I am back with the kid’s bathroom and,man, I really struggled with this one. Of course, the problems were my own doing as you’ll see below. As a reminder, this is a fictional room that I’m designing using only materials that can be purchased from Amazon. The features of the room (size, window/door placement, etc.) are based on an existing house. This house has two bathrooms and this is the main one for guests and kids. It is located on the second floor, has no windows and is relatively small (7.3 ft x 6.3 ft).
The jumping off point for the bathroom design was a dark, modern, nature-inspired wall paper (see mood board). I next found a navy vanity with brass accessories. The vanity and wallpaper seemed to go well together, so I just completed the look by finding modern brass/gold towel bars, toilet paper holder, mirror and accessories. While I love the look of art above a toilet, the reality (at least for me!) is a room like this needs to function really well and needs storage for the kids’ stuff. For that reason, I put a hanging cabinet above the toilet. To customize the cabinet, I would recommend painting it Indian Sunset (by Behr Paint- not available on Amazon). I would replace the pulls with gold T-bars. Add a woven trash can and seagrass box to create warmth and texture to the room. I tend to hide extra toilet paper in a box set on the toilet (it’s hidden but easily accessible).
Since there were already so many colorful moments and patterns in the bathroom, I chose a simple white penny tile for the bathroom floor and a classic white subway tile with light gray grout for the bathtub/shower surround. At this point, I felt really great about the design. It felt cohesive and the elements seemed to work together well.
When I actually modeled it though, I immediately knew there was a problem. The floor-to-ceiling wallpaper was too much. Instead of the other elements complimenting the wallpaper, the room felt drowned out by it. I started trying out new things — a white vanity and a white cabinet. It felt better but it didn’t have the look I was going for. I decided to add wainscoting to the walls. It felt a little better but I still stared at the screen thinking I needed to scrap the whole mood board and start over. Then I just walked away from the computer and didn’t look at the design for a couple of weeks.
After some time, I knew I had to go back and finish it. I dreaded it and spent a lot of time procrastinating by fiddling around with other things. Surprisingly, when I came back, with time and space between me and the design, I had a much better idea on how to resolve the issues. The wainscoting worked in the room but needed a thick molding on top. I returned to the navy vanity and pink-ish wall cabinet. I slowly added in the accessories and actually started to like how the room was coming together. Below is the finished product.
Since the room is so small, I’m only sharing the view from one wall (although you basically can see all of wall 2 and 3 too). All the action is really happening on this wall anyway. The door is on wall 4 (which is removed from the design, so you can see into the room). On Wall 1, you have the 30-inch vanity with the toilet next to it. The toilet paper holder would be mounted on the side of the vanity. I couldn’t easily model it, so you’ll just have to imagine it. The seagrass basket sits on the toilet to hold toilet paper and will correspond well to the trashcan next to the toilet. Above the toilet, is the pink bathroom cabinet. There’s a towel bar built into the bottom of the cabinet, so a hand towel can be added her for function. The mirror is square with rounded corners and the three-light vanity lighting corresponds well to the brass throughout the room. On wall 3, I have two modern hooks to hold towels. On wall 4 (not shown), there will be a towel bar.
I did a quick calculation of the budget for the room and it came in around $2800.00. Not bad but it also doesn’t include some necessary supplies to put in the tile (grout, mortar, spacers, time, etc). I could imagine that another $500 could easily be spent on other needed materials (including shower/tub hardware).
| Item | Cost | Notes |
| Wallpaper | 194.75 | Estimated 5 Rolls |
| Gold Mirror | 199.99 | |
| Vanity & Top | 586.18 | |
| Vanity Light | 109.01 | |
| Towel Hooks | $15.00 | |
| Toilet Paper Holder | 12.99 | |
| Towel Bar | 17.95 | |
| Soap Dispenser | 17.99 | |
| Penny Tile | 649 | Estimated 10 boxes |
| Subway Tile | 390 | Estimated 13 boxes |
| Faucet | 49 | |
| T-Bars | 43.97 | 25 Pack (ouch!) |
| Cabinet | 72.99 | |
| Trash Can | 34.5 | |
| Shower Curtain | 22.99 | |
| Seagrass Box | 18.95 | |
| Toilet | 334.33 | |
| Total | 2769.59 |
The Amazon laundry room is next.
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