This guy:
You may remember the wall we were working on before we removed the awkward shelf and towel bar. After patching the holes and repainting, the space already looked cleaner and simpler.
With only two nails and a very lightweight canvas, we hung a piece of DIY art I made a while back. I originally painted it for the bedroom, but it felt too aqua there, and it fits nicely in this bathroom. I used latex wall paint on the canvas — the same paint you’d use in a bathroom — so it’s durable enough for the humid environment. The oversized painting helps balance the room against the tall shower curtain on the opposite side, and it reads less heavy than the old shelf that stuck out from the wall.
The painting’s pattern doesn’t line up perfectly with the tree-border tile that runs around the room, which is a bit busy. We plan to replace that border someday with soft frosted white or gray glass subway tile, which should create a cleaner, more cohesive look. The existing tree tile isn’t bad—it’s just not our style—so swapping it out will make the space feel more like ours.
Here’s a close-up detail of the artwork.
One of the nicest surprises is how the painting looks under our blue pendant light. The room immediately went from builder-basic beige to feeling more personal and lively.
And a detail shot of the light itself.
One practical issue remains: the door is hitting the floor grate and won’t open fully. We’ve added “remove the door and shave a bit off the bottom” to our to-do list so a bath mat can sit outside the tub without getting chewed up by the door.
Originally, the door, the window trim, and surrounding trim were a dingy off-white that made bright white towels, the shower curtain, and the light switch look dirty by contrast. Since we prefer crisp white trim, I pulled out leftover semi-gloss white paint and refreshed everything.
After two coats of the off-the-shelf Olympic Premium semi-gloss, the trim matched the towels and curtain and the whole room felt brighter.
Here’s the refreshed window trim, glossy and clean.
From the doorway you still can’t see the artwork behind the door, but once you step inside the bathroom the painting becomes a focal point.
This update was essentially free since we used art that had been sitting in the playroom and leftover trim paint. It made a noticeable difference without much effort or cost. Here’s our current to-do list:
paint the walls so they have some contrastreplace the boob lightpaint the cream trim whitehang some bathroom-friendly art- sell the old toilet and replace it with a classic white model
- add privacy to the window
- remove the door and shave the bottom so a rug can sit outside the tub (and add a door stopper to protect the art)
- replace the border tile around the room (maybe in phase 2)
- center the blue pendant light in front of the window
- replace the floor tile eventually to break up the expanse of tile
So that’s the latest from our little bathroom refresh. Any trimming or art-hanging projects happening at your place? Have you used a large canvas to add color in a small room, or made quick, inexpensive upgrades that transformed a space?