A year ago after we moved in one of the first projects I tackled was the powder bathroom. It should’ve been an easy win! Just change the vanity top, paint the cabinets, put up some wallpaper, change the light fixture, and, and, and…
Needless to say, it was a much bigger project than I had imagined. But I really wanted to get it done ASAP so that at least ONE room in our house was “finished.” With my rush to get things done under budget, I effed up big time with the wallpaper install. I briefly mentioned it in the post What Home Renovations are Left. And now I’m here to lay it all bare!
Before
I had a great vision for what started out as a very boring, very white bathroom.
I wanted to make it over with a small budget. So we proceeded to replace the bathroom vanity top, faucet, light fixture, and mirror by ourselves! The DIY vanity top replacement is what I am most proud of to date, but I will also never do it again. It was very time intensive and since all of our other vanities are larger, I hired a pro to handle those bigger jobs.
The last pieces left were the wallpaper and cabinet paint. I found some gorgeous peel-and-stick wallpaper and talked about my experience installing it here.
It turned out beautiful - for a couple of months! But the problem was, our bumpy textured walls couldn’t hold the stick. After some time, pieces of wallpaper fell off or lifted. I tried to fix it by applying wallpaper paste to those parts (which completely defeated the point of peel-and-stick). But I could see the misaligned seams and bumpy wall texture every time I used that bathroom, which made me feel even more bad/frustrated to the point where I didn’t even want to go in there anymore!
I knew I should’ve just done what was recommended in the first place - floating (aka smoothing) the textured walls before applying the paper. But I tried to take a shortcut with time and budget that REALLY ended up biting me in the butt. I thought I could push this re-makeover off until after I have the baby. But there’s nothing like seeing a compiled list of What Home Renovations are Left that gets me going! I ended up hiring a professional to properly float the walls and install traditional, pasted wallpaper. I wasn’t going to take a chance with peel-and-stick again!
After
I couldn’t find the same peel-and-stick print as traditional pasted wallpaper, so I had a new choice to make:
Asking HB was no help, because he said “they all look the same” 
So I did what I want! I went with the most whimsical of all the choices:
Now I step into that room with joy! The best part is, when I’m using the toilet I don’t see misaligned seams! 
I ended up not painting the cabinets black because a) there was already a lot of black from the paper itself and b) I was lazy.
I didn’t think the bathroom needed new tile to appear better. It just needed more color and interest, which was achieved by the wallpaper! Get the biggest impact with the least amount of work, right? At least, that was my original thinking before my screw-up lol.
While choosing the paper I even wondered if the print would be too childish or trendy in the years to come (thinking of re-sale). But you know what? I live here now! And at the end of the day, what really matters is that I’m happy. Who knew that a bathroom could bring me this level of joy?!
Have you ever experienced a DIY fail? Tell me about it!
P.S. You can also shop these bathroom products on Amazon. I will get a small commission if you make a purchase through these links at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!
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