When we ask renovators about what inspired them, they often reference an Instagram post they saved or a cool hotel they visited. But Leah Hodson’s bathroom makeover began much closer to home. Er, technically, it began at her old home.

When the U.K.-based DIYer behind @thestanleydiary moved in December, she was especially sad to leave behind her “perfect bathroom,” which was almost entirely covered in marble tile. The best spot in her new house to re-create the look was the powder bathroom: It was a blank canvas—albeit one with lots of quirky ceiling and wall bump-outs. 

The only difference this time was Hodson didn’t want to use actual marble. “I’m not quite ready to take on tiling just yet with two toddlers running circles around me,” she says. Hodson also wasn’t interested in spending thousands of dollars on a bathroom upgrade, so instead of browsing the stone yard, she found herself Googling Calacatta Viola marble–inspired mural wallpapers. Belarte Studio proved to have the most realistic option. “Everyone who has seen it in real life can’t believe it is wallpaper,” says Hodson. 

The Supplies 

• Wallpaper
• Wallpaper adhesive (Hodson used a U.K.-sold product by Anaglypta)
• Wallpaper smoothing tool
• Scissors
• Box cutter
• Wood molding of your choosing
• A level
• Liquid nails
• Clear acrylic backsplash 
• Brass screw caps

Calacatta Marble, Belarte Studio ($6 per square foot)

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Ultra Clear Strippable Wallcovering Adhesive, The Home Depot ($9)

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Step 1: Find the Start Line 

Because Hodson’s mural wallpaper is so bold and the powder room is so small, she felt swathing every inch in the faux marble design would make the space feel minuscule. So as a compromise, she decided to only cover three half-walls and one full wall. Because the back toilet wall was getting the full treatment, she decided to begin there. First, she drew a line down the middle of the wall, so she would know where to align the two seams of the separate wallpaper panels. (Over time, wallpaper can slide and reveal the gaps between sections, and if said gap is situated in the middle of the room, it will actually be less noticeable than if it were off center.) 

Step 2: Paste and Stick 

While peel-and-stick treatments are popular among DIYers, the design Hodson fell in love with requires you to coat the wall first. Using a paint roller, she dipped it into a tray of paste and then rolled the adhesive onto the wall. “I found this gave more even coverage than a brush, which I’ve previously used,” she says. 

Step 3: Patiently Work Around Bump-Outs

The tricky part came when matching the panels on the full wall with those on the half-walls. This is when the sharp box cutter and time-tested rule of “measure twice, cut once” came into play. Hodson made sure to line up the sheets on the pipe box perfectly so the veins in the faux stone looked like they were all one piece. 

The area around the vanity unit gave her the biggest headache. Hodson accidentally cut the wallpaper too short, forcing her to cut a small sliver piece to hide the gap. “Which took far longer than I’d have liked to get right, but I’m glad I did, as it is barely noticeable,” she says. 

Step 4: Give Yourself a Seamless Border

For the surfaces only covered partially in wallpaper, Hodson installed wood molding around the top edge, first using a laser level to make sure the border would be a straight line. Then she applied the wallpaper from the top of the baseboards to the bottom of the wood molding. The trim piece gives your eye a natural end point. 

Step 5: Protect the Splash Zone

Even after refreshing the tired-looking vanity with a no demo hack involving precut fluted MDF and liquid nails, Hodson was left with a problem: preventing the wallpaper behind the sink from becoming damaged by moisture. 

Cue CutMy. She took the brand’s 6mm acrylic sheet (it came precut and predrilled) and made a backsplash, complete with brass screw caps that cover the drill holes. The invisible barrier allows the faux stone to still shine through. 

The post This DIYer’s Powder Room Is Covered in Calacatta Viola Marble—Or Is It? appeared first on domino.

Whenever I enter a new space, my mind goes into overdrive, gathering inspiration and envisioning changes. But there is one particular area I’ve always wanted to get my hands on: my mom’s laundry room, purely for the challenge it brings. Everything in there is competing for attention; there’s a toilet, a still-working microwave from 40 years ago, a fridge covering an unused back door, and a washing machine. 

