Now that our bedroom suite is complete (except for the storage), I’m moving on to the next project – the studio bathroom. This bathroom will serve as our guest bathroom for the foreseeable future. Once this bathroom is finished and functional, I’ll go back into the bedroom suite and convert the current guest bathroom, located off our bedroom suite’s foyer, into a much-needed storage area.
This is what the studio bathroom looks like this morning…
Yes. It’s a bit chaotic. And as you can see, I tried the floral wallpaper in this room as some of you suggested. But we’ll come back to that in a moment. The good news is that this project should progress fairly quickly. This morning I took inventory of all the projects that need to be done here and compared to previous projects the list for this room is pretty short. All the major projects are complete – building the vanity, installing the crown molding and other trim, etc. So I still need to do a few cosmetic projects and get the toilet and sink pump repaired and then this bathroom will be ready for use.
For those of you who are new, I wanted to take a trip back in time and show you exactly how this area started. My studio used to be our garage. When we bought the house, the garage was just studs and tar paper, so it was very dark. Shortly after, my father-in-law came and helped me put up the drywall in the garage. So at this point it looked like this…
The door on the left leads into the breakfast room, and the opening on the right is where the area at the back of my studio originally looked. It was a very dark storage room with a sturdy door leading to the back yard.
In this storage room I had a view of the area that is now my studio bathroom. This area used to be where the huge oven was located, but I don’t have a good photo of the area before the oven was removed.
So this area has undergone a huge change. When I originally decorated the studio bathroom it looked like this.
I painted this hand-painted design on the walls, and while it was a fun project and I really liked the result, it was just for me. I was the only person who ever used this bathroom, so I was a little crazy about colors and patterns.
And back then I painted the back entrance walls this very strong green.
It was fun for a while, but when I finally got around to finishing my studio, those bold green walls had to go. I ended up painting the walls a different green (a custom color I mixed myself) to tone it down a bit. This color looked much better with the floral wallpaper I used in the studio, which has the same design as the curtains on the back doors.
When the studio was finished, I started renovating the bathroom. I can’t remember what my plan was for the walls, but I removed the yellow tiles and started with this wood accent in place of the tiles.
I think I got about halfway through it and then we completely changed direction.
I think it was around this time that we decided to move our kitchen into what is now our breakfast room and walk-in pantry. And then we wanted to convert that bathroom into a walk-in pantry to have easy access from the carport (through the back doors of the studio) to our new kitchen (in the current breakfast room and walk-in pantry area). So I practically closed the bathroom door and walked away.
If this all sounds confusing or you can’t imagine what I mean by a “walk-in pantry,” don’t worry. Since then, plans have changed. Sometime last year I decided that I didn’t want to have endless remodeling projects (and those would have been MAJOR remodeling projects), and I was perfectly happy with our kitchen staying exactly where it is, our breakfast room staying a breakfast room, and our walk-in pantry staying exactly where it is. So the plans for all this major remodeling and construction were scrapped, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Now all I have left is this bathroom that still needs to be finished. And now that our original guest bathroom has been placed in our master bedroom, it can no longer be our guest bathroom (because how inconvenient would it be to have a guest bathroom in a master bedroom?!). Therefore, this half bathroom in my studio will be our guest bathroom for now.
Here you can see what it looks like right now. Again, it’s a complete mess so I really need to spend a day or so cleaning it up. But once that’s done, I think you can see that finishing this room won’t be a massive undertaking.
I need to do some repairs on the walls using drywall mud. This is really the hardest part. Once that’s done and the walls are smooth again, I’ll put up wallpaper, add some trim, swap out a few things (new faucet, new ceiling light), and then add a few decorative accents.
I’m not sure yet whether I’ll repaint the vanity or not. I’ll decide that after I decide on the background image. Right now it’s a really dark gray/cream color.
The most expensive part of this project will be repairing or replacing the pump that the sink and toilet are connected to. The plumbers seemed to think it can be repaired, but there’s a chance it may need to be replaced. This broken pump is the reason this bathroom hasn’t been used for so long.
But now let’s talk about wallpaper. In my last post about this room I said that I would be using the colorful square wallpaper that I had designed for this bathroom. I designed this wallpaper using colors taken from the floral wallpaper mural on the front wall of my studio. And then I said I would use the dark floral wallpaper I ordered about two years ago in the closet in our bedroom.
But several people said I should swap these out and use the colorful squares in the closet and the flowers in the bathroom. I was open to this possibility and decided to give it a try. Here’s a look at the teal floral wallpaper looking into the studio. Keep in mind that the floral pattern on the front wall of the studio is also on the curtains on the back doors of the studio. (Please forgive the mess in the studio. I went through this room like a tornado while finishing the projects for our bedroom. Now that the bedroom is finished, it needs a deep clean.)
Again, I’m open to this idea, but I’m not convinced by it. The bathroom and storage doors in this back entrance to my studio are painted a deep eggplant tone. And one thing I don’t want is for my wallpaper decision to trigger other changes. I want to avoid the whole “one thing leads to another” trap (aka “if you give a mouse a cookie”). And I don’t like the dark eggplant doors with this wallpaper.
I also don’t like the flower mural in the studio. I know I said I would cover every surface in our house with flowers, trees, birds, and butterflies if I could get away with it, but I also want them to coordinate, and I don’t think they coordinate or complement each other at all.
Here’s a look at the colorful square wallpaper I actually designed for this room, using the colors I took from the floral wallpaper mural. For me, it looks much more pleasing to the eye because they coordinate with each other and complement each other.
Every color in this wallpaper comes from the studio and therefore even matches the dark aubergine doors.
So if I were to choose at this moment, this would still be my choice.
But here too I am open to changing my mind. You can tell me your opinion. In the meantime, I’ll be here cleaning everything up and getting ready to start this project. This should be fun and I really hope it goes really quickly!
