This project has been swimming around in my little noggin for the last 2 years since we moved into this house, and it feels so good to get it out and into the realm of reality! It was a little time consuming, but not difficult and CHEAP (which makes any time investment exceedingly worth it, in my book.) I thought the herringbone patter would require a lot of head-scratching and math (ewwww), but it’s just 45 degree angles one way or another. Easy peasy.
Here’s how we started out:
Very white. Very plain. Very boring.
This is “the boys” bathroom, which should be called “the kids” bathroom, but my 7 year old daughter refuses to use “the boys” bathroom, and who can blame her, really? Boys are gross. And boys’ bathrooms are REALLY gross!
So, I wanted the room to be masculine. I wanted to bring in the gray and navy from the kids’ loft area that’s just outside this bathroom. Both kids’ bedrooms that are also off the loft have wood elements in them, so that seemed a pretty natural choice as well.
To create the herringbone wood planking, I bought two 4’ x 8’ sheets of 5mm flooring underlayment (the thinnest of plywoods) from Home Depot. They are about $12 a piece, so the wood was only $24 and I had quite a bit left over. They were stained with Minwax Dark Walnut. They ripped the 4 inch wide planks for me at HD and I used my compound miter saw to make all the 45 degree cuts. I attached them to the wall using my Ryobi Air Strike Nail Gun (what would I do without this tool?!?! It’s amazing! You need one!)
Flipping the light fixtures from down-facing to up-facing makes the room instantly brighter and feel taller. (My favorite free fix!) And I also added a taller (96”) white shower curtain to take full advantage of the 9 ft ceilings and further brighten up the space.
I’m still on the lookout for the perfect fabric to make a valance for the window, but other than that, this room is done! AND it’s the last room in the house that hadn’t been addressed. You know what that means? I guess it’s time to move. ;)