I (delusionally) gave myself 10 days to complete this renovation. While my incredible mom was speaking at the World Health Organization in Switzerland, I took over her home with a tight hour-by-hour schedule that I thought would see our timings align. But unfortunately, what I didn’t consider was life. My rock-star 98-year-old grandfather was assisting in the initial stages, but on day eight, he had a stroke. It was tools down for some weeks. 

As he recovered, a turn of events saw Project Laundry become a family and friends affair. Even with the help, there were still some bumps, like when I flooded the place after drilling into a water pipe. But eventually, we got there, and it’s all the more special now that my grandpa’s been able to see it in person. 

Paint Directly Over Wall Tiles

The pink tile just had to go, and with limited time and budget, I turned to paint. When painting tile, don’t skip the preparation, as it will affect the final result and longevity. I used TSP (trisodium phosphate) to wash the surface before lightly going over it with a 180-grit sanding block. There are kits on the market, but a painting expert recommended using a boat-grade product that won’t rust or get moldy around moisture. The first coat of primer had me worried (as it looked incredibly blotchy and left a pale pink hue), but thankfully I trusted the process, and after the two coats of paint went up, the space was immediately transformed. 

DIY Doors for an Easy Custom Look 

I’m a big fan of IKEA’s kitchen base cabinets and have used them for various projects. It’s the doors where I like to get creative. I kept it simple this time around by making Shaker-style doors out of plywood sheets and MDF trim. But simple still has its complications. All was good until I realized my ½-inch plywood was not thick enough to cover the hinges, so I ended up having to add another layer of backing (from MDF scraps) to thicken it up. 

Repurpose Your IKEA Cubes 

Chances are you or someone you know has cube storage. After moving the refrigerator into the corner closest to the door, I stacked two of the boxy Kallax shelving units to create upper cabinetry. To make them look legitimate, I customized the doors, this time with a slatted wood design. I started with four sheets of ¾-inch-thick MDF (I learned from my previous mistake) and used a table saw to cut the thin strips of wood. From there, each strip was glued and nailed to the front with a constant space between each piece. Unfortunately, the result wasn’t dead even, so the slats don’t line up perfectly. Another regret of mine was not adding a backing to the cubes before installing them. Peel-and-stick wallpaper, anyone? 

Turn Old Furniture Into Floating Shelves 

Repurposing was at the forefront of Project Laundry, so when my grandmother suggested recycling wood from a headboard I’d made when I was 15, I was in. My grandpa and I had the best day breaking it all down to the studs before taking those pieces to build the framework for the floating shelves. But as I drilled the final hole in the wall, a small disaster struck: I hit a water pipe. Thankfully, the plumber was able to come quickly and patch it up, and all that remained was adding 3-millimeter-thick plywood sheets to the frame and applying a light stain. 

Don’t Overstuff Your New Space

Before I build anything, I like to ensure there’s room for growth. If you fill it up right away, and with no organizational plans, before you know it, it’ll be just another space to store whatever. With my label maker in hand, the base cabinets became a spot for home-cleaning supplies, while the top cubes felt perfect for bakeware and other lesser-used cooking items. Most important, both spaces have open and empty areas for future growth, and even though my mom didn’t get that 10-day HGTV-like reveal, she gained a super-functional multipurpose room that she loves.

The post Turning an Old Headboard Into Shelves in This Laundry Room Was My Grandma’s Genius Idea appeared first on domino.

You haven’t heard what happiness sounds like until you listen to someone describing what it’s like to use their newly remodeled bathroom. “Every time I walk in, I feel like I’m in a dream,” a DIYer once told us. “There’s this peaceful moment when you walk in. Like: Oh, this makes sense!” described another. For some, creating the ultimate sanctuary is the goal; for others, it’s building a space that is easy to keep clean and organized. We’ve seen homeowners and designers go above and beyond to make their bathrooms special, whether that’s searching high and low for a transparent resin tub or installing a towel warmer to make bath time with a baby a little more pleasant. No matter how dated or quirky your bathroom is to begin with, the 10 bathroom remodel ideas ahead will get you one step closer to that pure-bliss feeling. 

