Elsie’s Guest Bathroom Tour (Before + After)

Today I am here to share a before/after tour of our guest bathroom. This room has evolved quite a bit over the past year. It was one of those rooms that slowly decorated itself—or at least it felt that way. I tried lots of things that just did not feel right in this space to get to the point where it is today.

This is our guest bathroom. It is a jack and jill bathroom, shared by our two guest bedrooms. I have shared some peeks of our guest bedroom here and the kiddos guest bedroom tour is here.

When we found this house, it happened to have one more room than what we were looking for, so we decided to put it to good use as a double guest room.

We have guests very often (usually more than once a month), and it’s been really useful with our growing family and friends with growing families.

Anyway! This bathroom is also the one that is closest to our living areas, so it gets used the most often and is the most “seen” by all of our visitors.

Before I share the tour, let’s get refreshed on how it looked before. This room was a bit depressing in the beginning because it had a rotten subfloor that showed up in our home inspection, but then cost far more than was projected. Fun times!

Here’s a before/after photo.

You can see a close up of the counter top material here. It was kind of cool and vintage, but sadly it was damaged beyond repair. To keep costs down a bit, we decided to reuse the existing vanity and just update it with paint, new hardware and a new counter.

Originally we painted the white vanity black, and it looked nice, but it just did not fit with the rest of our home and it always bugged me. I have loved using black and high contrast in a lot of my previous homes, but in this home we have stayed very low contrast and I love the feel of it! It just really fits.

I felt that painting it back to white would be a little too safe, and since the room didn’t really have a statement piece yet, we decided to go pink. I fully realize that pink in home decor isn’t for everyone, but gosh—I really love it! And I also like that it’s an easy weekend project to re-paint if (when) I eventually get tired of it.

We used Quartz Blush by Sherwin Williams. The hardware is a combination of Schoolhouse Electric Hex Knobs and my typical go-to Lewis Dolin round bar pulls that are mostly used throughout our home.

The mirror was tricky. It had to be a certain shape and I wanted something unique. This one from West Elm was sold out for a long time, so as soon as it came back, I ordered it right away.

Our sconces are from Lucent Lightshop. They are my favorite thing in the room. I think they were the first thing I chose for the space, and I basically decorated around them as my muses!

Our faucets are from here. I used them in a couple bathrooms and on Jeremy’s coffee bar in his studio (but in black).

I tried so hard to find really inexpensive brass hardware at first and later had to replace a couple things with these because they leaked from day one… ugh! I highly recommend these. We have the kitchen version in our kitchen as well.

I have shared that I do have some regrets choosing real marble for the bathrooms. That said, I am really glad we chose a more contrasty pattern because the small stains and marks that are unavoidable over time aren’t really noticeable.

We chose a super simple stack bond subway tile backsplash to the ceiling. The art print was a gift from Kelly and Jeff. I love it!

Here’s another view. I added the little brass horseshoe (just a vintage find from eBay) to the door as a towel hook. I used the same one in Kacey’s living room.

I’m glad we chose this really simple hex tile. It’s really light and pretty and easy to clean.

We save sample size toiletries from cool hotels for our guests. I think it’s nice to try to think of all the little things that make traveling really annoying (or embarrassing). In the drawers there are extra toothbrushes, razors, face wipes and all the other things I’ve ever forgotten when traveling.

We are still enjoying our DIY boho shower curtain.

You know how certain views make you happy every time you see them? This is one for me! I finally added a plant to this space and it’s thriving. I just have to remember to open the roll up shades behind the macrame.

This planter from Modernica is my favorite. I waited for a while to find a rubber fig plant with this coloring. It’s one of my favorite plants!

This poster from Fine Life Co. was one of the first things I purchased for our new home when we still lived in Missouri. I love it and it fits the space perfectly.

The brass towel bar is from Rejuvenation.

Here’s the opposite view. It’s pretty simple. We continued the stack bond tile from the shower around the toilet area. We kept the existing storage shelves that came with the house and we added a little Ikea shelf above the toilet for a few extra toiletries. I sometimes put a few flowers there when we have guests.

Finding the right curtains for this space was challenging. We tried our go-to curtains from the rest of the house, but they seemed too bulky for this tight little nook. We ended up using this hanging macrame (similar here) as a curtain. I like the seventies feel it adds to the room.

Let’s talk about lighting for a sec. I totally believe lighting is a worthy splurge for most spaces, but I also like to incorporate budget-friendly solutions so it’s not all splurges!

You can see the before/after here in the photo below. The before light fixture was just a simple box light with peeling ceiling paint all around it (these were ALL throughout our home in every bedroom, bathroom and hallway).

To replace it with a cool mid-century flush mount would be at least a couple hundred dollars, plus the cost of a ceiling medallion or patching the square hole. It starts to get pricey when you do these all throughout the home, so I’ve found that mixing them with budget options helps to cut costs.

Plus, since I already had the amazing sconces as a focal point in the room, it didn’t really need another chandelier. So, we opted for this super simple solution, and it was under $50!

I found this ceiling medallion on Amazon (they have more unique options than the big box stores) and then a $7 LED light. These are awesome because you never have to replace the bulb and they are energy efficient. It originally had a white base, so we spray painted it gold. Super easy!

Thanks so much for reading! Decorating this home has been the biggest joy to me!! It has truly been one of the best years in my life (well almost two years now, can you believe it?), and instead of immediately getting the itch to move, I’ve been feeling more settled, more attached and more in love with this home every season.

Thank you for following along! xx. Elsie