I thought it would take two days.
Five days later, paint in my hair and a deeply personal relationship with the word "touch-up," I finished my son's bathroom. Every single day. Many hours. If you've ever painted a bathroom with a clawfoot tub, detailed trim, a door, a ceiling full of things to cut around, and a light fixture situation that required the patience of an actual saint — you understand. If you haven't, I'm happy for you.
Here's what I need you to know before we get into it: I was not painting a bathroom I was mildly tired of. I was painting a bathroom that gave me hives. Literal, metaphorical, spiritual hives. The blue was that specific shade of "nobody has questioned this since 2004." The lighting in there is actually great, which meant I got to see every inch of it clearly every single morning while getting ready. Every. Morning.
It had to go.
The Process (Unfiltered)
Prime everything. Two coats on the ceiling. Two coats on the walls. Two coats on all the trim. That's before you account for the cutting — all the corners, all the edges, all the places where ceiling meets wall meets trim meets some fixture that has no business being where it is. Cutting is not my strong suit. It is not my favorite. I did a lot of it anyway.
Day four, I peeled the tape off the wall and watched a section of ceiling come with it.
I may have cried. I definitely said some words. Then I touched it up. Three times. To get it to my standards, because my standards don't negotiate just because I've been on my feet for four days and the metric shelf instructions made the math stop mathing.
The shelves — my husband and I hung those together, and between the instructions being in metric and the toilet being off-center, we spent a genuinely unreasonable amount of time debating whether to center on the toilet or center on the wall. We went with the wall. Completely right call. We just didn't know that until after.
Was it worth it? I could not be happier with this bathroom. Total transformation. No caveats.
What I Changed
Paint: Walls are Sherwin-Williams Sand Dune — warm, grounded, the color of a room that finally knows what it wants to be. Ceiling and all trim are Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace, my forever ceiling white. Not too warm, not too cool. Just an honest, clean white that makes trim look intentional and ceilings feel higher. I use it constantly and I will go to my grave recommending it.
The clawfoot tub: The feet are painted gold. I did this the day we moved in — first order of business, before boxes were unpacked. Some things are priorities.
Vanity hardware: Swapped for brass pulls with little peacocks on them, found on Etsy. Yes. Peacock hardware. In the same bathroom as a snake shower curtain. I am a vegetarian who has been an unapologetic animal print devotee for over two decades — long before it was a trend, long before it was a moment, long before snake print showed up everywhere and suddenly everyone discovered what I've known since the early 2000s. This is just who I am. This bathroom is proof.
Outlet and switch plate covers: Swapped these out when we first moved in. I get compliments on them. It sounds like a small thing. It is not a small thing. These are exactly the details that separate a room that's been painted from a room that's been designed.
The shower curtain: Snake and magnolia print. Two decades of devotion and counting. No further questions.
Drapes: Tried approximately ten colors. Wanted oxblood. Nothing off the rack was right. Landed on dark green washable velvet and have zero regrets.
The rug: A vintage Turkish rug found on Etsy and snapped up immediately. The kind of find you don't hesitate on.
The shelves: Styled entirely with things I already owned — objects collected over the years, art pulled from the stash in our basement that I rotate through when I can't help myself, which is often. One piece on the shelves is a ceramic my nine-year-old made and painted. It's my favorite thing up there.
Everything else: New towels, new baskets, new TP holder, new fan cover. A new door stop in dark stained oak to match the existing ones throughout the house. Cohesion lives in exactly these moments.
The Before
The Honest Part
Cutting in corners is hard. Cutting around fixtures is harder. Doing it to a standard you can actually live with — that's the part nobody warns you about when they say "just paint it, it'll be easy."
It's not always easy. Sometimes it's five days and three touch-ups and a moment on day four where you genuinely wonder why you started.
But I got ready in that bathroom this morning and I didn't get hives. That's how I know it was worth it.