Save a Sad Shower-Tub Combo

Tubs are practical on so many levels, especially if you have little ones in the house. But when combined with a shower, the result often comes out looking like the “before” scenario above: minuscule and dingy. Investing in a graphic tile surround and a deep soaking tub can change all that. In this Los Angeles home, designer and architect Susan Nwankpa Gillespie covered the interior shower walls with a combination of two Zia Tile hues (Rouge and Casablanca) and clad the facade in amber zellige tile. 

Carve Out a “Shower Room”

If a tub is just not your jam (or, like in Anastasia Casey’s case, it takes 40 minutes to fill up), use it as an opportunity to expand your shower zone. The Identité Collective founder built off the pipes that were already there and added a second showerhead by the glass-block window (where the tub used to be), as well as a wand, which comes in handy when the dog needs a scrub-down. 

Paint Over Tile If You Don’t Have the Funds to Replace It…

Think of ugly, large-format tile as a blank canvas. At least, that’s what British designer Hannah Drakeford saw when she decided to apply two coats of V33 Renovation Floor and Stair Paint to her floor tile, laminate countertops, shower screen metalwork, and radiator. She then made it waterproof by adding one coat of Zinsser Bullseye 123. 

DIYer Nicole Christopher took a similar approach in her tiny Vermont bathroom by using Benjamin Moore’s Atrium White inside the shower in the brand’s Bath and Spa finish and Vintage Vogue green for the paneling and built-ins surrounding it. Her whole project rang in under $500. 

…Or Skim Coat Over It

Meet Leanne Ford’s quick fix for a dated bathroom. The DIY relies on SureCrete, a type of cement-based overlay, which can be applied directly onto an existing surface and made waterproof with a concrete sealer.

Push Your Vanity to the Limits

The pedestal sink was a strong giveaway to designers Alex Boudreau and Hayley Cavagnolo that this kids’ bathroom used to be a powder room. To make up for the major lack of storage, they scrapped it for a double vanity with open shelves and lots of lower cabinets painted in a creamy white and buttery apricot combo.

Invest in an Addition 

By shaving off part of this Seattle home’s kitchen, the architects at Best Practice Architecture gained a 30-square-foot micro bathroom addition that could accommodate a Japanese soaking tub, called an ofuro. It acts as a threshold between the interior and the deck, with a folding window wall opening up to vistas of the cherry and maple trees outside. 

Hide the Toilet

The toilet used to be the focal point of this New Jersey bathroom, but now it’s tucked away in a proper water closet with a pocket door that’s framed with wide slabs of Calacatta Fantastico marble. 

Go Dark

In her new Tudor home, Casey designed a cavelike shower swathed in dark green soldier-stacked tile with matching grout. She insisted on a curbless layout so the experience of walking inside the cocooning area is 100 percent seamless. 

Finesse the Details 

Sometimes the best bathroom remodel ideas are the simplest. For this Spanish-style home, the trick was rounding out a vanity corner here, adding marble trim there, and spotlighting the existing sauna with a see-through door. 

Flip Your Tile Orientation 

Natalie Myers of Veneer Designs ditched the two individual vanities in this main bathroom and turned them into one unit. Then she swapped the shower and tub placement to optimize the layout and ensure the most frequented spot was bathed in natural light to really achieve that zen feel. By switching the horizontal tile into a vertical format on the wall, the room appears larger than it really is.

The post 10 Spa-Like Bathroom Remodel Ideas, Whether You Have $500 to Spend or $25,000 appeared first on domino.

Leanne Ford started her design career in an old schoolhouse in Pittsburgh 14 years ago. The Pennsylvania native, who was working in fashion at the time, was determined to turn her attic into a dreamy primary bathroom with help from her brother, Steve Ford, a seasoned carpenter, even though three contractors told her it was impossible. The roof was slanted. The window was tiny. And there was no obvious place to put a tub (a must-have for Leanne, who takes at least one soak a day). 

Still, her vision was clear: an open-concept wet zone with no shower curtain. To accomplish that, Steve cut into a crawl space and took over a closet. Next came the waterproofing. Wall-to-wall tile was absolutely necessary, so Leanne went searching for the perfect option where any other novice renovator would: Home Depot. “When I’m using construction materials, I like to use the classic, more simple stuff that big-box stores have so that it is timeless and will let my fun, funkier, more artistic pieces do the talking,” shares Leanne. An affordable white subway tile by Daltile—a case goes for $15 and covers around 12.5 square feet—called her name then, and it still does now.

