Progress has been made in the guest bathroom — and that’s welcome news since Sherry’s mom and stepdad arrive in less than 30 hours. Our first win was finding a shower curtain. After a previous pattern mishap with a different curtain, we picked this one up at Target on Friday for about $20.
There’s still work to do — paint the walls and hang art — and we probably won’t finish that before the in-laws arrive. But the shower curtain already makes a positive difference. The larger medallion pattern reads better at the scale of the room and doesn’t compete with the tiny square tile like the smaller yellow pattern from our previous attempt. The dark brown adds contrast against the yellow tiles and off-white walls, and ties in nicely with the brown-and-white tones in the guest room bedding and the blue walls of the adjoining room.
After choosing the curtain and grabbing a cheap white fabric liner (also from Target) to keep the curtain from getting drenched, we hunted for a bath mat. Our first brown pick matched the curtain but felt too dark and heavy on the floor. A dark mat made the room look less clean, so we returned to Target for a mini bath-mat fashion show — Sherry may or may not have cheered it on.
We tried a square mat first that nearly blended into the floor and read as dull and dirty. That one didn’t work.
Next we tested a colorful rectangular mat to pick up the blue tones from the curtain and the deep teal of the guest bedroom. It matched the curtain well and would definitely bring more color into the space.
But the third option was the winner. Its clean, tailored stripes felt fresh without being overly matchy. The stripes play nicely against the curtain’s circles, and the shared white and brown palette keeps the elements related without being too literal.
We’re suckers for crisp white in bathrooms — the white toilet, sink, and mirror already make the white bath mat feel like a natural fit. White linens give that clean, spa-like hotel feel we want for guests, so we crowned the striped mat the winner, removed the tags, and returned the others.
We also tackled a few hardware updates. The toilet seat needed replacing: the old seat had chips and tears and wasn’t a style we liked. Replacing it wasn’t glamorous, but it was satisfying — and quick.
Swapping the seat brought back a dorky memory: in ninth grade I used a toilet seat for a science project to illustrate mollusk anatomy, so I can confirm toilet seats take dry-erase markers well. Proud to be that nerd.
We also replaced a rusted shower head. The old head worked fine but looked tired, so we bought an inexpensive multi-setting replacement at Target for about $14. After some elbow grease to remove the old one, the new shower head installed in under a minute and looks much nicer.
I tested the new shower myself so any first-use quirks would happen to me and not my mother-in-law. It passed the test — water pressure is solid, even better than our bedroom shower — so guests are in luck.
One zero-cost improvement: we found towel hooks hidden on the back of the bathroom door. After removing the mirror that used to hang there, we didn’t realize hooks were mounted on the opposite side. I unscrewed them and reattached them to the inside of the door where they belong, while Sherry spackled and painted the leftover holes on the back side.
We still have a few final touches to add — towels, maybe some art — but the bathroom is fully functional and guest-ready for basic needs. We’ll share finished photos once Sherry arranges the accessories. We’re also making progress in the guest room and will post updates on that soon.
In the meantime, have you made recent bathroom upgrades? Any tips for preparing a guest bathroom (beyond stocking shampoo, conditioner, and toothpaste — which we already plan to provide along with fluffy towels and washcloths)? This is our first time equipping a guest bathroom that we don’t use regularly, so any advice is welcome.