Finishing our Eclectic Bathroom with a Standalone Tub

When we built our home, we didn’t get a chance to finish the primary bathroom the way we intended.

Here is the before:

Yes. Yes, that’s right. We were using Ikea craft paper as curtains. Secured with blue painters tape. For over a year. Don’t judge.

Fine. Judge. But go easy on me. (OK but this paper has the perfect amount of light filtering — Even still, I tried! I actually bought like three sets of curtains, but each was either too sheer or too opaque.)

When we did our house plans, we created this bump-out nook space for our standalone tub. With beautiful windows and visions of a beautiful chandelier hanging above the bath.

Well, we finally brought our dream to fruition. Here is how:

We bought a bunch of stuff — for cheap. Perhaps the trickiest part was finding all the stuff we wanted for the space, within a reasonable budget.

I feel like Amazon has come a long way. I didn’t think there was any way I’d find an affordable light we’d be happy with — but I did.

So I finally found these curtains, which IMHO are the perfect light filtering curtains, by far, for a bathroom. And then for the second layer, these velvet curtains ended up being so beautiful, too!

Next, I found a light. A very pretty and beautiful light. It was $3,000.

Next, I found a light that was $300 on Amazon. Was it perfect like the $3k light? No. Was is still stunning after the 4.5 hour assembly and install process. Yeah, it’s stunning. We love it.

A rug, and the coolest little table ever. Some towels (from Ross, Dress for Less), a huge plant we hadn’t decided what to do with, and some fake plants…

Then I had a sweet idea to build these really cool towel shelves. I had some leftover white oak, and I went to get some aluminum tube from THD. Cut ’em up, put ’em together and bam:

Altogether I feel like everything turned out great.

Here are some pictures of the final project:

Oh I forgot I made this “tub topper” from white oak — it’s perfect for a standalone tub. I had these (and the shelves) for sale in the store for a bit but I don’t anymore – LMK if you want me to restore that listing.

our bathroom makeover

If I could choose one thing to different, it would be to add color and/or texture to the walls. Like, picture zellige covering that entire white surface! Would that not be stunning?1?! What color, though?? I don’t know.

What would you do differently???