“I used this in my very first bathroom, in my very first house, and I still love it,” admits Leanne. While the subway style is very much a staple today, the designer remembers it was hard to find back then. “Now I’m glad it’s a go-to,” she says. The trick to making it appear more custom is all in the grout. Ford tends to go for high contrast by pairing it with a charcoal shade. An oldie but a goodie.

Daltile Restore Ceramic Bright White Subway Tile

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Daltile Restore 3 in. x 6 in. Ceramic Bright White Subway Tile, Home Depot ($15 per case)

The post The Best Thing Leanne Ford Bought From Home Depot Goes Back to Her First Reno appeared first on domino.

Unless you consider yourself the bubble-bath-taking type or have little kids in your house, you probably don’t want or need a tub. Scrapping it altogether and replacing it with a walk-in shower is one of the most common bathroom remodeling moves we see, but what does it actually cost to make the change? Modernize Home Services recently launched a Shower Remodel Cost Calculator to help people tally up all their potential shower reno expenses. 

According to the company’s findings, when you choose to convert your tub to a shower, you can expect to pay between $1,800 and $4,430 at a minimum. The cost can go up from there depending on the materials you choose, the condition of the existing shower, and the price of labor in your area. And things can get steep fast: Home Depot’s average estimate falls a smidge higher, between $6,000 and $10,000, for example. But don’t let those numbers deter you from making the change. Below, three of our favorite tub-to-shower transformations that are reminders to prioritize the spaces you actually use and love. 

The One Made for Aging in Place

While designer Natalie Myers’s clients had no need to keep the ADA-compliant walk-in tub that was previously in this space, she maintained a similar partition wall in the new shower setup, mostly because it offers a little privacy. Additionally, inside the shower, the half-wall serves as an anchor for a floating stone bench. The element is handy for anyone who prefers to sit while sudsing up. 

The Double-Sided One

Anastasia Casey estimates her old tub took at least 40 minutes to fill up and likens the 30-inch-wide shower to a “tiny, awful coffin.” She decided to expand her standing room by taking over the tub and turning the area into a double shower (peep the other side in the picture at the top of this story). Casey built off of the pipes that were already there and added a second head by the glass-block window as well as a wand, which comes in handy when the dog needs a hose-down. 

The Night and Day One

Domino’s managing shopping editor Samantha Weiss-Hills’s bathroom footprint is exactly the same as before, but it looks like she gained a few extra feet of space because there’s no longer a fiberglass tub and curtain bisecting the room. The glass partition (a $300 Wayfair score) allows sunlight to reach every corner, including all the potted plants on the tippy-top shower shelf.

The post What Converting a Tub to a Shower Will Really Cost You appeared first on domino.

You’d never know looking at Leanne Kilroy’s bedroom and bath now, but at one point during her remodel, there were gaps in the shower floor tile, a permanent marker stain on the dresser’s marble countertop, and an irremediable leak coming from the tub spout. That’s the thing about renovating: Sometimes you have to go through all the painful mistakes to get to the right place. “It was actually a blessing in disguise when the original penny tiles I had purchased for the shower were laid incorrectly and had to be ripped out,” says Kilroy, the interior designer and founder of London-based firm Good Bones. Having the opportunity to see them in the space, wonky-looking and all, inspired her to switch gears altogether and purchase the green tumbled marble tile she’d secretly wanted all along. “And I really, truly love it,” she adds. 

She’d been set on creating an en suite since she and her family moved into the house in November 2020. The space adjacent to the primary bedroom was essentially a smaller replica of it: It had the same orange floor varnish, broken ceiling spotlights, and bulky MDF cupboards. After relocating their youngest child to a different room upstairs, where she could be closer to her sister, Kilroy and her husband decided to join the two areas with a new door and designated the more petite room as the new bathroom. “It was the very first thing the builders did, and it was so satisfying,” recalls the designer. Ahead, a closer look at the three-month-long transformation, its trial and errors, and why it was all worth it in the end.

