, I read many tutorials online. Some said to use the self-adhesive on the back, another said to use liquid nails, and some even mentioned nailing it up. Shaine and I figured using the adhesive on the back would be good enough in the rare (aka extremely likely) came I got bored with it in a few months I could remove it without damaging our wall. Well… we were wrong. My suggestion is to use liquid nails; I repeat, use liquid nails. I had half the wall up, decided to call it a night, only to be woken at two in the morning to a loud bang. Also, know as all the planks falling off the wall. *Sad Face*

Step by step instructions, with pictures!

If you are anything like me, you are probably a visual learner. I can read all day about how to do a home project, but until I see pictures or do it myself, I don’t quite understand the process. Here is my attempt to walk you through all the steps of putting up our wall.

Step one: Take all the planks of wood our of the boxes and organize by pattern/color. You don’t want two similar pieces directly beside each other so by organizing them it helps to keep the wood grains unique.

Step two: Place a new piece of trim or leave your original trim piece in place. Start by removing the plastic wrap from the back, placing a small outline of liquid nails all the way around the perimeter of the plank. Next place a full plank in the corner you wish to start. I choose to begin by the tub. I lined up the end of the plank right against the shower trim slowly placed the rest of the plank direct along the baseboard. Once the plank was where I wanted it, I would press the corners and middle of the plank against the wall, helping the liquid nail set. Next, I measured how much the length of the remixing space was going to be.

To cut each plank, I used a razor blade, box cutter, and an angled square to help me make my cuts straight. The razor blade did not go all the way through as I did not press hard enough. Hard enough I was able to bend the plank, and it would snap precisely where my cut was. Nice clean, perfect line every time.

Every time I started a new row I made sure I used a different length than the row underneath, that way the wall looked random, rather than an alternating pattern.

In a smaller area such as this one, I used all the same pieces but made sure they would line up with the row on the other side of the window. It appears as more of a continuation where the window was cut out, rather than a bunch of little pieces. Since I still had to trim out the window, I didn’t worry much about how straight my edges near the window were.

Here you can see some of the other methods we tried; Heat gun to help the original adhesive stick, FAIL. Or the time we thought rolling the adhesive would help, another fail. We ended up returning the heat gun because it was pointless but the roller we kept and continued to roll after all the liquid nails was applied. If anything we believed it helped the glue set quicker.

You know no project is complete in the McConnon household without Mr. Perfectionist getting his hands on it.

After about two hours (subtracting the time it took us to figure out the correct process) we had a pretty damn cool wall. Of course, we still needed to trim it out, but I was so happy with how much it warmed up our boring, sterile bathroom.

Next came trim

No farmhouse is complete without new thick basic trim. Since we were finishing everything in the bathroom, this was my excuse to head back out to Menards and pick out trim. I may be one of the only people on the planet to love trim as much as I do. When you have lived through as many home projects as I have, trim is just like the sprinkles on top. It indeed makes everything cleaner and more finished. Being the basic bitch I am, I choose a primed, square cut piece, nothing fancy. Shaine tried to talk me into getting something else that was already painted, sealed, but I just did not care for the glossy look. So in true Amanda fashion, we got what I wanted. And now I have to repainted and seal myself, BUT at least I can seal it with a flat sealant, rather than a glossy one.

In these photos, you can see Shaine nailing up our new trim and covering the imperfect edges of the window.

The finished wall of the new window trim and the wall.

To make the seam where the accent wall meets the white wall we add a small piece of 1/2 x 1/2 quarter round. By adding a section of quarter-round to the corner cleans up the lines and makes it look seamless.

Finishing touches

While I love the way the paint, flooring, countertop, vanity and now accent wall came out, it still needed a bit more. And then came my favorite part, decorating.

We had a big ugly builders grade mirror that was such an eyesore in the room. Back to the drawing board, aka Pinterest, I went. I saw many tutorials on how to upgrade a builders mirror. I knew I wanted to add burnt wood in this room since we have it in the kitchen, living room, master bath so by using it to frame out our ugly mirror seemed like the perfect solution. Most tutorials said to glue the wood directly to the mirror or to glue it to the wall. Neither of those sounded good to us just in case I change my mind later down the road.

I left it to Shaine to come up with a solution. He found mirror hanging clips that you usually use to attach the mirror to the wall, but in our case, he decided to attach the clips to the wood and then hang it from the mirror. Simple, easy and not a perfect thing. I have linked the clips he used here. Once he found the clips, he made the frame. He used 1×4 pieces of burnt wood, secured the ends with a mending bracket. After the frame was finished, he merely attached the clips to the top of the frame, and we lifted it up and hung it directly on the mirror. If the bottom doesn’t stay tight to the mirror, you can use self-adhesive Velcro patches. This step wasn’t necessary for us but gives you an option if you need it and still keeps the mirror removable.

Here you can see the transformed mirror. I apologize I don’t have any photos from when Shaine made the frame or from when he attached the clip because he was the sweetest and finished the project one night when I was working at the hospital.

If the wood wall, the burnt mirror weren’t enough Shaine found this small part of an old wooden ladder a few years ago, and I knew it would make the perfect towel holder above the toilet. The ladder was in bad shape, so I just sanded it down until it was “smooth-ish” and then I covered in a coat of polyurethane just to keep it sealed.

The final reveal:

The lighting fixture that was there prior was the simple metal vanity light you see here but with no covers. I wanted something a bit more industrial but couldn’t find exactly what I wanted. And then once again, Shaine saved the day. He saw these shop light covers at Menards for super cheap and just thought why not. He brought them home believing I would hate them but instead they were everything I had wanted. What do you guys think? Do you like my industrial, mismatched, not used for the intended purposes light fixture?

And bam, my rustic-chic bathroom is complete. Like always please message me if you have any questions about any of the projects I have done here?