Beautifying

Our groundfloor might be the most neglected area of our house. It's role is essentially that of a basement, except that it happens to be at ground level. It's a very functional space, but it's quite possibly the most un-beautified level of the entire house. Part of this unbeautiful space is a small half-bathroom.

I think it's largely due to the groundfloor's being a hodgepodge of a multi-purpose space that's lead to its neglect. It's really hard to get inspiration for a design theme or idea for an area with so broad a scope. So, while I don't love the builder-grade beige color of all of the walls down there, for the life of me I cannot decide what color would be better. However, I have offset the bland color (in the main room) with a fabulous gallery wall over my work space. I love it!

Still, that bathroom is just sitting there. Unbeautiful. No character. This spring we'll have been here for 3 years, so I figured it was time to do something about it. Actually, last November I decided and got the paint and stuff, but now I'm actually doing something about it.

Here is what it looked like originally. Blah blah blah. Also, why is there a long towel rack on the wall in addition to the towel rack by the sink? There's no tub in there. No no no. That was the first thing to go. 

I've pipe dreamed about a somehow putting in a wooden accent wall for this bathroom forever. There are lots of inspiration photos and tutorials online for that sort of thing. Pallets are a really popular choice, and I almost got some pallets to achieve that truly rustic look, but getting (and prepping) the wood seemed daunting. Plus, it's a *really* small room and I worried that the wood planks would shrink it even more. Then, I discovered rustic, wood plank wallpaper. Problem solved!! And all at once the ideas began to flow: Rustic Woodsy it would be.

I painted three walls a lovely gray.

Already the room had way more character. That was the easy part, however. Next came wallpapering.

This was my first time working with wallpaper. The kind I found was non-woven, add-your-own adhesive kind. YouTube promised it would be easier to work with; a quick project. No problems. Yeeeeeah... maybe if you're experience that would all be true. For me, if this is the "easy" type of wallpaper, I don't think I ever wish to play with the old-fashioned type.

Also, this was a classic measure twice, cut once mishap.. even though I thought I'd measured carefully, when I put the paper on the wall, I was a couple inches short at the bottom all along the wall:

Happily, since it's a chunky, horizontal pattern, it was actually pretty easy to go in and patch the bottom. Oh, but soooooo irksome. I may or may not have been grumbling and griping enough that Hubby came in to check on me a couple times to make sure I was really ok.

However, in the end, I emerged victorious! The wallpaper (up close) may have some imperfections, but when you step back, it looks really great! Then I added a few extra touches and voila!

I have plans for building a rustic lantern box to hang in the corner, just right of the sink. Then I can put some more plants in there. So, stay tuned!