Go Full Circle

Both the bedroom and bathroom layouts were designed to have circular circulation. In other words, you can walk all the way around the tub and, likewise, you can do laps around the freestanding wardrobe that doubles as a headboard. Not only does Kilroy find that dead ends often lead to gloomy corners, but the openness makes her life as a mom of three easier. “I’m always lugging around armfuls of things that need tidying or cleaning, and I’m constantly forgetting things here and there. Having shortcuts is a small but constant joy,” she says. The same goes for the primary suite’s relationship to the rest of the house: The bedroom and bathroom are connected to each other, of course, but each one also features a separate entrance to the stair landing.

Bring Back Bubble Baths

Wanting to avoid the clinical design trap that so many new bathroom renovations fall into, Kilroy focused on adding pieces with age and character, like an enormous claw-foot cast-iron tub, an eBay score. The designer refurbished the piece herself with Zinsser BIN primer and, once that was dry, two coats of satin paint. Connecting the fixture to a water source turned out to be the trickier part. The taps that had come with the tub were leaky and beyond repair. Kilroy found herself buying a floor-standing filler that she hadn’t initially budgeted for. No regrets: “We’re so happy we have our own bathtub and have taken more baths in the past few months than in the past few years,” she shares. 

Seal It and It’ll Deliver 

Swathing the shower in plasterlike microcement gave the bathroom additional old-world charm, but Kilroy’s decision to extend the treatment beyond the wet zone and onto the adjacent two walls was a more practical one. “Most plasterers have minimum square feet required per job, and finishing the inside and outside of our shower wouldn’t have met those minimums,” explains Kilroy, who tasked CMG Finishes with the job. The Forcrete finish, color-matched to Little Greene’s Portland Stone Light (the paint color used throughout the rest of the room), is in fact waterproof.

Kilroy also gets a lot of questions from Instagram followers about the original wood floorboards in a place that’s prone to H2O. (Psst: After sanding them down and lightening them with Danish lye, she had them covered with a satin lacquer.) For her, keeping them was worth the risk. “It makes the room feel less like a bathroom and more like any other room in the house,” she explains.

Put the Broken Pieces Back Together

The fireplace in the couple’s bedroom was a lucky find. The pair stumbled across the red marble mantel and tiled surround on the side of their road. “We weren’t sure if it could be saved, let alone if all the pieces were there, but I made my husband carry it home anyway,” says Kilroy. The spliced-up parts lived in their basement for a few years while they saved up for the reno. When it came time to install it, they hired a professional restorer who only had to source one extra replacement piece to tie it all together. The dark red stone ultimately inspired the deep burgundy color of the built-ins in the dressing area. To achieve a slightly brownish red, the designer mixed RAL3004 with a Paint & Paper Library color called Scarlet ‘n’ Rust. 

Look for Happiness in Small Places

Kilroy didn’t want to have to compromise between natural light and privacy in her dressing room, so she installed double track window treatments with a heavy curtain on the outside and a light linen-blend drape on the inside. “It’s a small thing, but pulling that voile closed to get dressed and pulling it back open once I’m done really makes me happy,” she says. 

Another precious perk? The dual-outlet shower—there is both an overhead fixture and a handheld hose that can be used simultaneously. “Using both at once feels like the ultimate luxury,” she says. As does the fact that her towel radiator from Etsy is located right at the opening to the shower: “Our towels are not only easily accessible but hot and toasty.” Talk about warm fuzzies.

The post This Primary-Suite Refresh Revolved Around a Room-Dividing Wardrobe, Literally appeared first on domino.

Keren Richter, cofounder of design firm White Arrow, jokes that when Jill Singer told her she wanted to build a bathroom around a funky toilet paper holder, it felt like an art-school entrance exam. Nevertheless, when Singer, cofounder and editor in chief of Sight Unseen, showed Keren the colorful piece by British artist James Shaw that she had in mind, the designer was up for the test: “Her points of reference really helped us get inspired.” Singer had waited patiently for the recycled plastic TP holder—Shaw’s drops are sporadic and online only. 

“A friend told me recently, ‘You’re either the dream client or the absolute most nightmare client, because you know so specifically what you want,’” says Singer with a laugh. And it’s true, she had a particular vision in mind when she set out to update the kids’ and guest bathrooms in her East Hampton, New York, home: She wanted them to be reminiscent of the tile-covered bathrooms in the Gerald Luss House in Ossining, New York, where Object & Thing hosted a show in 2021. But when it came to actually fine-tuning the details, Singer depended on Keren and her husband, Thomas, for guidance.  

A Moment for the TP

Once it was established that they would mount Shaw’s toilet paper holder in the kids’ space, the Richters looked to its powdery blue and pink components for direction. The former color became the standout choice: They swathed the room in two different tones of blue grid tile. The dusty blush tones made their way onto the vanity, which the designers concocted essentially from scratch. While the base itself is an ordinary stock cabinet, they upgraded it with an onyx counter (sourced from Keren’s favorite website, stonetrash.com), Shaker-style doors, round knobs, and a vintage Italian faucet. “I ended up hacking it so hard that it doesn’t look anything like what it started out as,” says Keren. 

Bathroom Blues

While Singer practiced patience with her special TP holder, she regrets not having more when it came to picking out a tub. Initially, she fell in love with a freestanding one with giant ball feet (if you’ve seen her kitchen, you know she has a thing for items with spherical details), but its lead time was way too long.

In the end, they went with a fully tiled tub that exudes cool mid-century vibes, but she still can’t help but wonder if should she have waited. “Maybe the openness wouldn’t have been the best option for two kids showering in it…but it would have looked really cool!” shares Singer. 

Hit the Showers

Keren admits butter yellow isn’t a color that typically makes its way into White Arrow’s projects, but given it’s one of Singer’s all-time favorites, the designers took a leap. “It’s like a refreshing glass of lemonade,” she says. After looking at 30 different tile samples, they ended up with two harmonious shades (a mid-tone and a highlight) and wrapped the saturated hue around the base of the room, stopping at the knee wall. “It’s a nice way of dividing a small space and keeping it feeling bright and light,” says the designer.

There might not be a funky toilet paper holder in the guest space, but the Richters played with pink once more, this time in the form of a custom medicine cabinet and wall-hung concrete sink. A friend recently told Singer that the compact yet colorful setup gave off “a really fun locker room vibe,” and she took it as a great compliment. 

The post What Does a Bathroom Inspired by a Toilet Paper Holder Look Like? A Pastel Dream appeared first on domino.

Designer and architect Susan Nwankpa Gillespie’s latest clients, a young family who recently moved to Glendale, California, from New York City’s Lower East Side, were used to tiny bathrooms. So when they gave Gillespie a tour of their new house, they were adamant that they didn’t need much more space. “I was like, come on, guys, this is terrible,” says Gillespie with a laugh. Having been friends with the couple for nearly 20 years, the founder of Nwankpa Design was comfortable being frank. She guessed the home’s two bathrooms probably hadn’t been renovated since the 1990s, and with two fast-growing boys to consider, she knew the kids’ area wouldn’t be functional in the long run. 

Luckily for the designer, the homeowners were as open as anyone could be: They like minimalism and maximalism. Gillespie put both to the test. She turned their primary bathroom into a zen retreat with plaster-coated walls, and brought an explosion of color and tile to the boys’ shower. The former turned into a personal endeavor for Gillespie: She drew on her Nigerian American upbringing and the West African concept of wearing clashing patterns. “The woman wears the outfit rather than the outfit wearing the woman—that was the goal with this bathroom,” she explains. Ahead, Gillespie takes us behind the scenes of the two transformations and reminds us why a little extra room is never a bad thing. 

The Closet Combo

By removing a wall in the 40-square-foot primary bathroom that hid a nonfunctional alcove, the designer more than doubled the space to 90 square feet. This move also allowed her to integrate a built-in oak-wood closet, complete with two cupboards for the couple’s long hanging items and plenty of drawers.

The Ultra-Reflective Mirror

Adding a frosted window to the shower brought more natural light into the room, but the real game changer was incorporating a sliding door leading to the lush backyard. As if mimicking the plant life outside, the designer created a custom mirror with a zellige tile border that amplifies the golden California light with its glistening surface. “You’ll be washing your hands or face, looking into this mirror where the greenery is reflected behind you, and you just feel transported,” she shares. 

The Sealed Deal

Gillespie’s contractor flew in a seasoned plaster worker to coat the entire space. After waterproofing the room using a method called hot mopping, which involves heating asphalt in a kettle and applying it between layers of felt using a large mop, he began work on the textured treatment. While you can’t tell at first glance, the space actually features two finishes: a robust version on the floor and a softer veneer on the walls.  

The Fashion-Forward Shower

Like layering a colorful outfit, Gillespie knew that not every detail in the boys’ bathroom could be the star. “There is a graphic element in pretty much every surface, but it’s about finding that mixture where you’re still able to see certain focal points,” she says. Gillespie honed in on the shower. The interior walls are covered in a triangular pattern (a combination of two Zia Tile hues: Rouge and Casablanca), while solid amber zellige tiles encompass the facade. “You have to figure out which materials are going to help it shine but also have their own points of interest,” she adds. 

The Happy Accident 

Setting the stage underfoot is a custom pattern of dusty pink concrete tile that runs from the floor to the wall behind the sink. The designer opted for a mix of sizes, but it was really a delivery mistake that determined how it was laid out. The company didn’t send them all the sizes she originally ordered, so Gillespie redesigned the pattern with what they were given, resulting in a cadence of one, two, and three 2-by-8 tiles separated by 8-by-8 squares. 

The Stone-Cold Winner

The floating vanity cabinets are crafted out of white oak, just like Mom and Dad’s, and finished in a semitransparent gray stain to accentuate the grain of the wood and the oversize terrazzo knobs. The initial plan for the sink was to go with a quiet limestone, but when Gillespie spotted this red and green marble slab peeking out behind another at the stone yard, she turned to her clients and asked: Is this too much? “They were like, not at all!” says the designer. It was just enough.

The post In This Home’s Main Bathroom, the Vanity Mirror Gets to Be the Star appeared first on domino.

British designer Hannah Drakeford’s South London one-bedroom apartment is full of crafty home projects, from upcycled IKEA storage to a geometric hallway mural, but that wasn’t always the case. When she moved into the new-build Deptford flat in 2017 “it had zero character and everything was beige,” she recalls. While the bathroom was decent, it resembled something you’d find at a Holiday Inn, with a lackluster palette, wood laminate countertops, and no natural light. “It wasn’t me at all,” she adds. 

In an effort to pack the same colorful punch showcased in the rest of her space, she looked to a trip to Marrakech for inspiration. “I went a few years ago with a friend, and we stayed in this amazing riad with Moroccan tile everywhere. The bathroom was actually black and white, but the tile had circular motifs,” she says. With many photo references in hand, she set out to uplift the basic and boring bathroom for $400 with essentially just paint.

Start With a Blank Canvas

Before any primer was poured, she carefully laid out a 3D model of the room in SketchUp. “I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t overbuy paint but still had enough to cover all the surfaces, as I was on a tight budget for this project,” she says. Drakeford also did plenty of research and read reviews to find paint that would adhere to a range of surfaces, finally landing on two coats of V33 Renovation Floor and Stair Paint, a durable formula for high-traffic areas, for the floor tile, laminate countertops, shower screen metalwork, and radiator. She then made it waterproof by adding one coat of Zinsser Bullseye 123, a primer she regularly uses for her furniture DIYs, on top. “The room needed lightening up, as it’s in the middle of the apartment and there are no windows,” she says. “The white paint helps light reflect off the walls and makes it feel bigger.”

Get Creative With Paint

There are plenty of circles, triangles, and squares painted elsewhere in Drakeford’s apartment, so it’s only fitting that ovals drawn in Lick’s Pink 03, a matte bubblegum hue, come to play in the bathroom, stretching from the shower wall to the floor. “The pink paint was a regular wall paint, but I sealed it with this clear varnish so that it’s waterproof and doesn’t discolor,” she says.

Try Out Faux Terrazzo

Terrazzo is Drakeford’s dream countertop material, but in order to keep things on budget, she decided to upgrade the wood laminate with hand-painted pebbles. “I primed it first, then went in with black wall paint and two coats of watered-down white paint with a little brush to create the stone effect,” she says. While it was free-handed, she used an image saved on Pinterest as a reference. She then sealed it with silicone around the sink. While Drakeford loves how it turned out, it was a project she’d never do again, as it took two full days of detailing. “I’m still a little traumatized from it,” she says. 

Add Character With Paneling

Another cost-saving hack: purchasing preprimed wood paneling for the vanity wall from B&Q, the U.K. equivalent to Home Depot. After measuring the height between the counter and ceiling and cutting the boards to size, she first applied them using a removable puttylike material called Blue-Tack so she could get a rough idea of her desired spacing. Then she put them down for real with Diall Grab Adhesive. As with the shapes, she went for the same muted blush tone and covered it in varnish to make it waterproof. 

Keep on DIYing

The bathroom was the last room in the home the designer put her mark on. “I was intimidated by the scale of the project, and it was the first full bathroom renovation I’ve done,” she says. It all came down to precise planning and ultimately took four months to complete. With so much paint on an array of surfaces, she’s also impressed with how everything has held up. “I did have an accident where I spilled some acetone and had to repaint a patch, but that’s all,” she says. 

Since completing the bathroom, she continues to share design tutorials online. “My aim is to make design accessible,” she says. “I want to empower people to try out things for themselves, because it’s brought so much joy to my life.”

The post The Terrazzo Vanity in This $400 Bathroom Makeover Is Shockingly Just Paint appeared first on domino.

In this Long Beach, California, home, mother doesn’t just know best—she gets the best. After a young couple purchased their longtime rental home, they embarked on a renovation with interior designer Natalie Myers that included upgrading a space primarily used by the husband’s live-in mom (and now grandmother to the pair’s baby): the guest bathroom. Myers, founder of Veneer Designs, didn’t hold back when it came to remodeling the spot. “I think it’s okay to get exactly what you want when it’s a tiny bathroom,” she says. “Just go for that nice, expensive tile.”  

Go for it she did: The floors and shower walls are now swathed in Fireclay tile. But before she got down to the details, the designer focused on expanding the space slightly by getting rid of a small closet with a water heater (the new tankless water heater moved to the garage). “There’s just more breathing space for the vanity now,” says Myers. Ahead, she gives us the rundown on the refresh. 

The Timeless Tile

Knowing that this space would eventually become the homeowners’ daughter’s bathroom, Myers felt like a playful checkerboard moment was the perfect fit. But to keep the pattern from feeling overwhelming, she opted for a subdued grayish green and off-white color scheme—anything more high contrast would have been too busy. “It’s clearly having a moment, but I don’t think it’s going to go out of style. People have been doing checkerboard for centuries,” says the designer of the look. Stopping the motif around the 4-foot mark and switching to a stacked vertical field tile also helped dial down the volume. 

The Much-Needed Divider

While the family had no need to keep the ADA-compliant walk-in tub that was in the space previously, Myers maintained a similar partition wall in the new setup, mostly because it offers a little privacy. “You just feel a bit more enclosed,” she says. Plus it was an excuse to further show off all that new tile. Additionally, inside the shower, the half-wall serves as an anchor for a floating stone bench. The element is handy for anyone sudsing up, but in particular someone aging in place.

The Right Kind of Storage

In the spirit of staying consistent with the millwork in the kitchen and primary bathroom, Myers custom-designed a floating ash-wood vanity with an undermount sink surrounded by a Caesarstone countertop (the durable surface was her biggest money saver in the room). While the handmade ceramic knobs bring an artful touch to the piece, it was the pop of matte black in the form of the faucet that the wife, an artistic director, pushed for. “It adds a graphic contrast,” notes Myers. 

Above, the designer kept things simple with a frameless rectangular mirror. See you never, medicine cabinet. “I don’t know how many people actually use them these days if there’s enough storage in the vanity,” Myers explains. The bulky feature’s other sticking point: Builders frequently get the installation wrong. “They have a hard time framing it, and it’s often too low or too high. Then you have to move it and repair the drywall,” she says. Not to mention, with it gone, the room automatically looks bigger—and that’s worth skipping the additional shelving.

Get the Look

Rectangular Undermount Bathroom Sink, Kohler ($184)

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Frameless Rectangular Mirror, Rejuvenation (from $299)

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Cylinder Double Sconce, Schoolhouse ($199)

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Dolomite 4×4, Fireclay Tile ($47 per square foot)

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The post Nixing the Medicine Cabinet Streamlined This Tiny Bathroom—During the Remodel and Beyond appeared first on domino.